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Lyell Cresswell  

A Modern Ecstasy

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

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David Hamilton  

An Offering for Parihaka

Duration: 14' 00" Year: 1988
for traditional Maori instruments (taonga puoru) and string orchestra

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John Ritchie  

Aquarius: Suite No. 2 for String Orchestra

Duration: 13' 00" Year: 1982

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Anthony Ritchie  

Beginnings

Duration: 09' 00" Year: 1987
for orchestra

Audio Sample
  • Instrumentation
    2(1pc)222; 2200; timp (4),2perc(bs-dr,s-dr, tamtam, xylo, glock, sus cym); strs
  • Programme Note

    ‘Beginnings’ was commissioned by Auckland Philharmonia. It was inspired by the birth of Ritchie’s son Tristan. It depicts the slowly mounting tension of the labour, through to the birth itself. There is a gradual growth in the music from small, delicate gestures into wild and pulsating ones towards the end. The child is represented by a ‘little Tristan waltz’ which eventually gets caught up in the musical frenzy. The waltz sequence imposes order on the music, which tends to be fragmentary and changeable. There are some echoes of Bartok and Debussy in this early work, and it presents a good challenge for a professional orchestra.

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Philip Norman  

Canterbury Rhythms

Duration: 12' 00" Year: 1989
for orchestra

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Lyell Cresswell  

Cello Concerto

Duration: 30' 00" Year: 1984
for cello and orchestra

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    3+pc,3+ca,3+bs-cl,3+c-bn; 4331;3perc,timp,hp;strs and solo cello.
  • Programme Note

    An essay in tension between soloist and orchestra. In the first movement long cello solos are contrasted with outbursts from the orchestra; in the second movement cello and orchestra merge – the cello sound coloured by various doublings; and the last movement is a moto perpetuo again contrasting soloist with orchestra. Premiered by cellist Alexander Baillie, conducted by Matthias Bamert and the Scottish National Orchestra.

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John Elmsly  

Cello Symphony

Duration: 22' 00" Year: 1986
for solo cello and orchestra

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Anthony Ritchie  

Concertino for Piano and Strings

Duration: 13' 00" Year: 1982

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Nigel Keay  

Diffractions

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1987
for piano and orchestra

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    1111;1110; tamtam; strings (44321)
  • Programme Note

    This musical analogy to the physical phenomenon of light breaking up is written in a pointillistic style, with sinuous melodic fragments leaping across the piano keyboard in jagged cross-rhythmic dancing. Angular counter- melodies are provided by a chamber orchestra of single winds and brass with 14 strings in this single movement.

    The idea of diffractions is represented in sound by the piano, central and prominent, exploiting an aspect of its technique to which it is ideally suited: rapid changes of direction and wide intervallic leaps with extreme dynamics. The orchestra provides bands of coloured spectra forming an integrated texture. The melody, oscillating and colourful is sometimes pointillistic and at other times it flows into longer continuous phrases.

    Diffractions is essentially an abstract work in one continuous movement.

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Matthew Davidson  

Le poème inattendu

 Year: 1989
for large orchestra

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    4344;342 1bass tr 1; 3 perc (small tri, cymbal, bell tree, guiro, ratchet, vibraslap, medium and large tamtam, small tomtom, tenor drum, 2 bass drums, glock, xylo, vibraphone, marimba) timp (doubles perc.3); harp; strs (18,16,12,10,8)
  • Programme Note

    In writing a work for large orchestra, the main problem that presented itself was such: that for all the twentieth century techniques that deal with material (i.e. structure or pitch classes), for the most part we are stuck with the same timbres. Admittedly, composers such as Bela Bartok, Gyorgy Ligeti, and George Crumb have made much progress in the use of instruments and instrumentation. However, apart from some accepted new ways of employing instruments, a romantic size orchestra in the twentieth century still sounds, to my ears, like a romantic size orchestra.

    I felt that trying to change this fact was a bit like trying to alter the universe, so instead of attempting to invent a “new” sound, I aimed to highlight the similarity of acoustic sounds between twentieth century and late romantic material.

    The work is an ABA1 structure, the first section being, to my knowledge, an invention of my own: namely, “Pan tonal Phase Music.” This section uses antiphonal orchestral choirs an alternating pulses (similarly employed in Steve Reich’s “The Desert Music”) but with non-centered sound instead of diatonicism. After a climax, this is contrasted by an example of Ligeti’s micropolyphony (as employed in his “Atmospheres”) and then is contrasted by a pastiche of Gustav Mahler (the B section). Mahler is then parodied through interruptions, truncation, excessive silences and exaggerated increases in tempo.

    The pastiche fades into a quotation from Mahler’s 5th symphony, Brahms’ 4th symphony, Beethoven’s 7th, Mozart’s 39th, and Haydn’s 104th, one after the other, similar to the splicing effect in analog tape music (and further highlighting the similarity in orchestral timbre over the centuries).

    This is not the first occurrence of this material. The harmonies that are employed against the pulsating string figures in the A section are mostly derived from the Mahler 5th symphony extract, although there are also occurrences derived from the quotations as well. All the quoted material in the A section is unrecognisable. However, the Mahler 5th symphony quotation becomes a more obvious appendage to the orchestral fabric towards the end of the B section.

    Following this, the work resumes with the micropholyphony of the A section and then there is a retrograde of the opening material of the A section. As a coda, the Mahler quotation again resurfaces and then disappears in a dissonant cacophony.

    Matthew Davidson

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