Peter Maxwell Davies is a fascinating person with very wide interests and not really anything like as hermit-like as one might expect of somebody who likes to take himself off the outer corners of the world to do his composition. He does not drive, so is more or less left to his own devices when at home. He composes at what seems to me to be a rate, the only noise being the regular whirring of an electric pencil sharpener to break the blissful peace. Last year he went to the Antarctic to compose a symphony, commissioned by the British Antarctic Survey in conjunction with the Philharmonia Orchestra. This Symphony (which will be No 8) will be performed in May 2001. The idea of the visit was to absorb the atmosphere down there. The commission is to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the making of the film of Scott of the Antarctic and the music that Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote for that film. RVW then took the music for that film and worked it into a symphony (his Symphony No 7), and Peter was at the first performance of that piece in Manchester, of course as a boy.

Peter Maxwell Davies has become something of an institution in the Orkneys, with the Orkneys Festival essentially his baby. (He got a nice letter from Benjamin Britten wishing him well with the venture but essentially saying it was hard enough to make the Maltings work, so not holding out high hopes from doing something in the Orkneys). But it thrives, and children (our own daughter included) love playing his music.