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Nigel Keay  

Diffractions

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1987
for piano and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    1111;1110; tamtam; strings (44321)
  • Programme Note

    This musical analogy to the physical phenomenon of light breaking up is written in a pointillistic style, with sinuous melodic fragments leaping across the piano keyboard in jagged cross-rhythmic dancing. Angular counter- melodies are provided by a chamber orchestra of single winds and brass with 14 strings in this single movement.

    The idea of diffractions is represented in sound by the piano, central and prominent, exploiting an aspect of its technique to which it is ideally suited: rapid changes of direction and wide intervallic leaps with extreme dynamics. The orchestra provides bands of coloured spectra forming an integrated texture. The melody, oscillating and colourful is sometimes pointillistic and at other times it flows into longer continuous phrases.

    Diffractions is essentially an abstract work in one continuous movement.

  • Availability

Gary Daverne  

Rhapsody for Solo Accordion and Orchestra

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1987
for solo accordion and orchestra

Lyell Cresswell  

The Pumpkin Massacre

Duration: 12' 00" Year: 1987
for strings

  • Instrumentation
    twelve solo strings: 4 violins I, 3 violins II, 2 violas, 2 cellos and double bass
  • Programme Note

    Te Puoho, friend and ally of Te Rauparaha, invited the Rangitane chief Mahuri and his people to a feast at Kukutauaki in return for previous kindnesses. Kukutauaki stood in the middle of an area hostile to the Rangitane people. On his way to the feast Mahuri was warned of the danger of entering territory controlled by the powerful and dangerous Te Rauparaha whereupon he replied: “It is the boast of Te Puoho that he will not have his forehead smeared with blood.” After the feast at which a new kind of food, the pumpkin, was introduced, the guests were invited back to Maimea, at the mouth of the Waikanae River, and massacred – most likely at the prompting of Te Rauparaha. This work was composed in 1987, commissioned and first performed by the New Zealand Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Anthony Jennings. It has been reviewed as, “sheer instrumental drama launched on a sea of seething, trilling strings.”

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John Charles  

Utu

Duration: 14' 00" Year: 1987
suite for orchestra adapted from incidental music for the film Utu (1982)