Search Music:

3343, 3310, harp, timp., 3 perc., strings, mezzo-soprano

In 1909 Alice Adcock, a lively and adventurous young woman from Manchester, was on her way to New Zealand. She was 23, and had recently developed TB, for which there was then no cure. Somehow she persuaded her widowed father to let her travel alone to the other side of the world in case a healthy climate would save her life. (It worked – she lived for another 50 years). The family kept her entertaining letter describing shipboard life, and a few postcards from her have also survived, but most of what we know about her time in New Zealand comes from her father’s letters to her, of which he kept copies, or from family tradition. On her arrival in New Zealand, Alice went into service, travelling widely, much to the consternation of her father. As housekeeper (and the only woman) on a farm in Makarora (a remote settlement on Lake Wanaka) she became pregnant to an unknown man, but was ‘rescued’ by marriage to a local farmer, Charles Pipson, shortly before the birth of her daughter. In 1911, her beloved father died; in 1912, Alice and Charles had a son and the following year, pregnant again, Alice took her children back to England to visit her family. Tragically, while she was away, her husband died suddenly of typhoid fever. Alice hurried back to Makarora to claim her inheritance, but left the two babies with her brother Sam and his wife (who were shortly to emigrate to New Zealand) and took only her eldest child, the illegitimate one, with her. This outraged her sisters-in-law, who saw it as an insult to their dead brother; they sent her away from the farm empty-handed. Once again she had to take a housekeeping job, this time in the North Island. In 1914, Alice and her brother’s family met up again, and Alice began a new life. (Fleur Adcock – abridged) The music of Alice is text-driven, ranging between a language at times extremely simple, as was the basic musical language of the settlers, and at times quite complex, evoking a storm at sea, or the unease of the settlers in a new environment, or Alice’s reaction to the problems which beset her. The piece is held together by various referential motifs. The initial idea, which perhaps suggests the instability of the sea, is also present in the bell-like sounds marking Charles’ death, music associated with a storm at sea is later associated with mental stress, while music suggestive of the movement of shipboard lice later underlies Alice’s traumatic encounter with her sisters-in-law.

There are eight sections, which often merge into one another: 1. in a letter to her father, Alice describes shipboard life; 2. in New Zealand, she compares her past life and hopes for the future; 3. a dialogue between father and daughter, expressed through their letters; 4. in Makarora, Alice discovers she is pregnant; 5. Alice hears of her father’s death; 6. in England, she learns of her husband’s death; 7. back in Makarora, Alice is turned away by her sisters-in-law; 8. turning her back on the South Island, Alice looks forward to her new life with her brother’s family in the north.

While writing this piece, I was drawn again and again into the thought that, although this is a true story, set in a particular place at a certain time, it has the resonances of a universal myth, known to all of us who live here. Our forebears, or we ourselves, have crossed the seas to begin a new life, with unforeseen and unimaginable difficulties and felicities, whether ten years, a century or a millennium or so ago.

• Whitehead: Alice; computer-set 

  Vocal score | Pdf - computer set
  
  $29.00
  • • Quantity:

• Whitehead: Alice; computer-set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  
  $47.00
  • • Quantity:

• Whitehead: Alice; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $57.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Gillian Whitehead: Alice; audio 

  Media on Demand | Embedded
  

• Whitehead: Quintet and Alice  

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Gillian Whitehead: Alice 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

(2)33(2)3(2)3(1);4431;3perc,timp,hp,pf;strs.

A full length symphony for large orchestra in three movements. It takes its title from the sequence of three sonnets The Islands by the New Zealand poet Charles Brasch. The music mirrors the unsettled air of the poetry and contrasts violence with delicacy and beauty as a metaphor for our times.

• Blake: Symphony - The Islands; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $40.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Christopher Blake: The Islands  Year: 2002 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

3*ob.*23*; 4331; perc. (2); mezzo soprano; strings

Described as “often beautiful and sometimes frightening” (NZ Listener), Ross Harris’s Symphony No 2 is a setting of poems on the subject of New Zealand soldiers shot for desertion in World War One. Writer Vincent O’Sullivan’s deeply felt descriptions of violence, love and tragedy are reflected in a moving and dramatic score.

• Harris: Symphony No. 2; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $25.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Ross Harris: Symphony No. 2 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Ross Harris: Symphony No. 2 

  CD
  

• New Zealand Premieres Volume 2 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Ross Harris: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3  Year: 2012 

  CD
  
  $15.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

2(2nd doubled piccolo)232; 4231; timp (4-including piccolo timp), 2 perc (bass drum, 4 tom toms, suspended cymbal, large suspended cymbal, crash cymbals, tam tam, xylophone, marimba,glockenspiel, log drum,hammer(hitting a metallic object), poi (suspended between two strings) hp, pf,electronic keyboard,strs

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed on the world . . .”

from The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats

When asked to compose a work on the meaning and symbolism of the new millennium, I decided to use William Butler Yeats’ famous poem The Second Coming as a starting point. Written in 1921, when the old order in Europe was breaking down, it suggests a revolution or rotation in history (the gyre) will bring about a ‘second coming’ of an important historical figure, and the dawn of a new millennium. Yeats’ vision of the new world order to come is not, however, optimistic. He sees the coming of a ‘rough beast’ with a ‘lion body and the head of a man’, a cold and heartless creature that might be equated with certain infamous and autocratic leaders in the 20th century.

The ‘gyre’ or revolution is represented in the symphony by a rolling, sliding timpani sound, accompanied by bass drum and tam tam at the start of the work. This idea becomes an important motif and appears at the very start. Following the ‘gyre’, we hear a ‘life and death’ theme that begins like a cradle song (the birth of Christ), rises, and then twists downwards in a chromatic line. This theme provides most of the material for what follows. The slow introduction climaxes with hammer blows, a reference to the death of Christ. From this a trumpet call emerges, becoming a significant motif later in the movement. In the allegro that follows, the ‘life and death’ theme is transformed into a fast and restless melody, beginning as pizzicato on the strings. Complimenting this is a macabre and folky theme on muted trumpet and clarinets, evoking a sort of frenzied, gyrating dance. The music quietens and a lyrical theme appears on flute, accompanied by timpani and harp and developed by the strings. As the music climaxes again, the trumpet call reappears, shared around other brass instruments. The significance of this trumpet call can be seen with reference to another poem, this time by New Zealander Peggy Dunstan:

Stratagem of Trumpets

“Then the trumpets sounded
Not in a flare of pomp and pageantry
But with a golden lilting laughter

That seemed to open up the sky
So that the music dropped like rain
Upon the upturned faces
And the enchanted ears were closed
To everything except those throbbing notes. . . "

The trumpets distract the listeners, and make them unaware of the advancing enemy. Dunstan’s poem goes on to describe a massacre of Serbs in 1389 at the time of the battle of Kosovo between Serbs and Turks. At the time of composing my symphony Kosovo was once again in the grip of war and atrocity, only this time the Serbs were the aggressors and Albanians were the victims.

It seems to me that Kosovo sums up a situation common in our past millennium: an endless cycle of struggle for land and power, costing many innocent lives. In the music, the log drum heralds a sort of ‘musical battle-field’ in which the ‘life and death’ theme becomes an aggressive, jagged idea, used fugally in an increasingly dissonant texture. Following the ‘battle’, solo strings, piccolo and harp provide a brief lament for the dead and the music returns to the music of the Introduction. This time it is mixed fragments of the flute theme, and the movement ends quietly with the ‘gyre’ motif.

If the first movement represents the past, then the second movement is a comment on the present. The title Mi-1st refers to the heavy emphasis on the note E (or Mi in the sol-fa system) as a central pitch, but can also be interpreted as ‘me-first’. Essentially this music is about the natural human tendency to be self-centred, which I believe has become much more prevalent in our own society. It is perhaps one aspect of Yeats’ ‘rough beast’ that hinders our progress. There are three main ideas in this presto movement. The first is a savage chromatic theme that encircles the note E, played initially on strings. It is immediately followed by a vigorous, syncopated theme on strings and winds. As a contrast, the harp accompanies a quieter, smoother theme on the violins, which also includes the twisting, chromatic motif from the first movement. In the middle, the music becomes increasingly chaotic until a climax on C is reached, with hope for resolution to the discords. However, the music slips into the key of B, and the strings play a restless, anxious version of the contrast theme. The frenetic energy of the first part gradually dissipats, and the movement collapses into a web of solo violins. The ‘gyre’ motif has the final say.

There are a number of themes in the third movement, but all evolve in some way or other from the constantly twisting, turning melodic line that appears at the start. Used in close canon, this melody represents the intertwining DNA molecule, and hence the title of the movement, Double Helix. Discovered recently in our history, genetics are sure to have a highly significant role in the future. This music looks forward with the hope that genetics will be used in a positive way. It also acknowledges that we carry with us the characteristics of previous generations (covering a whole millennium and more!), and that the future will be significantly shaped by these characteristics. At the same time we need to learn from the hard lessons of previous generations in order to make progress.

Consequently, the symphony has an optimistic and celebratory end, which is tempered by a sense of warning. In the coda, the threads of Double Helix motifs are combined with a return of the main theme from the first movement, played on full brass.

• Ritchie A.: Symphony No.2 The Widening Gyre; Computer Set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  

• Ritchie A.: Symphony No.2 The Widening Gyre; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $45.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Ritchie A.: Mi-1st 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Ritchie A.: Symphony No.2 (The Widening Gyre)  Year: 2000 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Anthony Ritchie: Symphonies 1 and 2  Year: 2007 

  CD
  
  $30.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

3 (piccolo) 2 (2nd oboe doubling Cor Anglais) 3 (bass clarinet) 2; 4331; timpani; 3 percussion; harp; piano; strings

• Norris: Symphony No.1 the mountains...; computer 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $25.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Norris: Symphony No.1 

  CD
  
  • Borrow