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.

Reset

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

Anthony Ritchie  

Berlin Fragments

Duration: 23' 00" Year: 1992
a cycle for mezzo-soprano and piano

Audio Sample
  • Programme Note

    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.

  • Availability
Add to Wishlist

Full information

Anthony Ritchie  

Down in the Brunner Mine

Duration: 09' 00" Year: 1995
for brass band

  • Instrumentation
    E flat sop crnt, 4 solo B flat crnts, repiano crnt in B flat, 2nd & 3rd B flat crnts, B flat flugel hn, solo E flat hn, 1st & 2nd E flat hns, 1st & 2nd B flat baritones, Euphonium in B flat (2), 1st & 2nd B flat trbn, bass trbn, E flat Bass (2), B flat Bass (2), 3 perc, timp, bass drm, side drm, tenor drm, tamtam, clash cymb, susp cymb.
  • Programme Note

    Down in the Brunner Mine was commissioned by The Onslow Brass Band in Wellington and first performed and broadcast in 1996. It is a short set of variations based on a New Zealand folk song called ‘Down in the Brunner Mine’. The folk song describes the coal mine on the West Coast, near Greymouth, and tells of the disaster that occured there in the 1890s when about 60 men were killed in a mine collapse. Here is the first stanza: We worked in the heat and the thick black dust, Sticks to your skin like a burnt pie crust, We rue each day the miner must Go down in the Brunner Mine. The folksong tune is announced by the cornets at the beginning, playing in their low register, accompanied by heavy chords in the low brass. Variation 1 features a horn solo, and the cornets return for Variation 2, playing in fourths. Variations 3 and 4 are strident in character and feature short flourishes. The snare drum enters at the start of Variation 5 and the cornets play a punchy idea using repeated notes. This idea returns in contrapuntal form in Variation 7, while the 6th variation inbetween features little fragments of the theme on various instruments. Variation 8 is powerful and buffeting, and uses the theme in canon. Variations 9-11 make use of the theme’s arpeggio outline and the music builds to a climax. Following this, the music gradually winds down in Variation 12, with the theme appearing in inversion against a repeated bass pattern. After a reflective silence, the short chorale-like coda rounds off the work, and is marked “in memoriam”.

  • Availability
Add to Wishlist

Full information

Nigel Keay  

Fanfare for Orchestra

Duration: 03' 00" Year: 1995
for large orchestra

Score Sample
Add to Wishlist

Full information

Lissa Meridan  

firecracker

Duration: 04' 00" Year: 1998
for symphony orchestra

Audio Sample
Add to Wishlist

Full information

John Rimmer  

Galileo

Duration: 1h 30' 00" Year: 1998
a chamber opera using for 6 singers, small chorus and 8 players, also using electroacoustic music and DVD of visuals

Score Sample
Video Sample
  • Instrumentation
    Television newsreader (spoken voice), Nobelman (baritone), Castelli (tenor), Galileo (baritone), Boy/Angel (mezzo soprano), Three Priests (tenor/baritones), Heretic (baritone), Christina (soprano), Military Man (baritone), Sea Captain (baritone), Troubadour (mezzo soprano), Cardinal Bellarmino (tenor), Pope Urban VIII (bass baritone), Pope John Paul II (baritone), small chorus of townspeople; flute doubling piccolo, oboe, clarinet doubling bass clarinet, horn, piano, percussion, violin and cello. Electroacoustic music played through at least eight loudspeakers. DVD of visuals.
  • Availability
Add to Wishlist

Full information

Anthony Ritchie  

Remember Parihaka

Duration: 09' 00" Year: 1993
for orchestra

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    2222; 0200; 1 perc; strings
  • Programme Note

    The starting point for this piece was a curiosity in the metal doors that covered the entrances to cells imbedded in the cliffs near Andersons Bay inlet, in Dunedin. A friend informed me that during the 19th century Maori prisoners were kept there at night, and worked on the Dunedin Harbour land reclamation during the day. Some of these prisoners were brought down to Dunedin from Taranaki in the North Island, as a result of the conflict in 1881 at Parihaka.

    Upon reading Dick Smith’s book Ask that Mountain – The story of Parihaka I learned of one of the most shocking incidents in our country’s history. The land wars of the 1860s provoked a new approach from Maori to the protection of their lands. Te Whiti, Tohu and their followers at Parihaka combated the Pakeha land grab by organising passive resistance through a variety of means. In response to unauthorised land confiscation Te Whiti ordered the ploughing of fields, building of fences and planting, all of which impeded the surveyors who wished to carve up the land for settlers. Many were arrested, offering no struggle, and soon prisons around the country were full. Despite the many injustices Te Whiti maintained his policy of passive resistance to the end. In November 1881, government troops entered Parihaka with guns and artillery. They were greeted by Maori women and children chanting songs, but no armed struggle. Te Whiti and Tohu were taken away, the Pa was broken up, and hundreds sent away to prison. Despite a press blackout, two reporters were smuggled into the Pa, one commenting that “it was one of the saddest and most painful spectacles I have witnessed”.

    Remember Parihaka attempts to sum up my thoughts and feelings about the events at Parihaka. The slow opening is peaceful, like a sun rise, with melodic fragments that slowly unfold into a fuller, more passionate statement. Flutes and oboes announce a chant-like theme, based on an actual song composed at the time of the incident. This ‘Maori’ theme alternates with a more European-sounding theme on solo violin, accompanied by an Irish drum, the bowron. At the heart of the piece the various melodic ideas come together over a grinding, relentless bass, building to a climax. In the short postlude, the peace of the opening is suggested, but now it is tinged with sadness, and a slightly uneasy feeling.

    Remember Parihaka was first performed in 1994, under the baton of John Hopkins.

  • Availability
Add to Wishlist

Full information

Ray Twomey  

String Quartet (Opus 11b)

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 1997
for string quartet

Score Sample
Audio Sample
  • Programme Note

    This work is the string quartet version of Sinfonia, opus 11a, and is a musical autobiography. Ray was born in England and lived through seven years of destruction, spending many nights in air raid shelters listening to the sounds of total war. An air raid, with its sirens, the drone of bombers, bombs dropping and anti-aircraft fire can be heard in the first movement. The main theme, which occurs soon after the opening, reappears inverted after the air raid – symbolic of the utter chaos prevalent at that time. However, like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, the theme not only corrects itself but changes from minor to major modality near the end. The second movement represents New Zealand with its bitter-sweet memories for the composer. New Zealand is a beautiful country. The humorous third movement, called “England again” is scored pizzicato throughout, and leads to the final movement “Canada” – big Canada, magnificent Canada, vast Canada, noble Canada, free Canada, beautiful Canada…. the huge but simple harmonies near the end are Ray’s interpretation of the optimism he feels for the country.

  • Availability
Add to Wishlist

Full information

Gareth Farr  

Te Papa

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1998
for orchestra with mezzo-soprano, tenor and soprano (Maori karanga) soloists

  • Instrumentation
    2,2,2,2; 4,3,2,(1),1; karanga, soprano, baritone; 6 percussionists, timp., hp; strings
  • Programme Note

    The thing that struck me about Charm when I first read it, was the wonderful concept of the spirit of the land – te wairua o te whenua. The land is our mother, she cares for all of her children. We have all at some point in time been a stranger to this land, and as visitors, we have all been welcomed by her.

    Charm is a poem from the mid 19th century, a time when all Europeans were recent visitors to the land. It is likely, however that this poem was a Maori charm originally, translated into English by settlers, suggesting that Maori also felt the same way about Aotearoa.

    We now live in a unique multi-cultural society. Our many and varied contemporary art forms reflect this fact, and display something that could only be created here. This piece is a recognition of the similarities and differences of all of the cultures of New Zealand. It is a musical analogy to my idea that cultures can co-exist without overshadowing or changing one other. And finally, it is a musical celebration that we all have ended up here on the same soil.

    Gareth Farr

  • Availability
Add to Wishlist

Full information

Chris Cree Brown  

Y2K Pacemaker

Duration: 03' 00" Year: 1999
fanfare for orchestra

Score Sample
Audio Sample
  • Programme Note

    Y2k Pacemaker is an attempt to reflect some of the increasingly frenzied apprehension associated with the coming millennium, and more specifically, the “year 2000 computer bug”. Whether computer failures will cause a slight inconvenience or be a major disruption to life seems largely a matter for conjecture. However, I find the escalating alarm (sometimes exacerbated by scaremongers) and often ensuing bizarre reactions a fascinating aspect of our psychological makeup. The main idea behind the work is a measured increase in tempo which culminates in some frenetic activity. The musical texture incorporates ordinary scalic movement and has been derived from a simple octatonic scale. (The computer on which I wrote this work is ‘year 2000 compliant’ !) I would like to thank the Auckland Philharmonia for the opportunity to write “Y2k Pacemaker” and have long admired the orchestra’s commitment to New Zealand music.

  • Availability
Add to Wishlist

Full information