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Ronald Dellow  

8 Songs From The I Ching

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 1998
a cycle for high voice and oboe

Maria Grenfell  

A Pinch of Time...

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 1991
five songs for baritone (or medium voice) and piano

Eve de Castro-Robinson  

A Resonance of Emerald

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 1988, r. 1990
for mixed chamber ensemble

David Hamilton  

A Shakespeare Garland

Duration: 17' 00" Year: 1999
for SAATB choir, guitar and piano

  • Programme Note

    Every now and then the deputy musical directors of Auckland Choral Society are invited to jointly conduct a concert. In 1999 this took the form of a ’subscriber’s bonus’ concert, containing works requiring minimal accompaniment forces. Early discussions lead us in the direction of a Shakespeare-themed concert. In addition to conducting some American settings of Shakespeare, I decided to write a new cycle using Shakespearean texts. Given the nature of the intended concert, I wanted to write a work which was immediately approachable and contained an element of fun. My original intention was to compose a cycle based on references to flowers in Shakespeare’s writings, as I had a copy of a book which detailed them. However, it soon became apparent that many references were part of texts which were not suitable for a musical setting : some were conversational and others merely a passing mention of a flower. I broadened my scope a little and fashioned a sequence of seven texts which all refer in some way to things botanical and/or seasonal. The first text is from ‘As You Like It’ and sets the well-known ‘it was a lover and his lass’ in a jazzy idiom. A complete contrast of mood is presented in ‘Come, buy’ from ‘The Winter’s Tale’, where the words detail a variety of items which might be purchased to charm a lady. The third piece is a short setting of ‘Hark, hark the lark’ from ‘Cymberline’. Unlike Schubert’s well-known setting, this lark is rather boisterous and rowdy! The music owes more than a little to mid-twentieth century film music, perhaps a film involving a frenetic chase sequence! The centerpiece of the cycle is a setting of Shakespeare’s best-known sonnet ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (sonnet 18). Here the women’s voices are heard on their own, with the 2nd altos given a rare chance to take the limelight. The fifth piece is a reflective setting of ‘I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows’ from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Initially unison voices present the melody, breaking into harmony only for the second half of the song. Throwing caution to the wind, the sixth piece is a madcap, cartoonish setting of ‘When daisies pied’ from ’Love’s Labour’s Lost’. Where better to end the cycle than with the ‘flower-power’ era of the 1960’s and a swinging version of ‘Under the greenwood tree’ from ‘As You Like It’, using just about every harmonic cliche of the music of that time. ‘A Shakespeare Garland’ was written for, and is dedicated to, Auckland Choral Society who gave the first performance.

  • Availability

Douglas Lilburn  

A Song of Islands

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 1946
for orchestra

Neville Hall  

a splinter of silence in the belly of time

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 1994
for string quartet and clarinet

Ross Carey  

A Won for Buddha

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 2001
for piano - four hands

  • Programme Note

    Counting through the tones of ‘In a Landscape’ by John Cage, in the manner of counting a rosary. The title means an offering to Buddha; this is not so much a material offering but more that of a good heart.

    Composed in Toronto in June, 2001 and first performed by the Natsuki Emura Piano Duo in a concert of New Zealand piano music at MusiCasa, Tokyo in October 2001.

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Nigel Keay  

Adagietto Antique

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 2009
Trio for clarinet, viola & piano

John Young  

Allting Runt Omkring

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 1998
8-channel electroacoustic

  • Instrumentation
    8 -channel electroacoustic
  • Programme Note

    This work was composed on the 8-channel digital sound system at EMS Stockholm while I was a visiting composer there in 1998. The piece grew out of my encounters with the Stockholm soundscape, which surprised me with its clarity and vitality – both above and below the ground… the chimes of church clocks audible across very large distances…the tunnelbana (subway) with its caverns hewn out of granite, where even quiet shuffles of feet are etched with clarity… skaters on the open air ice rink… footsteps on granite stairs and creaking floors. Along with these I integrated a number of field recordings made in my own country… a fairground, with ghost train and house of mirrors… wind gently resonating a flagpole… I found many of these sounds so captivating that I realised I was carrying impressions of them in my head, and frequently imagining the presence of one sound ‘inside’ another as I was hearing them (both in and out of the studio). ‘Allting Runt Omkring’ attempts to project some of that sensation by creating a new context in which field recordings from the natural world are integrated and transformed. All sound sources in the work are environmental in origin. I work exclusively with my own field recordings, since for me it is important to have a connection with the original context of my sound sources. In this piece the context in which sounds are heard and shaped was an important stimulus, while the tape medium allows me to forge new contextual relationships for the sound. For example, in Stockholm there are a large number of churches and public buildings in the main city area, especially Gamla Stan (the old town), but also across to the islands of Kungsholmen and Soder. At quarter hour intervals the clocks of Stockholm chime, and from a single vantage point one can hear an astonishing depth in the soundscape. The Stockholm tunnelbana also has a great acoustical presence and range of sounds, and in this piece I have tried to fuse sounds of ‘above’ and ‘below’ ground (for instance by linking the bell resonances to the tunnelbana, or by taking the noise of trains to the ice rink).

  • Availability

Christopher Marshall  

An Emily Dickinson Suite

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 2009
for wind ensemble

  • Instrumentation
    piccolo, 3 flutes, 3 oboes, 4 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 alto saxophones, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, bassoon, 2 horn in F, 3 trumpet, 2 trombones, euphonium, tuba, string bass, timpani and percussion
  • Programme Note

    An Emily Dickson Suite takes the form of nine vignettes inspired by the eight poems. I chose these particular poems not to fulfill any kind of programme or theme, but because they were the ones that spoke most strongly to me in musical terms at first reading.

    In order to get to know the poems I initially set them as if the choir and then used the wind ensemble palette to better capture the contrasting moods and spirit of each poem. in most cases it is still possible to hear clearly the patterns of the words within the melodies. So in a real way these vignettes are ‘songs without words’. Dickson did not give her poems titles. However I have titled each of the vignettes from the first line of each poem.

    Christopher Marshall

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