SCO & Sean Shibe - Maxwell Davies: An Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise - The Observer

This disc by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra was not planned as a tribute to Peter Maxwell Davies, who died in March after it was recorded, but it makes a worthy and deeply felt portrait of Max's Orkney. The ebullient and famous Orkney Wedding provides the title track, and the real discovery is Ebb of Winter from 2013, a vivid overture conjuring the wild spaces and often bleak weather of the islands that Max loved, with a wonderful openness and transparency in the orchestration. The SCO and Ben Gernon are totally committed; guitarist Sean Shibe adds the tiny Hill Runes and the ever touching, ever so simple Farewell to Stromness.