Search Music:

violin, cello, piano (some preparation required); all performers required to speak

Piano preparation: the strings between c’’’ and a’’’ need to have a flat metal object laid on top to achieve a bright, jangly ringing sonority (especially from mm 26-37). This/these to be removed by the pianist in the section from m 45.

The three strings F, G, A flat, should have firm rubber wedges between them to create a dull thuddy sonority (for the section at m42), but with a still discernible pitch

At water’s birth is a meditative, ritualistic work, whose sonic palette includes prepared piano sonorities and some vocalising from the players, including whispering, spoken words and whistling.

The pushing out of the boundaries of the conventional instrumental sounds is something I have employed in other works such as the whistling and knocking on the piano lid in small blue for piano and the bell and tamtam playing in Ring True. The meandering sections of the music suggest a relationship with the forces of water, its depth, currents and undercurrents and there is a sense of ritual in some of the chant-like rhythms.

• de Castro-Robinson: At Water's Birth; facsimile  

  Score and parts | Hardcopy - facsimile
  
  $20.00
  • • Quantity:

• de Castro-Robinson: At Water's Birth; facsimile 

  Score and parts | Pdf - facsimile
  
  $17.00
  • • Quantity:

• de Castro-Robinson: At Water's Birth; facsimile 

  Full score | Hardcopy - facsimile
  
  • Borrow

• NZ Premieres 2008 Vol. 1 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• NZTrio: Flourishes  Year: 2010 

  CD
  
  $30.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

Taonga puoro (improvised): poi awhioahio, hue puruhau, koauau ponga ihu, nguru, ororuarangi, ku, putatara, pu kaea, pumotomoto, pupu harakekek, tumutumu

Hineputehue translates literally as the woman of the sound of the gourd, and she is the Maori goddess of peace. The work was written in 2001, at the time of President Bush’s State of the Union address shortly before the invasion of Afghanistan, and suggests the fragility rather than the celebration of peace, particularly in a pre-European environment.

A number of instruments used in Hineputehue are made of gourds – the gourd, which carried food and water, is a symbol of peace. These include the poi awiowhio, a very quiet bird lure which is swung around the head, the tiny koauau ponga ihu or noseflute which ends the piece, the hue puru hau, a large gourd which is blown across its top opening and the gourd rattles played by the quartet. Two other wind instruments frequently made from gourds, the nguru and the ororuarangi, are also used. Other instruments are the putatara or conch shell trumpet, traditionally used for signalling, the pu kaea or war trumpet, a nguru niho paraoa or flute made from a whale’s tooth, the pumotomoto, associated with birth, and tumutumu (tapped percussion).

There is a similarity between the stringed instruments of the quartet and the gourds, in that they are made from plant material, with sound emitted through sound holes. Another link is the ku, the only stringed instrument known to Maori, which is a small musical bow played like a jaws harp (jews harp) using the mouth as a resonating chamber. The idea of ororuarangi, which can be translated as spirit voice (or double stopping in a different context) has had some influence on this piece as in the parallel movement of the strings.

• Whitehead: Hineputehue; computer-set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  
  $13.00
  • • Quantity:

• Whitehead: Hineputehue; computer set 

  Parts - written | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $22.00
  • • Quantity:

• Whitehead: Hineputehue; computer set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $13.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• NZIAF: Gillian Whitehead Portrait; part 2 

  CD
  

• Whitehead: Bright Silence  Year: 2002 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Gillian Whitehead: Puhake ki te rangi  Year: 2007 

  CD
  
  $35.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Buchanan: Late Song; computer set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $16.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Buchanan: Late Song; computer set 

  Score and parts | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $25.00
  • • Quantity:

One winter morning, a short walk from the marae at Waihi, on the southern shore of Lake Taupo, I stood on the shore to watch the sun rise. Behind me, a waterfall lead to a small stream that flowed into the lake, imposing its own patterns on those of the lake. The water was uniformly grey, but as the sun rose, for a moment the tops of the ripples were golden, with darker valleys between, before the whole area was flooded with light. So the ideas behind this trio have to do with the changing perspectives of patterns in water – in the bubbling of streams, the tumble of a waterfall, in the spiralling eddies where stream meets lake at sunrise.

In the opening movement, a group of short themes and ideas initially form a mosaic-like section, which recurs in developed and varied forms around more reflective passages. The second movement reverses the first, in that slow, sustained sections are interrupted by more energetic material, and the final movement draws all the previous ideas together.

• Whitehead: Piano Trio; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  • Borrow

• Whitehead: Piano Trio; computer set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  
  $22.50
  • • Quantity:

• Whitehead: Piano Trio; computer-set 

  Score and parts | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $39.00
  • • Quantity:

• NZTrio: bright tide moving between  Year: 2008 

  CD
  
  $30.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

Puhake ki te rangi, which translates as spouting to the skies is a celebration of whales, and was written late in 2006 for the New Zealand String Quartet and Richard Nunns as a project undertaken while I was the CNZ/NZSM composer-in-residence, living in the Lilburn House in Wellington.


Although one section is based on a transcription of whale song, there is no programme to the piece – no confrontation with humanity, for instance. The guiding principles were the extreme range of whale song, the changing patterns of their song, and the image, given to me by the late Tungia Baker, of a whale in Campbell Island waters allowing seal pups at play to slide down her flanks over and over again until, tiring of the game, she flipped them gently away.


The taonga puoro (Maori instruments) used in this piece are all made from whale bone or the bone from the albatross, the whale’s avian counterpart. In the order they are played, the taonga are, the percussive tumutumu, made from the jaw of a pilot whale washed up on Farewell Spit, a karanga manu (bird caller) made from an orca tooth, two nguru (flutes) made from the teeth of sperm whales that stranded one in Tory channel and one at Paekakariki, two putorino koiwi toroa (instruments made here from albatross bones, which have two different voices, being played as flute or trumpet), made here from the wingbones of a wandering albatross from the sub-Antarctic islands and a young royal albatross from the Chatham Islands, a nguru made from the cochlea of a hump-backed whale and finally a putorino koiwi toroa, especially made for this piece from the rib of a right whale that beached at Cable Bay. Members of the Quartet play percussive instruments – whalebone tumutumu and tokere (castanets). All these instruments were made by Brian Flintoff.


In the score, the taonga puoro sections are improvised; mostly the quartet parts are notated, but sometimes the players are required to improvise.

• Whitehead: Puhake ki te rangi; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $22.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Whitehead: Puhake ki te rangi; computer set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  

• Gillian Whitehead: Puhake ki te rangi; audio 

  Media on Demand | Embedded
  

• Gillian Whitehead: Puhake ki te rangi 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Gillian Whitehead: Puhake ki te rangi  Year: 2007 

  CD
  
  $35.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

Twitter portrays the sounds of birds that I heard in Western Park, Freemans Bay while running my dog. In this heightened reality you can hear a plethora of birds, ranging from small chirpy sparrows and mynahs to large more sonorous pigeons and magpies. Often the exuberant character of my dog slips in as well while he chases after birds. Throughout the piece I have used chromatic melodies and added note chords to depict the diverse pitches made by birds and syncopated rhythms to reflect the erratic nature of bird song.

The first movement has a bouncy feel to it. There is a reoccurring motif played by the soprano saxophone that is present much of the way throughout the movement. The added note chords and syncopated rhythms give off a jazzy vibe towards the end. I imagine the birds to be having a good time despite being teased by my Yorkshire terrier.

I have titled second movement the birds at at dusk. The movement opens with birds twittering which is characterized by flutter tonguing and sustained notes. Out of this comes a languid melody played by the saxophone. As time progresses the melody is passed around the instruments and the supporting notes grow into chords. The movement ends as the birds roost.

An active and insistent character saturates the final movement. The birds are darting around in all directions fighting over crumbs left by school kids at lunchtime and my buoyant companion is never out of the action chasing after them as they take flight. The movement is dominated by florid runs by the entire ensemble and syncopated rhythms that provide an unsteady platform for the pandemonium.

Robin Toan

• Toan: Twitter; computer-set 

  Score and parts | Pdf - computer set
  
  $25.00
  • • Quantity:

• Toan: Twitter; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $20.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Toan: Twitter; computer-set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  
  $20.00
  • • Quantity:

• Toan: Twitter; computer-set 

  Score and parts | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $25.00
  • • Quantity: