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Ross Harris  

The Hills of Time

Duration: 12' 00" Year: 1980
for orchestra

Christopher Blake  

The Lamentations of Motuarohia

Duration: 14' 00" Year: 1983
for chamber 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.”

  • Availability

David Hamilton  

The Ripe Breath of Autumn

Duration: 12' 00" Year: 1985
for solo horn and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    2111; 0000; perc; strings
  • Programme Note

    Originally sketched in December 1982, this work remained in that incomplete form until early 1985 when I returned to it and decided it would at least make an interesting exercise in orchestration. The work in its final form is for solo horn with small chamber orchestra: wood wind, percussion and strings.

    The title which has no programmatic significance comes from a line in a poem by American Walt Whitman. The Ripe Breath of Autumn sits rather uneasily in my total output having few stylistic similarities to other works I have written. It is a dark brooking work, and might best be described as a rhapsody.

    Musically the two main ideas are the rising semitone motive heard at the opening, and the first five notes of the horn part which recur in various guises throughout. The work possesses a sense of ebb and flow in the orchestral part, interrupted only by a cadenza for the horn player and solo viola. The work finally settles in D as its tonal centre and ends quietly.

    David Hamilton

  • Availability

Jenny McLeod  

Three Celebrations for Orchestra

Duration: 17' 00" Year: 1983, r. 2009
for full orchestra

Eric Biddington  

Two Pieces for Flute and String Orchestra

Duration: 05' 00" Year: 1989

John Charles  

Utu

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

John Rimmer  

Viola Concerto

Duration: 27' 00" Year: 1980
for viola and orchestra

Gary Daverne  

Youth of Auckland

Duration: 11' 00" Year: 1986
concert overture for orchestra