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“The sanskrit equivalent for initiation is abhisheka, meaning ‘sprinkle’, ‘pour’, ‘anointment’. And if there is pouring, there must be a vessel into which the pouring can fall. So at last we might really give up all these complications and just allow some space, just give in. This is the moment when abhisheka – sprinkling and pouring – really takes place, because we are open and are really giving up the whole attempt to do anything, giving up all the busyness and overcrowding. Finally we have been forced to really stop properly, which is quite a rare occurrence for us.”

(Taken from Chogyam Trungpa’s Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, from album Nederlands Blazers Ensemble: Zeibekiko, NBECD014).

The composer writes: ”Drafted immediately after reading a book by the Buddhist guru Chögyam Trungpa, Abhisheka was my first-ever attempt at writing music with space in it. Until this piece, practically everything I had written was ultra-caffeinated, fast, full of notes, and murder on performers. But having been (albeit temporarily) inspired by the great truths and peace in Trungpa’s writing, I found myself navigating slower passages of musical time, as well as exploring the microcosm of inner space between the even intervals of our chromatic tuning system.”

Abhisheka by John Psathas was chosen for the list of string quartets in 2000 for ‘IAMIC Sounds of the Year’. The composer has also prepared versions of Abhisheka for mixed chamber ensemble, this version performed by Manos Achalinotopoulos, Vangelis Karipis and Nederlands Blazers Ensemble at Paradiso, in Amsterdam in 2004, and for string orchestra (2008).

Programme note from the New Zealand String Quartet’s 2012 New Zealand at Kings Place concert.

• Psathas: Abhisheka; computer-set 

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• Psathas: Abhisheka; computer-set   Year: 2000 

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• John Psathas: Abhisheka; video  

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• John Psathas, RNZB: Abhisheka (part 4 of 4); video 

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• John Psathas, RNZB: Abhisheka (part 3 of 4); video 

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• John Psathas, RNZB: Abhisheka (part 2 of 4); video 

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• John Psathas, RNZB: Abhisheka (part 1 of 4); video 

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• Psathas: Eight Works 

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• John Psathas: Abhisheka 

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• John Psathas: Rhythm Spike  Year: 1999 

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• Sound Barrier  Year: 2006 

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• notes from a journey  Year: 2010 

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• Rimmer: Bowed Insights; Computer-set 

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• Piper: Dance of the Sidhe; computer-set 

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• Piper: Dance of the Sidhe; computer-set 

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Dialogue V for violin and piano was commissioned by Miranda Adams and Ingrid Wahlberg for performance in the Auckland Chamber Music Society Concert Series in the Sky City Theatre, May 1997. Subsequent performances have included one by Miranda Adams and Tatiana Lanchtchikova in the International Festival of the Arts in Wellington.

These are pieces for dreaming and contemplative enjoyment, so I simply state the titles as suggestions and leave the rest to the imagination: my images need not be those of the listener.

• Elmsly: Dialogue V; computer-set 

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The ‘Elgin Marbles’, taken from the Parthenon, lie at the centre of a long-standing property dispute between Greece and the British Government. Encountering these sculptures in the British Museum for the first time, I was intrigued to learn that one of the decorative motifs adorning its carved stone form was known as ‘egg and tongue’. The sensuously rounded forms of eggs and tongues alternate and repeat along the borders of the monumental sculptures, an ancient pattern combining symbols of virility and fertility. The motif is widespread: several years later, walking through the ruined architecture of the Syrian city of Apamea, I found tumbled-down stones of Roman structures bearing this same pattern, rain-washed stones in a field of crocuses. In the music of Egg and Tongue, I play with ideas of patterning and fragmentation, cultural property and style. Familiar motifs repeat, adorn, are lost and take new shapes.

Juliet Palmer

• Palmer: Egg & Tongue; computer set 

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• NZ Women Composers Vol. 1 

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• NZ Women Composers Vol. 3 

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• SOUNZfine Volume 5: New Zealand Women Composers 

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• Palmer, Juliet Kiri: Selected Works II 

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• Mix-up - various works by Juliet Palmer 

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• Egg & Tongue  Year: 1997 

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• Evans: Quartet No.1; computer set 

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• Harris: String Quartet; computer-set 

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• Harris: String Quartet; computer-set 

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• Harris: String Quartet No. 1 (rev. 2002); computer-set 

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• Harris: String Quartet (rev. 2002); computer-set 

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String Quartet No.2 was composed in Devonport, Auckland, between November 1994 and February 1995 with financial assistance provided by the New Zealand Composers’ Foundation and the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa (now Creative New Zealand). The first performance was given at the Watershed Theatre, Auckland on the 10th March 1995 by Simon McLellan and Sarah Hart (violins), Judith Williams (cello) and with the composer as violist. Denys Trussell wrote in a subsequent review (Quote Unquote, April 1995): “Nigel Keay…had his substantial and dramatic Second Quartet given its first performances at these concerts. It is in part a synthesis of the strictly modernist and the freer post-modernist harmonic constructions: Keay is moving away from a music of sustained dissonance in this work towards a music where consonance and dissonance interact. The middle movement, slow and introspective, is a striking instance of this.”

Since then String Quartet No.2 has established itself as one of the composer’s most-performed, and most widely-performed works having been played in New Zealand, Thailand, Japan, France and Germany by several different formations. It was also performed at the 17th Conference and Festival of the Asian Composers League in Bangkok by the Ensemble Contemporary Alpha (Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music), and at the ‘Stella Nova’ Concerts in Tokyo. It has been performed also in NZ by Ensemble Philharmonia (members of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra), and the Nevine String Quartet with recording and broadcast by Radio NZ’s Concert FM. It received performances in 2004 and 2005 by the Quatuor Aphan’s in Paris and Germany.

In three movements, following a fast-slow-fast format, the quartet contains Arabic flavoured melodies over fast syncopations in the first movement, with a slow reflective second movement pointing to the composers love of the medium, particularly as a player having experienced the late quartets of Beethoven. Essentially an abstract work, the quartet ends with a rhythmically driving and brilliant third movement.

• Keay: String Quartet No. 2; computer-set 

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• Nigel Keay: String Quartet No.2; audio 

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• Music by Nigel Keay 

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• Keay - String Quartet No. 2 

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• Nigel Keay: Works 

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• Nigel Keay: Music for Small Groups  Year: 2011 

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