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Dorothy Buchanan  

Five Vignettes of Women

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 1987
for flute and SSA choir

Dorothy Buchanan  

Mary Magdalene and the Birds

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 1989
a song cycle for mezzo and clarinet

Gillian Whitehead  

Pao

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 1981
for mezzo-soprano, piano and clarinet

  • Programme Note

    ‘Pao’ is the name given by Maori to two-lined epigrammatic songs which comment on a wide range of subjects such as love, war, politics or religion; often topical, often improvised. Most of the songs set here were collected in 1864 from Maori prisoners captured during the the land wars in the Waikato area south of Auckland. The couplets are not connected in any way except for the central group, for unaccompanied voice, concerning Pikeri, a character famous at the time for his escapades evading the police; in this instance, enforced separation during a love affair is charted.

    The English translations of these pao are used with the kind permission of the late Margaret Orbell, and come from her Maori Poetry, an introductory anthology (Heinemann, 1978).

    Pao was commissioned by the Northumberland-based Syrinx Trio, with financial assistance from Northern Arts; the first performance was given by Syrinx in Newcastle in 1981.

  • Availability

John Charles  

The Turning Wheel

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 1986
a song cycle for voice and piano

Brigid Ursula Bisley  

This Land of Water

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 1988, r. 1989
a song cycle for soprano and piano

Geoffrey Hinds  

Water, Water Everywhere

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 1985
song cycle for tenor and piano