Sub Navigation

Search Music:

Search for music by typing a word or phrase in the box below or by selecting one or more categories from the list on the side.

Or search for products by selecting an option below, and typing a word or phrase in the box above

  • Scores
  • CDs and DVDs
  • Downloads
  • Education Resources

Jonathan Besser  

5757 A Symphonic Tone Poem

Duration: 22' 00" Year: 1998
for orchestra

Douglas Lilburn  

A Birthday Offering

Duration: 11' 00" Year: 1956
for orchestra

Anthony Ritchie  

A Bugle will Do

Duration: 09' 00" Year: 1995
for full orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    pc2233cb; 2331; timp.; 3 perc (triangle, tomtoms, bass drum, suspended cymbal, xylophone, tam tam, log drum); strs
  • Programme Note

    In 1995 I was approached by the NZSO to write an overture to commemorate the recent death of New Zealand’s most famous war hero, Sir Charles Upham. Upham was famous for having won the Victoria Cross twice for bravery during World War II. He was, however, extremely modest when it came to discussing his achievements. Some years before his death it was suggested to Upham that he have a state funeral; he simply replied, “A bugle will do”. This comment seemed like a good starting point for my piece.

    There are no bugles in the orchestra, but the opening section depicting the horrors of battle contains plenty of brass. Sub-titled Maleme and Ruweisat Ridge, the music is fast and furious, built from several motifs, and includes the opening rhythm for the most well known Maori haka (war dance), Kamate, kamate. The music builds to a climax, and the scene changes to a bleak Colditz Castle, where Upham was imprisoned during the war. While in prison he dreams of rural NZ, and the farm near Kaikoura called ‘Landsdowne’, where he eventually settled after the war. This brief pastoral section links into a coda celebrating the outbreak of peace. Motifs from earlier in the piece return but changed into brighter modes. ’

    A Bugle Will Do was first performed by the NZSO in 1996 under Andrew Sewell, and was subsequently performed in the USA.

  • Availability

Fritha Jameson  

A Fan of Nelson Fare

Duration: 05' 00" Year: 2001
fanfare for orchestra

Gary Daverne  

A Jazz Burlesque

Duration: 03' 00" Year: 1992
for string orchestra

Lyell Cresswell  

A Modern Ecstasy

Duration: 45' 00" Year: 1986
for baritone, mezzo soloists and orchestra

Gary Daverne  

A Musical Party

Duration: 07' 00" Year: 2001
for solo accordion and orchestra

  • Programme Note

    A Musical Party was commissioned by the New Zealand Accordion Association (NZAA) to commemorate their 30th anniversary in June 2001. The weekend and Musical Party was dedicated to Silvio De Pra, honouring him for his outstanding contribution to the accordion in New Zealand. He has chaired the Accordion Examination Board of NZ Inc. since its inception in 1972 and been chief examiner since 1992.

    A Musical Party was premiered by a massed accordion orchestra and conducted by the composer, Gary Daverne. It was later revised and arranged for solo accordion and symphony orchestra, which is the version that appears here.

  • Availability

Eric Biddington  

A Piece for Maurice

Duration: 06' 06" Year: 2008
for piano and string orchestra

Lissa Meridan  

a quiet fury

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2008
for symphony orchestra and live electronics

  • Programme Note

    During 2007 I spent a lot of time making field recordings of background noise in Paris, and analysing the spectral and rhythmic content of those recordings. I found the more I listened to my recordings, the more musical material I found hidden in these background hisses and hums, chatterings and otherwise banal noises: rhythms, mysterious melodies, energies and harmonic tensions. While working on this commission for the NZSO, I decided to try to capture the intrinsic musical essences I could hear in my field recordings, and interpret those sounds in an orchestral context, with the juxtaposition of the original noise recordings finding musical relationships in the orchestral counterpart. The resulting piece is a conjuring of various energies, or furies, caught in the background noise of Paris, and finding their way into the back of my throat to be sung into a quiet fury.

    Lissa Meridan

  • Availability

Alfred Hill  

A Reverie

Duration: 03' 42"
for orchestra