Search Music:

fl. (3-3rd dbl picc.), ob. (3-3rd dbl CA), cl. in A (3-3rd dbl bass cl.), bsn (3-3rd dbl contra.), alto sax.; 4,3 (trumpets in C), 3,1; timp., perc. (5), hp, cel., pno; strings. Percussion includes tri., tambourine, sus. cymbal, clash cymbal, gong, xylophone, glock., bells, woodblk, claves, rattle, whip, side drum, bass drum.

• Lilburn: A Birthday Offering; computer-set  

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• Lilburn: A Birthday Offering; facsimile  Year: 1991 

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• Douglas Lilburn: A Song of Islands  Year: 1987 

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• Lilburn: Prodigal Country  Year: 1987 

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• Lilburn: Prodigal Country  Year: 1987 

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• Douglas Lilburn: Orchestral Music  Year: 1995 

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• Douglas Lilburn: Orchestral Works   Year: 2004 

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• Rimmer: A Song of Humility; facsimile 

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• Cecilian Singers: Alleluia  Year: 2003 

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10 singers, childrens' chorus, orchestra: 2121; 2200; perc., pno; strings

A Christmas opera in 3 acts, based on a Ngaio Marsh play, and including audience participation in a number of carols.

• Farquhar: A Unicorn for Christmas; facsimile 

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• Farquhar: A Unicorn for Christmas; facsimile 

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• Farquhar: A Unicorn for Christmas 

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string quartet and piano

And every sparkle shivering to new blaze,
In number did outmillion the account
Reduplicate upon a chequered board

Dante, The Divine Comedy – Paradise XXVIII
Translation by Rev. H.F.Cary (1814)

Observe the circle nearest, and know
the reason for its spinning at such speed
is that Love’s fire burns it into motion.

Dante, The Divine Comedy – Paradise XXVII
Translated by Mark Musa (1995)

In Canto 28 of Paradise, Dante, the pilgrim, is faced with an unbearably piercing light reflected in the eyes of his beloved guide, Beatrice. He turns and sees nine ever decreasing circles burning and whirling at different speeds. These circles give off sparks that sing hosannas. Dante has seen a spherical universe with God at the centre. He asks why the universe is not really like this, Beatrice tells him that he is now seeing it from a spiritual rather than a physical point of view, and that the reason for the great speed of the inner circle “is that Love’s fire burns it into motion”.

This imagery of circles within circles whirling, burning and giving off sparks seems to demand some musical treatment. It suggests a number of musical ideas revolving around each other and establishing a smooth relationship, and the warmer notion of love setting these ideas in motion.

The quintet, which is in one continuous movement, revolves around five central ideas. These ideas are moved around like pieces on a chessboard, each trying to gain some strategic advantage in pursuit of a single objective. Two of these ideas provide the rhythmic drive of the piece. The first, hesitant, but gathering speed and rising in pitch, is introduced by the viola at the beginning. The second, direct and syncopated, is announced by all four strings when they play together for the first time, before it is taken up by the piano. The main source of melodic material is a quiet tune, a love song, that threads its way through the piece, played first by the two violins and viola. The full version is heard in a piano solo played simply in octaves. In another guise this tune becomes the fourth idea, a fast dance that gathers momentum as the quintet reaches its climax. The fifth idea, fast accumulating scales, links the melodic and rhythmic elements and helps provide energy. The piece begins with a piano chord, which becomes a pivot for all these ideas and crops up in a variety of ways at crucial points.

And Every Sparkle Shivering is something like a mosaic composed by inlaying small tesserae of coloured stone or glass to create a sparkling over-all design. There is conflict between the warmth and vigour of sparking fire and spinning circles, and the coolness of glinting stone and flickering glass.

• Cresswell: and every sparkle shivering; computer-set 

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• Cresswell: and every sparkle shivering; computer-set 

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• Waiteata Collection of New Zealand Music Vol. 11 - Chamber Music III  Year: 2010 

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• Perkins: Ave Maris Stella; computer-set 

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• Two works by Andrew Perkins 

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Much of my work is a marriage (or balancing act) between the Western art music tradition and my own position in time and place. Along with many forms, I have had a love for sacred choral music from Mediaeval times through to the present, but in not being a Christian, I have felt a reluctance to set text in which I don’t fully believe.

In reading the work of spiritual author, Eckhart Tolle, I have discovered a new connection with biblical texts. Tolle quotes the line “Be still, and know that I am God” in his book A New Earth, as an example of a universal truth that is at the heart of all religions and belief systems. In this text “God” may be seen as the Christian God, an omnipresent spiritual dimension or the universe personified. This line, and the rest of the text, is from Psalm 46. In setting this text I have found an opening into the world of sacred choral music that aligns with my own beliefs.

Anthony Young

• Young, A.: Be Still; computer-set 

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• Young, A.: Be Still; computer-set 

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• Anthony Young: Be Still; audio 

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• Works by Anthony Young 

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This wonderful recital piece for 12 part (SSSAAATTTBBB) choir has been performed all over the world and is one of the composer’s best-known works.

It was written in 1974 as part of a set entitled O Magnum Mysterium and first perfromed by the Dorian Choir under Peter Godfrey at the 1975 Three Choirs Festival in England. Since then it has been recorded by choirs in New Zealand and the United States.

The piece is essentially simple in its form using delayed overlaying if the voice parts to startling effect. The overshadowing of Mary by the Holy Spirit, the gestation in the womb and the birth of Jesus can be clearly heard in the parameters of the work.

• Griffiths, D.: Beata Virgo; computer-set 

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• Griffiths, D.: Beata Virgo; facsimile 

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• NZ Flora Series Vol 2  Year: 1972 

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• New Zealand National Youth Choir: Te Roopu Rangatahi Waiata o Aotea Roa  Year: 1992 

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• The Moon is Silently Singing  Year: 1994 

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In 1990 I attended the launch of Cilla McQueen’s new book Berlin Diary. This diary made a big impression on me, initially because it brought back memories of my own trip to Europe. I also liked the brilliant mixing of poetic and prosaic styles, and the vivid descriptions of people and places. Something else that impressed me was the strong contrast between the inhuman political situation in Berlin (the wall was still up) and the natural, peaceful beauty of Dunedin, New Zealand (Cilla’s and my own home town). A few months later the Aramoana tragedy (where a deranged gunman killed 13 people – Aramoana is a remote seaside township at the end of the Otago peninsula) changed that around. Cilla’s beautiful, almost ecstatic centrepiece in the dairy “O Aramoana” now took on a terrible subtext, and it seemed as if the inhumanity of Berlin had come to the remote beach community. A year later, the Berlin wall finally came down, and the unification of East and West Germany became a reality.

When Judy Bellingham approached me in 1991 to write a song cycle for her, I immediately wanted to set extracts from the Berlin Diary, to capture these layers of dramatic historical irony along with the essence of a marvellous text. In reality I was able to only set a fraction of the diary to music, and hence the title of my work – Berlin Fragments (which I would also like to think suggests the breaking of the Berlin wall into bits). After talking to Cilla about the work, I decided to make “O Aramoana” the heart of the work, around which somewhat shorter texts are clustered. Sections are often linked by a recurrent chord in the bottom of the piano (the dyad E-F), which I have imagined as a tombstone in musical terms. Framing the work are brief sections which convey the flight to and from Berlin (the “green below” being an unmistakable reference to a return to New Zealand).

The 23 minutes of this song cycle run continuously.

• Ritchie A.: Berlin Fragments; facsimile 

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• Bellingham, Dennis, Rawson: NZ vocal music  Year: 2006 

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3000;0330; perc, hp, pf; strings

Commissioned by the Schola Cantorum of Dunedin to celebrate its 125th Jubilee in 1988, this work for for soprano soloist, mixed choir and orchestra sets the first part of S. Francesco d’Assisi’s Canticle of Brother Sun.

The Canticle is an expression of the medieval belief in the beauty, goodness and intelligibility of the created world. It is also an expression of Francis’s own idea of all creation living in a spirit of fraternity and community. This vision of the total reconciliation of humanity with the universe is symbolized in a number of ways. One such is the ordering of the elements in pairs, which combine the masculine and feminine: sun-moon, wind-water, fire-earth.

In this setting, the soprano soloist represents the feminine principle, and the choir the masculine. A version of the work has been arranged for a smaller orchestra, with organ replacing the strings. The work has been described by one critic as “one of the most exciting and satisfying works for choir and orchestra by a New Zealander”, and by another as a work which “will undoubtedly continue to be performed regularly on account of its accessibility and performability”.

• Speirs: Cantico del Sole; facsimile 

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• Speirs: Cantico del sole; facsimile 

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• Speirs: Cantico del Sole; facsimile 

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• Cantico del Sole 

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• Hamilton: Carol of the Mother and Child; computer-set 

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• Noises, Sounds and Sweet Airs  Year: 1990 

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