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Jenny McLeod  

Epithalamia

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 1962
a song cycle for baritone and piano

  • Programme Note

    Written in McLeod’s second year of study at Victoria University, this piece shows influences of Benjamin Britten and David Farquhar. The text is a poem by W. S. Broughton, the older brother of one of her childhood friends. She was drawn to the poem because it expressed the disillusionment with religion she herself was experiencing at the time.

    Being a student work, Epithalamia has been somewhat neglected by performers, and has only recently been ‘rediscovered’. The youthful composer’s impressive self-confidence, both in the expressive use of the voice and in the effective piano writing is obvious. (Programme note: Mark Jones).

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Jenny McLeod  

For Seven

Duration: 23' 00" Year: 1966
for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, marimba and vibraphone, piano

  • Programme Note

    Scored for flute, clarinet, vibraphone/marimba, piano, violin, viola and cello, this piece was written for performance by members of the Stockhausen’s ensemble, including parts designed specifically for Aloys Kontarsky, Siegfried Palm, and Cristoph Caskel, who, at the time, were the world’s leading performers of contemporary music. To the composer it seemed unlikely the work could ever be played in New Zealand, although it is noteworthy that Douglas Lilburn chose this as the first score to publish under his newly founded Waiteata editions imprint, such was his admiration for the composer’s achievement. However, with growing numbers of skilled and committed performers in New Zealand, ‘For Seven’ eventually received its New Zealand premiere in 1992, by the new music ensemble CadeNZa. Since then it has had several other fine performances here, and well as others in Europe. Recognition of the work’s status within our musical canon can be judged from the simultaneous CD publication of two different versions of the work, one by the UK-based ensemble Lontano conducted by Odaline de la Martinez, and another by Stroma. ‘For Seven’ was one of the first pieces to combine elements from the two major European schools of the time – the Eastern European cluster music, and the serialism of Boulez and Stockhausen. The piece consists of various lines of composed accelerandi and ritardandi, determined by a network of simple numerical ratios. These ratios also govern other aspects of the piece, such as the lengths of sections and the pitch intervals used. Combined with the highly structured ‘foreground’ material is more amorphous ‘background’ material (including some improvisatory elements), with frequent interaction between the two. Though the construction of the piece is complex, the result had a natural musicality and flow. McLeod has said that, although she was not conscious of it at the time of composition, she now hears clearly the influence of the sounds of the New Zealand bush. (Programme note: Mark Jones).

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Ashley Heenan  

Jack Winter's Dream

Duration: 24' 00" Year: 1958, r. 1984
nine portraits for orchestra

Ronald Tremain  

Nine Studies

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 1960
for violin and viola

Anthony Watson  

String Quartet No.1

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 1959

Larry Pruden  

String Trio

Duration: 24' 00" Year: 1953
for violin, viola and cello

Ronald Tremain  

Symphony

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 1952
for orchestra

John Rimmer  

Symphony (1968)

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 1968
for orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    222(1)2; 2220; timp, 4perc, hp, pf; strs. Perc: snare drum, tambourine, 3 tom toms, 2 bongos, large and small suspended cymbals, maracas, claves and xylophone
  • Programme Note

    In many ways Symphony (1968) which was composed in Toronto while I was studying with John Weinzweig, encapsulates what I wanted to achieve stylistically as a composer in this and in subsequent works.

    I was interested in exploring a high degree of subtlety in tone colours and dramatic contrasts in rhythm and texture.

    I wanted to achieve a string characterisation in the music by contrasting melodic, soloistic writing and contrapuntally inspired textures both fuelled by a lyrical impulse. In addition I wanted to lead my listeners through the delightful complexity of a sonic maze by the repetitions and extensions of clearly defined musical ideas.

    These aspects can be heard in the Finale in the contrast between angular, jagged full orchestra textures and the soloist and ensemble sections. The percussion instruments are particularly prominent in this movement and the final climax features several percussive rhythmic layers.

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David Farquhar  

Symphony No. 1

Duration: 23' 00" Year: 1959
for orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    3232; 4331; timp, perc, hp; strs
  • Programme Note

    The first movement of this symphony opens quietly with a number of ideas in which the melodic interval of a fifth has some prominence. A faster section follows and the development of these ideas leads to climaxes with patterns of diverse rhythms superimposed. After the final climax the movement subsides to a quiet ending.

    The second movement has the character of a Scherzo. Lively rhythms alternating between 6/8 and 3/4 lead to a quieter sustained “trio” tune. The scherzo resumes and takes the music to a climax where these two ideas are presented together – the faster one (violins and trumpets) across the slower (horns and trombones). The music unwinds until we are left with a fragment of the slower theme, which becomes a link to the third movement.

    The finale has the form of a free passacaglia. It grows out of the opening trumpet tune and its accompaniment – the trumpet tune becomes the passacaglia bass, while the stepwise bass takes over as melody. At the end of the movement a reference back to the melodic falling fifths of the first movement leads to the final chord – fading from brass to wind, and in the end, to strings alone.

    (Programme note by Owen Jensen on the sleeve of the 1969 Kiwi/Pacfic LP recording by the NZSO under Juan Matteucci)

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Douglas Lilburn  

Symphony No. 2

Duration: 29' 00" Year: 1951
for orchestra