SOUNZ

Gillian Whitehead

Duration: 11' 00" Year: 1980
for brass nonet

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 1980
for mezzo-soprano and string quartet

Programme Note

Bright Forms Return written in 1980 while I was composer-in-residence for Northern Arts (UK), is one of the first pieces I wrote that is concerned with landscape (and sea-scape). I was living in Northumberland, on the moors north of Newcastle, very near the house where Kathleen Raine had spent her childhood. When I was asked to write a piece for the Cumbria Quartet and mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Lamb, Raine’s poetry was an obvious choice, as its northern imagery was very familiar to me.

Although the piece is designed as a single entity, the quartet falls into four clearly-defined sections in its setting of the four short poems. The vocal writing is relatively simple (rhythmically at least), and the writing for the quartet sometimes reflects the poetic imagery or mood, and is sometimes derived from the formal structure of the poems. The text, which comes from The Oval Mirror published by Hamish Hamilton, is used with the kind permission of the author and her publishers.
Availability
- Whitehead: Bright Forms Return; computer-set
  
  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  
  $22.50
  - Quantity:
- Whitehead: Bright Forms Return; facsimile
  
  Score and parts | Hardcopy - facsimile
  
  $29.00
  - Quantity:
- Whitehead: Bright Forms Return; facsimile
  
  Full score | Hardcopy - facsimile
  - Borrow

Duration: 06' 00" Year: 1980, r. 2005
for eight-part a cappella choir

Instrumentation
SSAATTBB
Programme Note

This work for unaccompanied mixed-voice choir alternates bold tonal chords with simple plainsong-like passages. The chordal writing often pits half the choir against the other half, in a type of canon effect. The plainsong-like passages are underpinned by simple repetitive drones. The text, set here in Latin, is part of the Tract for the Mass for Palm Sunday, and includes the well-known entreaty ‘My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?’.
Availability
- Hamilton: Deus, Deus meus; computer set
  
  Full score | Pdf - computer set
- Hamilton: Deus, Deus meus; computer set
  
  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  - Borrow

Duration: 35' 00" Year: 1980
for mezzo soprano and chamber ensemble

Instrumentation
clarinet, clarinet/bass-clarinet, violin/viola, cello, percussion (marimba, 9 drums in high to low sequence, drum of fluctuating pitch, bass drum, 5 suspended cymbals, ching - Thai finger cymbals, bell tree, rasp, 2 woodblocks, 3 temple blocks, wood chimes)
Programme Note

This monodrama for mezzo soprano and chamber sextet, commissioned by Northern Arts UK, tells of the 14th century North of England warrior Henry Percy (Hotspur), seen through the eyes of Elizabeth Mortimer, in a striking ballad sequence written by Fleur Adcock.

Whitehead’s imaginative score combines exotic and arresting instrumental colours, a strong dramatic vocal line (often with flamboyant flourishes) and an admirable overall conception of the mood changes and tonal graduation of the work. (William Dart, NZ Listener)

She has the rare gift of knowing when to us nightmarish vehemences and when to be utterly straightforward and calm. (Roger Covell, Sydney Morning Herald).
Availability
- Whitehead: Hotspur; facsimile
  
  Full score | Pdf - facsimile
- Whitehead: Hotspur; facsimile
  
  Full score | Hardcopy - facsimile
  
  $17.50
  - Quantity:
  - Borrow
- Gillian Whitehead: selected works
  
  CD
  - Borrow
- Anthology of Australian music - Dramatic vocal music Year: 1997
  
  CD
  - Borrow