Search Music:

The human brain is capable of remarkable feats of understanding and analysis, yet has trouble simply imagining its own death. Death is our blind spot — we cannot conceive of an end to our perceptions and experiences, so we are forced to invent stories about what we will experience after we die.

As a result, human culture overflows with afterworld narratives, and in some cases these have become rich in specific details, textures and landscapes: afterworlds may be light, dark, watery, icy, misty, subterranean, found in the clouds, in the earth, in the sun, in the moon; they may be places of peace and redemption, or places of violence and damnation.

Michael Norris

• Norris: Exitus; computer-set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  

• Norris: Exitus; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  • Borrow

• Michael Norris: Three works by Michael Norris 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• NZ Premieres July 2008 to June 2009 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• notes from a journey  Year: 2010 

  CD
  
  $27.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

Written over 1,000 years ago by Murasaki Shikibu, the noval, The Tale of Genfi, has continuously captured imaginations through different media including movies, plays, dance, Kabuki, opera and manga (comic books). The story is full of musical references. Genji, himself, plays the wagon, a six-stringed koto considered old-fashioned in the story, while the key women in his life play the kin, a seven-stringed, unfretted koto from China. Several modes are mentioned including the richi (ryo) and ritsu modes, to indicate a change of mood. Poems which have constant role in special conversations are described as tanka (short song), waka (long song) or simply uta (song). The novel is also infused with luscious descriptions of the clothes being worn, both colour – in particular greys and many shades of red – and the texture of the fabrics.

Many of these musical and non-musical elements are drawn into Genji (the Shining Prince) and the Koto Player for violin and piano. The work has three parts – “Tuning”, “Uta” and “Manga”. “Tuning” adopts some characteristics of koto playing and tuning plus distinctive figures from other traditional Japanese musics; “Uta” introduces the old modes of richi and ritsu in a lyrical style; and “Monga” transforms the musical shapes of the previous section info a fast, driving manga style movement using modern Japanese scales. Genji is dedicated to james Cuddeford (violin) and Zubin Kanga (piano) who gave the work its first performance at the Creative Explosion in the West on 22 October, 2009 at the University of Western Sydney.

Diana Blom

• Blom: Genji (the Shining Prince) and the Koto Player; computer-set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  

• Blom: Genji (the Shining Prince) and the Koto Player; computer-set  Year: 2010 

  Score and parts | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  • Borrow

• Diana Blom: Genji (the Shining Prince) and the Koto Player 

  CD
  

• Creative Explosion  Year: 2009 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

The work is based on a previous composition of Jack Body, a setting for two female voices of the love sonnets of Michelangelo, composed in 1982 for dance/choreographer Michael Parmenter. Body has been fond of the melodic material composed many years ago and continued to be moved by Michelangelo’s poetry, which honours male beauty and laments the ravages of age.

In this version, Body rework the musical material, intensifying its emotional quality of convey the essence of Michelangelo’s extraordinary poems.

• Body: Meditations on Michelangelo; computer set 

  Score and parts | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $29.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Body: Meditations on Michelangelo; computer set 

  Score and parts | Pdf - computer set
  
  $23.50
  • • Quantity:

• Christopher's Classics Series XIV - Rieko Suzuki and Gao Ping 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

Suite for String Quartet was commissioned by Christopher Marshall through the 2009 SOUNZtender project of the Centre for New Zealand Music. The commission was originally intended for a solo instrument but Christopher had an interesting starting point in mind for the piece: a work for string quartet with a series of movements inspired by four stylistic models from moments in music history: chant, gigue, tango and the music of the second Viennese School. Each movement would feature (either solo or concertante-style) a member of the quartet.

I approached Suite for String Quartet with a level of abstraction to the styles in question. It is less a series of imitations than an exposition of certain distinctive elements of each style. I found myself inspired (at different points in the process) by acoustic, harmonic, rhythmic, structural and emotional properties of these styles. Each of the four movements feature a particular player (cello, violin II, viola and violin I, in that order) – but the other three also play in each movement.

Calling the piece Suite for String Quartet is reflective of the ‘baroque’ approach to each movement, inspired by the Bach cello suites. The movement titles are: I: Canto; II: Scorrevole; III: Tango; IV: Bagatelle
I like the double meaning of ‘canto’ – meaning both ‘voice’ and a poetic unit of measurement, and the ubiquitous association of the word ‘bagatelle’ with Webern and Schoenberg. ‘Scorrevole’ in a musical context usually means ‘florid’ or ‘swiftly unfolding’.

Suite for String Quartet was composed in residence at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, with financial support from Creative New Zealand. Its movements are dedicated to the members of the New Zealand String Quartet.

   Chris Gendall, 2010

• Chris Gendall: Suite for String Quartet - downloadable PDF 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  
  $20.50
  • • Quantity:

• Chris Gendall: Suite for String Quartet - hardcopy score 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $24.50
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Chris Gendall: Suite for String Quartet; video 

  Media on Demand | Embedded
  

• SOUNZtender Concert - 2010 

  DVD
  
  • Borrow

• Biddington: Suite No. 2; computer-set  Year: 2009 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $14.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Biddington: Music and Friendship  Year: 2010 

  CD
  
  $30.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow