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

John Rimmer  

Composition 10

Duration: 17' 00" Year: 1977
double bass and electronic sounds

John Rimmer  

Composition 8

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 1974
for violin and electronic sounds

Jonathan Besser  

Duo for Violin and Piano

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 1989
for violin and piano

Douglas Lilburn  

Duos

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 1954
for two violins

John Psathas  

Kartsigar

Duration: 17' 00" Year: 2005
for string quartet

  • Programme Note

    Both movements of this work began as transcriptions of recorded performances by two of Greece’s living master-musicians, clarino player Manos Achalinotopoulos and percussionist Vagelis Karypis. The Transcriptions are based on two separate recordings of a traditional taximi entitled Kartsigar. Taximia form part of an oral tradition in which improvisation played an important role. Songs would begin with an instrumental prelude, the taximi, where a musican showed off his prowess. This set the mood for the song to follow, and could last for as long as twenty minutes.

    The taximi Kartsigar comprises two elements, an ostinato and the improvised melody. The melody forms the basis of the first movement of the quartet, and the ostinato forms the basis of the second.

  • Availability

Gillian Whitehead  

Moon, Tides and Shoreline

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 1989
for string quartet

  • Programme Note

    In this work, inspired by Paekakariki on the Kapiti Coast – ‘home’ during the composer’s six-week residency at Victoria University in 1989 – the relationship between music and environment is particularly strong. The cello’s low repeated D, which opens the piece, is the fundamental pitch heard in the sea and the restless semi-quavers evoke the continuous movement of waves crashing on the Paekakariki shore. Whitehead’s fascination with medieval philosophy and music, incorporating concepts of natural cycles, is reflected both in the title and in the compositional process, where magic squares were used to generate the background structure.
    (Programme note by Emma Carle and Jack Body).

    “This is a rich evocative piece that is never merely picturesque, as the title might suggest. It has a lyrical complexity reminiscent of Tippett… (it) achieves moments of great beauty.” (Tim Bridgewater, The Dominion).

    “The highlight for me was the premiere of Gillian Whitehead’s Moon Tides, and Shoreline. … Perhaps there are marine associations to be heard in the score, but, more importantly, one appreciates the work’s cool and eminently logical form. The various musical motifs are inventive in themselves and intriguingly handled.” (William Dart, Music in New Zealand)

  • Availability

Matthew Davidson  

Music for Viola and Piano

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 2006

Chris Adams  

Persephone

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 2008
for string quartet

  • Programme Note

    Persephone is an abstract work for String Quartet. While the piece is not programmatic, the title did influence the piece, effecting the mood and the musical material.


    Persephone was the daughter of Demeter and Zeus in classical Mythology. Hades abducted her and took her back with him to the underworld. As a result, Demeter, the goddess of the Earth, became so upset that plants stopped growing as she searched everywhere for her lost daughter. To stop Earth from dying, Zeus forced Hades to return Persephone. However, Hades tricked her into eating pomegranate seeds, which forced her to return to the underworld for a season each year. As a result, for four months each year, Persephone returned to the underworld and the earth became barren.


    The piece begins with a number of different musical fragments which are developed and integrated throughout the piece and interspliced with a number of other sections. The conceptual images of moving between two different worlds evoked swirling chromatic semiquaver sections and the sense of viewing the world from another place added to the sense of distortion and fragmentation which is a feature of the work.

  • Availability

Ray Twomey  

Sonatina for violin and piano (Opus 10b)

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 1962, r. 1997
for violin and piano

Stephan Prock  

Stradivariazioni

Duration: 16' 30" Year: 2011
theme and variations for violin and piano

  • Programme Note

    Stradivariazioni is a theme and variations, with each variation cast in the form of a character piece. Instead of a single theme, three themes—or “ciphers”—are presented in the ‘Tema (con amici)’ (Theme (with friends)). A musical cipher translates letters of the alphabet into musical notes which are then represented as melodies (or harmonies). The B–A–C–H cipher (Bb, A, C and B-natural in German usage) first used by Bach himself, is perhaps the most famous. The three ciphers in Stradivariazioni are derived from the surnames of those who inspired the piece: Antonio Stradivari, Martin Riseley and Diedre Irons. Throughout the work the ciphers are manipulated and appear in varying permutations. Though not always immediately recognisable, the assorted combinations of the ciphers provide a sense of coherence and intimate relationship between the five variations.

    The individual variations encompass the names of actual Stradivarius violins which are still in existence today. In each variation I have attempted to capture the essence of either the physical attributes (the colour of the varnish, individual details of scrollwork and sound quality, for example) or the given name and historical background of the violin.

  • Availability