Before going to the United States, I had only the vaguest notions of American music—a state of affairs not unusual in Europe, where the names of Copland, and now, increasingly, of Sessions, are respected, but of nobody else, unless one mentions Gershwin. To the European, American music is still obsessed with an overt nationalism, as it was indeed in the twenties and thirties, when the prime concern was American folk music, and above all, jazz. At that stage the American composer needed an easily assumed and recognizable identity to distinguish himself from the European, and he self-consciously set about finding it. In Europe the only countries then cultivating a specifically nineteenth-century style of Romantic musical nationalism, with the implied tinge of self-indulgent sentimentality possible in the lack of a sterner musical tradition, were the musically under-developed ones, or rather those which, for various historical reasons, had lost their musical traditions, perhaps even hundreds of years ago: Spain and England. The musical nationalism of Hungary, with Bartók and Kodály, was quite a different matter, indebted to the unique half-oriental character of her folk music, introducing rhythmic, melodic and harmonic progressions new to the symphonic concert hall; on the other hand, contemporary Russian musical nationalism, despite a wealth of similarly interesting folk music, lost its chances of comparable spontaneity when composers were obliged to follow an official ‘party line.’ Probably the American sort of nationalism combined something of a spontaneous interest in and reaction to the new possibilities of folk music and jazz, comparable to the Hungarian situation, with the self-conscious bandwagon jumping and the substitution for real musical substance of folksily wistful meanderings current in England at that period.

The first version of the Five Motets, completed in 1959 while Maxwell Davies was still at Cirencester, was laid out for two choirs, a cappella, and four soloists. Realising the difficulty of the work as it stood however, the composer withheld it for the time being, and eventually re-wrote it in 1962 immediately after reaching Princeton, adding instrumental accompaniments to each of the three groups. These parts double the voices, but at the same time achieve a life of their own by means of the interchange of parts and other unobtrusive decorative devices. Stylistically the work moves away from the strict techniques characteristic of the composer's preceding works (isorhythm, canon, serialism, etc.) towards a greater freedom of melodic and harmonic expansion. One important factor in the articulation of this new manner is the all-pervading use of cori spezzati effects, the three groups of performers being directed to be placed as far apart as is reasonably practical to obtain true antiphony. The central group comprises SATB soloists and string quintet; the left hand group choir I (SATB), 2 trumpets, 2 trombones and chamber organ I; and the right hand group choir II (SATB), flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, double bassoon and chamber organ II.

“What is daring and bold in Martinu”, wrote Ansermet, “is the impossibility of characterising in one word, as can be done with other composers, either his melody, which is nothing exceptional, or his harmony, which is complex and daring in tonal treatment but keeps to a recognised and proven path, or his stylistic approach. But one thing forces itself on the attention and that is the expressive character of his work… achieved by means which are his alone. Few contemporary composers have embodied the modern slogan of ‘back to pure music’ in their work as happily as Martinu, in the sense that the subjects of his music are truly integrated in the musical substance.”

• Maxwell Davies's Shakespeare Music (Robert Henderson)

• Strauss's Arabella at Covent Garden (John S. Weissmann)