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Ross Harris  

As though there were no God

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 2003
for orchestra

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Robin Toan  

dans la nuit

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 2006
for string orchestra

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  • Programme Note

    dans la nuit is based on a motif of a sustained note and a small range of glissandi notes. The motif follows an irregular rhythmic pattern which creates a feeling of uncertainty. The chromatic possibilities of the main theme have been explored and build on the initial uncertainty culminating in an atmosphere of apprehension and at times suspense. I was inspired to create this work after hearing a violinist improvising on a chromatic scale exercise.

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Christopher Marshall  

L'homme armé: Variations for Wind Ensemble

Duration: 17' 00" Year: 2003

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    3(picc), 3(c.a.), 4(E flat, b.cl.), 3(contra bsn); 2 alto sax, tenor sax., bari. sax.; 4hn, 3tpt (E flat), 3tbn , euph., tba; timp., perc. 1: tamtam, glass wind chimes, finger cymbals, tamb., snare, tabor, tubular bells, crash cym., mba, tri., xyl., glock., sus. cym., perc. 2: snare, wooden wind chimes, sus. cym., 4 toms, jawbone, ride cym., 2 tri., guiro, anvil, tamb., perc. 3: tenor drum, bass drum, cow bell, whip, 4 wood blocks, metal wind chimes, tamb.
  • Programme Note

    L’homme, l’homme, l’homme armé,

    L’homme armé doibt on doubter.

    On a fait partout crier,

    Que chascun se viegne armer

    D’un haubregon de fer.

    L’homme, l’homme, l’homme armé,

    L’homme armé doibt on doubter.

    (You should be afraid of the armed man!
    Everywhere people are saying that you should
    protect yourself with a coat of armour.)

    Anon (early 15th century)

    When I decided to write a work based on this ancient tune I had to balance three competing and apparently incompatible intentions.

    Firstly, given the text of the song and the time at which I was writing the music – prior to and during the hostilities in Iraq – I wanted it to express something of my feelings towards the institution of war.

    Secondly, since the melody of L’homme armé had been an inspiration to dozens of composers over more than five centuries since its composition, I intended to honour that tradition by alluding to some of the musical styles and
    employing some of the techniques of my predecessors.

    Thirdly, some evidence points to the origin of this tune as a drinking song, so it was important that the music should have an element of enjoyment and exuberance.

    As the music progressed I was surprised at the extent to which the first intention became dominated by the second and third. However, traces of the war theme can still be detected in the finished work. Examples are the siren-like opening and closing motifs, the rhythms of Te Rauparaha’s war chant ‘Ka mate, Ka ora’ (if I live, if I die), a ‘pleading’ motif derived from a ‘waiata tangi’ (mourning song), and a brief march and funeral procession.

    The ‘homage to musical tradition’ is seen in the form of the whole piece – that most ancient of musical structures, variations on a theme. Within this overall form canons of all possible types and descriptions abound. I quickly came to the conclusion that L’homme armé owed much of its popularity with composers to its great contrapuntal potential.

    As for the ‘enjoyment theme’, elements of dance and popular song from several ages and places infiltrate much of the piece and power its momentum to a vigorous climax.

    Gradually I came to see that my three intentions for this piece were not entirely incompatible. In my research for a programme note I discovered the following curious quotation with which Pierre de la Rue (1460-1518) concluded one of his two exquisite mass settings on L’homme armé:

    Extrema gaudii luctus occupant (the extremes of joy can ward off sorrow).

    Perhaps one antidote to the sorrows of war can be found in the art and joy of music.

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John Psathas  

Omnifenix

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 2000
for tenor saxophone, drumkit and orchestra

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Ross Carey  

Pastorale

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 2004
for solo clarinet and chamber orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    solo clarinet in A; 1111; 1110, harpsichord (or pf), strs
  • Programme Note

    While the piece follows in a large part a pastoral ideal, darker elements at times emerge within the musical flow. I was thinking about the less savoury aspects of our ‘clean green’ country, the hidden (and not so hidden) consequences of land clearances and modern farming practices which are not in harmony with the environment. This lends the piece an almost elegiac quality, aided by the solo clarinet’s distinctive timbre and a repeated chorale heard near the end of each movement.

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Helen Bowater  

River of Ocean

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 2001
for full orchestra

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Kit Powell  

Rothko Variations

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 2004
for orchestra

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David Farquhar  

Symphony No.3 - Remembered songs

Duration: 19' 00" Year: 2002
for orchestra

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    3223; 4231; timpani; percussion: 2 Side drums, cymbals, suspended cymbals, tamtam; harp ; strings
  • Programme Note

    This Symphony is dedicated to the memory of my wife, Raydia, who died in 2001, and is based on material from my song-cycle, In Despite of Death, a work that she had been closely associated with. The Symphony follows the emotional shape of the song-cycle, moving from struggle and resistance towards acceptance. The first movement is the most substantial, and near the beginning introduces a three-note figure (on horns and trumpet), which permeates the whole work. The three final movements – scherzo, slow march and epilogue – are played without a break.

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Ross Harris  

The Floating Bride, The Crimson Village

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 2008
for solo soprano and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    12(cor)11; 211(bass)0; timp; perc; cl; hp; strings and solo soprano
  • Programme Note

    The song cycle The Floating Bride, The Crimson Village was written as part of my residency at the New Zealand School of Music in 2008. A casual conversation with writer Vincent O’Sullivan led to him writing fifteen poems inspired by the paintings of Marc Chagall. I set eleven of these for performance at the Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson 2009. While the original is for voice and piano I always had in mind orchestral sounds for the accompaniment.

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Gillian Whitehead  

the improbable ordered dance

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 2000
for full orchestra

Audio Sample
  • Instrumentation
    3334, 4331, hp, pf, timp, perc. 3 players (resaresa (rainstick), 7 roto-toms, xylophone, vibraphone, claves, metal chimes, tamtam,bass drum,tapped stones, 5 suspended cymbals, flax bundle, 5 woodblocks, guiro) strs.
  • Programme Note

    In his 1974 collection ‘The lives of a Cell’, Lewis Thomas wrote a memorable essay devoted to the spectrum of sound made by all living creatures. He believes that as well as producing sounds in every possible way to send messages to their own kind, all creatures have the urge to make some kind of music. The rhythmic sounds emitted by all creatures might, Lewis suggests ‘be the recapitulation of something else – an earliest memory, a score for the transformation of inanimate random matter in chaos into the improbable ordered dance of living forms.’ It was this essay, together with my fascination in the rediscovery of the part of Auckland I knew as a young child, that have shaped this piece.

    The basis of the piece is the twelve possible three-note groups which function to form molecular structures – harmonic, textural, gestural, melodic – some simple, some complex, often symmetrical. The piece could be regarded as part of a classical tradition, in that it focuses primarily on balance of pitch and orchestration rather than on gesture or programmatic elements, and places the instrumental writing well within the range of the instruments rather than exploiting their extremes.

    The improbable ordered dance is in a single movement and begins with a ghostly chant-like melody over a drone; this recurs in different forms several times during the piece. A transition section based on transformed sounds of nocturnal birds leads to a metrically free ‘dawn chorus’. The following chorale-like passages and the rapid sections that follow are part of a restless upward-moving continuum which can never settle nor ever finish. The later sections of the piece recycle, combine and finally dissipate the earlier material.

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