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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
In progressing from the Lowell-like title of Life Studies to the Pound-like title of the three piano pieces that make up Personae, Nicholas Maw reinforces the importance he has come to attach to an element of enigma. Just as we are naturally curious about whether or not such titles allude, Elgar-like, to specific individuals, so the musical fabric itself intrigues by its range of reference, its hints, suggestions, implications. But whereas we might well be none the wiser if we knew to whom, if anyone, Maw's titles referred, a study of the music itself can teach us much about the power of individual pitches to create the widest structural perspectives, as they interact in elaborate chromatic configurations.
1 The apparent ‘disappearance’ of Personae after the first performance of Nos. I and II may add to the enigma, but in fact the composer has only very recently confirmed Nos. I to III as a definitive cycle.
2 ‘The Instrumental Music of Nicholas Maw. Questions of Tonality’, TEMPO 106, 09 1973 (pp. 26–33), p. 27 Google Scholar.