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In 1909 Alice Adcock, a lively and adventurous young woman from Manchester, was on her way to New Zealand. She was 23, and had recently developed TB, for which there was then no cure. Somehow she persuaded her widowed father to let her travel alone to the other side of the world in case a healthy climate would save her life. (It worked – she lived for another 50 years). The family kept her entertaining letter describing shipboard life, and a few postcards from her have also survived, but most of what we know about her time in New Zealand comes from her father’s letters to her, of which he kept copies, or from family tradition. On her arrival in New Zealand, Alice went into service, travelling widely, much to the consternation of her father. As housekeeper (and the only woman) on a farm in Makarora (a remote settlement on Lake Wanaka) she became pregnant to an unknown man, but was ‘rescued’ by marriage to a local farmer, Charles Pipson, shortly before the birth of her daughter. In 1911, her beloved father died; in 1912, Alice and Charles had a son and the following year, pregnant again, Alice took her children back to England to visit her family. Tragically, while she was away, her husband died suddenly of typhoid fever. Alice hurried back to Makarora to claim her inheritance, but left the two babies with her brother Sam and his wife (who were shortly to emigrate to New Zealand) and took only her eldest child, the illegitimate one, with her. This outraged her sisters-in-law, who saw it as an insult to their dead brother; they sent her away from the farm empty-handed. Once again she had to take a housekeeping job, this time in the North Island. In 1914, Alice and her brother’s family met up again, and Alice began a new life. (Fleur Adcock – abridged) The music of Alice is text-driven, ranging between a language at times extremely simple, as was the basic musical language of the settlers, and at times quite complex, evoking a storm at sea, or the unease of the settlers in a new environment, or Alice’s reaction to the problems which beset her. The piece is held together by various referential motifs. The initial idea, which perhaps suggests the instability of the sea, is also present in the bell-like sounds marking Charles’ death, music associated with a storm at sea is later associated with mental stress, while music suggestive of the movement of shipboard lice later underlies Alice’s traumatic encounter with her sisters-in-law.

There are eight sections, which often merge into one another: 1. in a letter to her father, Alice describes shipboard life; 2. in New Zealand, she compares her past life and hopes for the future; 3. a dialogue between father and daughter, expressed through their letters; 4. in Makarora, Alice discovers she is pregnant; 5. Alice hears of her father’s death; 6. in England, she learns of her husband’s death; 7. back in Makarora, Alice is turned away by her sisters-in-law; 8. turning her back on the South Island, Alice looks forward to her new life with her brother’s family in the north.

While writing this piece, I was drawn again and again into the thought that, although this is a true story, set in a particular place at a certain time, it has the resonances of a universal myth, known to all of us who live here. Our forebears, or we ourselves, have crossed the seas to begin a new life, with unforeseen and unimaginable difficulties and felicities, whether ten years, a century or a millennium or so ago.

• Whitehead: Alice; computer-set 

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• Whitehead: Alice; computer-set 

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• Whitehead: Alice; computer-set 

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• Gillian Whitehead: Alice; audio 

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• Whitehead: Quintet and Alice  

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• Gillian Whitehead: Alice 

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• Cresswell: Canterbury Rhymes; computer-set 

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• Jagger: Colours; facsimile 

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• Whitehead: Eleanor of Aquitaine; facsimile 

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• Whitehead: Eleanor of Aquitaine; facsimile 

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This work for narrator, tenor and symphony orchestra highlights the impact on nature of man’s questionable progress. This idea is taken directly from Hone Tuwhare’s poem The Sea! To The Mountains! To The River which is the text for the soloist. Evolution is one continuous movement interspersed with nine vocal sections.

• Hulford: Evolution; facsimile 

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• Hulford: Evolution; facsimile 

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• Perkins: Symphony 'Der Bote'; facsimile 

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• Perkins: Symphony 'Der Bote'; facsimile 

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Described as “often beautiful and sometimes frightening” (NZ Listener), Ross Harris’s Symphony No 2 is a setting of poems on the subject of New Zealand soldiers shot for desertion in World War One. Writer Vincent O’Sullivan’s deeply felt descriptions of violence, love and tragedy are reflected in a moving and dramatic score.

• Harris: Symphony No. 2; computer-set 

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• Ross Harris: Symphony No. 2 

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• Ross Harris: Symphony No. 2 

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• New Zealand Premieres Volume 2 

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

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The thing that struck me about Charm when I first read it, was the wonderful concept of the spirit of the land – te wairua o te whenua. The land is our mother, she cares for all of her children. We have all at some point in time been a stranger to this land, and as visitors, we have all been welcomed by her.

Charm is a poem from the mid 19th century, a time when all Europeans were recent visitors to the land. It is likely, however that this poem was a Maori charm originally, translated into English by settlers, suggesting that Maori also felt the same way about Aotearoa.

We now live in a unique multi-cultural society. Our many and varied contemporary art forms reflect this fact, and display something that could only be created here. This piece is a recognition of the similarities and differences of all of the cultures of New Zealand. It is a musical analogy to my idea that cultures can co-exist without overshadowing or changing one other. And finally, it is a musical celebration that we all have ended up here on the same soil.

Gareth Farr

• Farr: Te Papa; computer-set 

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• Gareth Farr: Ruaumoko 

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• Gareth Farr: Te Papa  Year: 1998 

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• Gareth Farr: From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs  Year: 2009 

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Commissioned in 1985 by the Wellington Regional Orchestra (now the Vector Wellington Orchestra) for a family concert under Sir William Southgate, as part of the 1986 New Zealand International Festival of the Arts in Wellington, The Emperor and the Nightingale has subsequently been performed by a number of New Zealand regional and youth orchestras.

• McLeod: The Emperor and the Nightingale; computer-set 

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• McLeod: The Emperor and the Nightingale; computer-set 

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• McLeod: The Emperor and the Nightingale; computer-set 

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• McLeod: The Emperor and the Nightingale; computer-set 

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• Jenny McLeod: The Emperor and the Nightingale 

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A commission for 1986, the Year of Peace, this work for tenor and orchestra takes its text from the writings of conscientious objector Archibald Baxter. The work is named after a novel by the pacifist Ian Hamilton which takes its title from a line of T S Eliot. Recorded by New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

• Blake: Till Human Voices Wake Us; facsimile 

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• Works for Orchestra: Young, Harris, Blake, Ritchie 

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• Blake: Music by Christopher Blake; cassette 

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• New Zealand Composers  Year: 1995 

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