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Neville Hall  

And saw the waves taking form as crystal

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2002, r. 2003
for mixed choir

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    for either 12 solo voices (SATB) or 36 voice SATB choir
  • Programme Note

    This is the fifth consecutive piece for which I have taken the title from Ezra Pound’s “Cantos”. “And saw the waves taking form as crysta” struck me as being particularly musical, purely in metrical and phonetic terms. Initially, it was the phonetic content that was of particular interest to me, because I intended to break the line of poetry into its phonetic components and use these sounds as the basic material for the composition. As the listener will hear, this is, in fact, what I did. The complete line of text, with only a slight modification, can be heard towards the end of the work, but in “slow motion”, spread over some 60 seconds. What precedes this “exposition” is its own detailed deconstruction into some 88 “variations”, which simultaneously break down and develop its material. These 88 events are often layered and interact in a rather complex way, so are not heard as distinct or self-contained sound objects. Although I was originally more interested in the text for its sonic qualities, while working with it I became intrigued by the image of waves “taking form as crystal”. It seemed like an apt metaphor for the compositional process itself, with the fluid and mobile potential of sonic material gradually crystallising into a specific gestalt, interacting and connecting with surrounding material. The water image also encouraged me to follow through with an idea that I had been thinking about for some time – the notion of rhythmic fields radiating outwards from specific points in time, like ripples on the surface of a pond. The composition contains hundreds of these “ripple” structures, which overlap and interact with one another. The resulting rhythms were used to determing subdivisions of glissandi, timbral profiles and other features within the web of “events” that make up the composition. “And saw the waves taking form as crystal” was commissioned by the Radio Slovenia Chamber Choir. It is dedicated to Uros Rojko, with thanks for his support and encouragement during my first ten years in Slovenia.

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Jack Body  

Carol to St. Stephen

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1975
for soprano, alto and tenor soloists and SATB choir

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Jenny McLeod  

Childhood

Duration: 12' 00" Year: 1981
ten short songs for unaccompanied SATB choir

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Jack Body  

Five Lullabies

Duration: 14' 00" Year: 1989
for SATB choir or vocal ensemble

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  • Programme Note

    Risky, perhaps, to create a set of ‘Lullabies’, if one wants to avoid sending an audience to sleep! But a lullaby might not always be soporific, if we consider the state of mind of the singer, who may be singing as much for themselves, projecting onto the child their own anxieties, frustrations, aspirations, hopes.

    The musical language tries to suggest a folk-like simplicity; the invented languages likewise hinting at distant regions, no. I African perhaps, II Turkish, III Latinate, IV Pacific. In the final movement, the word ‘Calumbaya’ is borrowed from the name of a Filipino friend’s barrio, a name so euphonious as to be irresistible.

    Invariably, mature age is a time for surrendering to seductive nostalgia and sentimentality, the very things one had previously studiously avoided. But the challenge is to find true beauty in the banal, and mystery in common cliché, something I attempted in my several settings of old songs, remembering my dear, departed paternal grandmother, and also my hale and hearty 100 year-old father, whose musical tastes extend little further than old style tunes like these.

    Five Lullabies was composed in 1989 as a tribute to Peter Godfrey on his retirement, and was first performed in its entirety by the Tudor Consort. Musically, they were partly inspired by my discovery of the wonderful vocal polyphonies of some of China’s minority cultures, sometimes characterised by the so-called ‘dissonant’ interval of a 2nd being held to resonate as a consonant.

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Gillian Whitehead  

Five Songs of Hildegard Von Bingen

Duration: 13' 00" Year: 1976
for unaccompanied SATB choir

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Douglas Mews  

Ghosts, Fire, Water

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1972
for alto solo and unaccompanied mixed voices

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Chris Adams  

Mass for Double Choir

Duration: 13' 00" Year: 2005, r. 2013
setting of the traditional Latin Mass for double choir

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Christopher Marshall  

New Zealand Advent Triptych

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1995
for SATB choir with soprano and bass soloists

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    A cycle of three Advent anthems with a text by S.E. Murray for ‘a cappella’ SATB choir. No. 2 contains solos for high soprano and bass. Commissioned by Prof. Peter Godfrey and the Kapiti Chorale in 1995, the work was first performed by Southern Consort of Voices in May 1996. By turns tender, meditative, and exhilarating with fresh, piquant harmonies.

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David Hamilton  

Rakiura

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1993
for SSAATTBB choir with alto solo

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  • Programme Note

    “Rakiura is the Maori name for Stewart Island – the Land of the Glowing Sky. The island lies to the far south of New Zealand. It is separated from the mainland of the South Island by Foveaux Strait. It is rugged, remote, bushclad, and very beautiful.” (from the ’Author’s note’ by Eileen Philipp in the published play script Rakiura).

    “Rakiura” is the name of a play by Eileen Philipp. It retells, in the style of a Japanese Noh play, the true story of a Japanese woman found living in a cave on Stewart Island in the late 1970’s. The woman had no coherent reason for being there, simply that she had had an obsessive need to travel far from Japan. Eventually convicted as an overstayer, she was escorted back to Japan by relatives. The play incorporates many of the stylized features of Noh drama including a chorus which comments on the action. My setting of parts of the text in no way tries to re-tell the narrative. Instead, I selected parts of the text which speak mainly of the landscape. In doing so, I have taken several liberties: the selected texts are presented here as though a single entity, whereas they come from various places in the play. Also, I have allocated the texts to choir or the alto solo according to structural or musical needs, rather than trying to retain the solo/chorus divisions of the original.

    The music oscillates between E minor and G minor harmonic centres. It is often quite static although there are two major climax points. Structurally the work is something of an arch, with the opening musical ideas returning at the end.

    Rakiura was commissioned by the Auckland Dorian Choir (conductor, Karen Grylls) with funding provided by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council whose assistance is gratefully acknowledged.

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Douglas Mews  

The May Magnificat

Duration: 11' 00" Year: 1977
for soprano solo and unaccompanied SATB choir

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