This is a slow, sonorous, resonant work with a meditative quality: a sense of mystic vistas opening. It is composed for metal percussion instruments alone.

Peter Maxwell Davies (born in Manchester in 1934) was part of a generation of young British composers, many associated with the Royal Manchester Conservatory of Music and the University of Manchester.

Turris Campanarum Sonantium came during one of the most important periods of stylistic shift and change in Davies' personal life style. For nearly all the period of his creative life to this point he worked on an opera called Taverner, based on an apocryphal story about the Renaissance English composer John Taverner. He wrote numerous other works at during the same time span, many of which are offspring of it or at least use techniques Davies was developing for the larger work. Toward the end of the 1960s he frequently invoked the qualities of madness and hysteria in his music.

After Taverner came a fallow period in his output, during which Davies discovered the Orkney Islands off the Scottish coast and their great literary figure, George Mackay Brown. Religious symbolism is strong in Brown's writing, and Davies soon shifted his attitude towards religion in his music. From the cruelty of Renaissance Christianity as depicted in Taverner he began to add more positive spiritual dimensions.

Turris Campanarum Sonantium means "Bell-Tower." It is composed using metal percussion instruments and other metal objects, and timpani. However, the timpani are never struck; only metal, chiming sounds occur in this work.

There is an element of drama in its staging, as the percussion soloist enters the stage moving very slowly and playing on either small Indian bells or a set of jingles, a sound that emerges from inaudibility as the player approaches the stage. He then traverses different playing areas to engage the instruments in the four sections of this 18-minute composition.

Section I of the work (after the percussionist has entered the stage) begins when he encounters eight large hand bells that are in his path. He starts to play them, very slowly moving down the line and exchanging each one of them for the next.

The two middle sections are the most important. They both use traditional English "change-ringing" principles and patterns.

Section II (Incipit Stedman Doubles) employs a five-bell permutation, using six cup-shaped Japanese temple gongs. The deepest pitch of these gets stroked continually by a leather mallet to make a constant drone, while the others are struck. All of them sit on the skins of pedal timpani, making them resonate. Operating the timpani pedal bends the pitch of the gongs.

Section III (Incipit Double Bob) is for eight suspended hand bells. The player builds them to a high dynamic level and creates a drone effect through his choice of pre-recorded tape to play back.

Section IV uses the compositional technique of Section II, but with Trinidadian steel drums. At the end, the percussionist exits the playing area slowly, playing the same small instrument he initially had.

© Joseph Stevenson, Rovi