What does it mean to call a piece ‘Symphony’ in 1994? Over the past 100 years the term has been commandeered and exploited in so many different ways, meanings constantly lost and found with each new transliteration, that any attempt to recover a set of authentic meanings might seem like some kind of neo-classical neurosis.

Peter Maxwell Davies originally conceived the opera Resurrection in 1963, in response to the commercialism he encountered while studying in the United States. He regarded it as a sequel to Taverner, even before the completion of his first opera. Despite the intervention of two important chamber operas (The Martyrdom of St. Magnus and The Lighthouse), his decision to settle in the Orkney Islands, and the various changes in his compositional style – encouraged by his involvement with the writings ot George Mackay Brown – Maxwell Davies has retained the main elements of his inspiration. There appear to have been several attempts to complete the opera in response to the prospect of its reaching the stage, but the final impetus came from an increasing awareness, during the 1980s, of the corrosive effects of Thatcherism on British culture and society. Consequently, Resurrection became the focus of 25 years of endeavour, all the changes contributing to its ultimate fruition. It extends the philosophical and theological ideas adumbrated in Taverner, but explores these themes in the context of contemporary society, as opposed to the earlier opera's concern with events surrounding the English Reformation.

Ever since Michael Chanan's 1969 Tempo article connected Peter Maxwell Davies with the philosophical tradition of speculative dialectics, this connexion has been virtually the mainstay of Davies's critical reception. If we accept the popular model of dialectics as the resolution (synthesis) of two opposing terms (thesis-antithesis), then we can easily identify a dialectical critique underpinning, for instance, Paul Griffiths's monograph written 13 years later. In discussing Davies's parody technique, Griffiths begins by highlighting those processes which result in the ‘distortion’ or ‘corruption’ of sources, leading to situations of ‘ambiguity’ or ‘contradiction’. Such an account is no doubt authorized by the composer's own terminology of ‘distortion’, ‘ambiguity’, ‘dissolution’ and ‘fragmentation’, which is found particularly in the sleeve-notes to Vesalii Icones (1969).

Among established American composers, Jacob Druckman's music remains unique in the breadth of its range, the mastery of its orchestration and the totality of its expressive power. There is little point in spending too much effort in drawing comparisons with some of his closest contemporaries and, in any event, such comparisons are hard to come by. He has had a remarkable career: as an academic, as composer-in-residence to the New York Philharmonic, as a conductor (he has conducted a number of his works with the BBC Philharmonic), as artistic director of many festivals, and as lecturer and administrator. He now devotes as much times as he can to composing, but whatever the future brings, there can be little doubt that he has already made a major contribution to the growth and development of 20th-century music.

• Darmstadt Impressions, 1994 Elke Hockings

• Osborne's Sarajevo Steve Sweeney-Turner

• Lucerne Festival Peter Palmer

• Tavener's Apocalypse Malcolm Miller

• New Henze Works Guy Rickards

• Ferneyhough's On Stellar Magnitudes Robin Freeman

• David Johnson's Dawn Call Steve Sweeney-Turner

• Oxford Contemporary Music Festival Roderic Dunnett

• Shostakovich, A Life Remembered Calum MacDonald

• Warlock: Pumas and Curlews Mike Smith

• Peter Sculthorpe Bio-Bibliography David Matthews

• Schoenberg's ZKIF Michael Graubart

• Maxwell Davies on Collins Classics Roderic Dunnett, Mike Seabrook

• Third Viennese School Michael Oliver

• Holloway's Concerti Ronald Weitzman

• Louis Andriessen John Pickard

• Sofia Gubaidulina Ronald Weitzman

• Irgens Jensen's Heimferd Martin Anderson

• American Mainstream Bret Johnson

• Holmboe and Danish choral music Guy Rickards

• Tan Dun Michael Oliver

• Hans Pfitzner on CD Martin Anderson