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(1)32(+ca)3(incl E-flat and bs-cl)3(1);4331;3perc, timp,pf/cel;strs and solo soprano

• Kenneth Young - orchestral music  Year: 1998 

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(2)33(2)3(2)3(1);4431;3perc,timp,hp,pf;strs.

A full length symphony for large orchestra in three movements. It takes its title from the sequence of three sonnets The Islands by the New Zealand poet Charles Brasch. The music mirrors the unsettled air of the poetry and contrasts violence with delicacy and beauty as a metaphor for our times.

• Blake: Symphony - The Islands; computer-set 

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• Christopher Blake: The Islands  Year: 2002 

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The initial musical thoughts for Symphony III came from two related sources of inspiration – the paintings of Marc Chagall and Klezmer music. I had been playing accordion in a klezmer band in Wellington for a year or so before starting the work. I was intrigued by the genre and began writing klezmer influenced tunes for the band to play.

The simple klezmer tunes are woven into the piece in different ways. Some of them are treated as symphonic themes that are developed and transformed while others are quoted as melodies from popular music. There are passing references to dances, marches, and the use of solo violin and the novel appearance of accordion make reference to folk-like musical ideas inspired by klezmer.

Symphony No. 3 is in one movement divided into five sections generally alternating between slow and fast music. Sometimes the music is very transparent and simple at other times dense web-like textures emerge.

Symphony III can be heard as a unfolding journey, following paths whose destination is uncertain or unknown. It might almost be thought of as a saga, a story which is sometimes mysterious, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic but, I hope, always stimulating to the listener’s imagination.

Ross Harris

• Harris: Symphony III; computer-set 

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• Harris: Symphony III; computer-set 

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• NZ Premieres July 2008 to June 2009 Vol. 2 

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• Ross Harris: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3  Year: 2012 

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2222; 4330; timp; strs.

• Lilburn: Symphony No. 1; facsimile 

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• Lilburn: Symphony No. 1 

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• Douglas Lilburn: The Three Symphonies  Year: 1968 

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• Lilburn: Symphony No. 1 and other works  Year: 1986 

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• Lilburn: Three Symphonies  Year: 1993 

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• Lilburn: The Three Symphonies  Year: 2001 

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(1)222(1)alto sax2; 4231; perc; timp; strings

The title of this symphony comes from the ominous tam tam stroke that opens the first movement, a mysterious sound heard by two of E M Forster’s characters in A Passage to India when they investigate the Marabar Caves. This is a sound which symbolises the mysteries of life and death, although Ritchie warns us not to take it all too literally. “The echo is only a starting point to a general theme of human struggle. The listener can interpret the music in his or her own way.”

The first movement opens sonorously in the tonality of G, pulsating chords leading us inevitably to the first main theme, a theme that Ritchie himself characterises as a “muscular, Brucknerian theme”, although the momentum that it engages owes more to Shostakovich. A sinuous saxophone theme is very significant in the central section, as is the lengthy oboe theme in the moderato section. The second movement opens with the sharp, bright sounds of oboes and clarinets accompanied by Cook Islands log drums. The log drum punctuates the movement’s textures and creates a sense of propulsion. A light-hearted dance introduced by string quartet offers an opportunity for a change of mood. The third movement is a lament for the victims of the Bosnian wars.

The highly evocative scoring of the opening pages was inpsired by the wailing of a Maori karanga, while tolling bells imbue this elegy with a special sense of tragedy. The symphony ends with a ‘grand dance’ which shows Ritchie has not been untouched by rock music. Several themes are brought together in an ecstatic coda, after which the music slowly unwinds over a reiterated pedal note. The opening of the first movement returns, and the final sound we hear is a single stroke on the tam tam.

Symphony No.1 ‘Boum’ was completed while Ritchie was Composer-in-residence with the Dunedin Sinfonia in 1993, and first performed the following year, under the baton of Sir William Southgate. It has received numerous performances, and was recorded for radio by the NZSO, in 1998, Auckland Philharmonia in 1996, Dunedin Sinfonia in 1994.

• Ritchie A: Symphony No. 1 - 'Boum'; facsimile 

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• Ritchie A.: Symphony - Boum; facsimile 

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• Anthony Ritchie: Symphony "Boum" 

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• Anthony Ritchie: Symphonies 1 and 2  Year: 2007 

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2(2nd doubled piccolo)232; 4231; timp (4-including piccolo timp), 2 perc (bass drum, 4 tom toms, suspended cymbal, large suspended cymbal, crash cymbals, tam tam, xylophone, marimba,glockenspiel, log drum,hammer(hitting a metallic object), poi (suspended between two strings) hp, pf,electronic keyboard,strs

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed on the world . . .”

from The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats

When asked to compose a work on the meaning and symbolism of the new millennium, I decided to use William Butler Yeats’ famous poem The Second Coming as a starting point. Written in 1921, when the old order in Europe was breaking down, it suggests a revolution or rotation in history (the gyre) will bring about a ‘second coming’ of an important historical figure, and the dawn of a new millennium. Yeats’ vision of the new world order to come is not, however, optimistic. He sees the coming of a ‘rough beast’ with a ‘lion body and the head of a man’, a cold and heartless creature that might be equated with certain infamous and autocratic leaders in the 20th century.

The ‘gyre’ or revolution is represented in the symphony by a rolling, sliding timpani sound, accompanied by bass drum and tam tam at the start of the work. This idea becomes an important motif and appears at the very start. Following the ‘gyre’, we hear a ‘life and death’ theme that begins like a cradle song (the birth of Christ), rises, and then twists downwards in a chromatic line. This theme provides most of the material for what follows. The slow introduction climaxes with hammer blows, a reference to the death of Christ. From this a trumpet call emerges, becoming a significant motif later in the movement. In the allegro that follows, the ‘life and death’ theme is transformed into a fast and restless melody, beginning as pizzicato on the strings. Complimenting this is a macabre and folky theme on muted trumpet and clarinets, evoking a sort of frenzied, gyrating dance. The music quietens and a lyrical theme appears on flute, accompanied by timpani and harp and developed by the strings. As the music climaxes again, the trumpet call reappears, shared around other brass instruments. The significance of this trumpet call can be seen with reference to another poem, this time by New Zealander Peggy Dunstan:

Stratagem of Trumpets

“Then the trumpets sounded
Not in a flare of pomp and pageantry
But with a golden lilting laughter

That seemed to open up the sky
So that the music dropped like rain
Upon the upturned faces
And the enchanted ears were closed
To everything except those throbbing notes. . . "

The trumpets distract the listeners, and make them unaware of the advancing enemy. Dunstan’s poem goes on to describe a massacre of Serbs in 1389 at the time of the battle of Kosovo between Serbs and Turks. At the time of composing my symphony Kosovo was once again in the grip of war and atrocity, only this time the Serbs were the aggressors and Albanians were the victims.

It seems to me that Kosovo sums up a situation common in our past millennium: an endless cycle of struggle for land and power, costing many innocent lives. In the music, the log drum heralds a sort of ‘musical battle-field’ in which the ‘life and death’ theme becomes an aggressive, jagged idea, used fugally in an increasingly dissonant texture. Following the ‘battle’, solo strings, piccolo and harp provide a brief lament for the dead and the music returns to the music of the Introduction. This time it is mixed fragments of the flute theme, and the movement ends quietly with the ‘gyre’ motif.

If the first movement represents the past, then the second movement is a comment on the present. The title Mi-1st refers to the heavy emphasis on the note E (or Mi in the sol-fa system) as a central pitch, but can also be interpreted as ‘me-first’. Essentially this music is about the natural human tendency to be self-centred, which I believe has become much more prevalent in our own society. It is perhaps one aspect of Yeats’ ‘rough beast’ that hinders our progress. There are three main ideas in this presto movement. The first is a savage chromatic theme that encircles the note E, played initially on strings. It is immediately followed by a vigorous, syncopated theme on strings and winds. As a contrast, the harp accompanies a quieter, smoother theme on the violins, which also includes the twisting, chromatic motif from the first movement. In the middle, the music becomes increasingly chaotic until a climax on C is reached, with hope for resolution to the discords. However, the music slips into the key of B, and the strings play a restless, anxious version of the contrast theme. The frenetic energy of the first part gradually dissipats, and the movement collapses into a web of solo violins. The ‘gyre’ motif has the final say.

There are a number of themes in the third movement, but all evolve in some way or other from the constantly twisting, turning melodic line that appears at the start. Used in close canon, this melody represents the intertwining DNA molecule, and hence the title of the movement, Double Helix. Discovered recently in our history, genetics are sure to have a highly significant role in the future. This music looks forward with the hope that genetics will be used in a positive way. It also acknowledges that we carry with us the characteristics of previous generations (covering a whole millennium and more!), and that the future will be significantly shaped by these characteristics. At the same time we need to learn from the hard lessons of previous generations in order to make progress.

Consequently, the symphony has an optimistic and celebratory end, which is tempered by a sense of warning. In the coda, the threads of Double Helix motifs are combined with a return of the main theme from the first movement, played on full brass.

• Ritchie A.: Symphony No.2 The Widening Gyre; Computer Set 

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• Ritchie A.: Symphony No.2 The Widening Gyre; computer-set 

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• Ritchie A.: Mi-1st 

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• Ritchie A.: Symphony No.2 (The Widening Gyre)  Year: 2000 

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• Anthony Ritchie: Symphonies 1 and 2  Year: 2007 

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(1)33(1)3(1)3(1);4331;timp,perc, pf,hp;strs.

• Edwin Carr: Three Orchestral Works  Year: 1987 

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Symphony No. 4 is dedicated to the memory of singer, composer and poet Mahinarangi Tocker, who died in tragic circumstances three years ago. The symphony has five sections linked by bell sounds that ’ring the changes’. Each section quotes a fragment of one of Mahinarangi’s songs and is also, in the score, headed by one or two lines of her poetry.

Section One (from 0:00):
‘the sea mimics a thousand applauding kanuka’

Section Two (from 5:50):
’I’m happy, dressed for laughter,
Cave me wild under tonight’s moon.’

Section Three (from 11:36):
‘The window fogs
to track my finger
smudge my eyes in mist
in questions asked of beauty.’

Section Four (from 18:53):
’I’m the only one turning,
The world has stopped.’

Section Five (from 22:31):
‘no sky in her day
no clouds below her feet
No body to shroud her, in linen
of earth’s flax-woven warmth"

These lines were taken from emails Mahinarangi sent to the composer during their collaborations and discussions about music.

• Harris: Symphony no. 4 (To the memory of Mahinarangi Tocker); computer set 

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• Harris: Symphony no. 4 (To the memory of Mahinarangi Tocker); computer set 

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• Ross Harris: Symphony no. 4 (To the memory of Mahinarangi Tocker) 

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• Ross Harris: Symphony no. 4 (To the memory of Mahinarangi Tocker) 

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3 (piccolo) 2 (2nd oboe doubling Cor Anglais) 3 (bass clarinet) 2; 4331; timpani; 3 percussion; harp; piano; strings

• Norris: Symphony No.1 the mountains...; computer 

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• Norris: Symphony No.1 

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