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Jonathan Crehan  

Aftermath

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2004
a sonata for cello and piano

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John Rimmer  

Europa

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 2002
concerto for brass band and orchestra

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation

    Orchestra:(1)2,2,2(1),2(1); 4331; timp., perc. (3), hp; strings. (Percussion: small and large suspended cymbals, tam tam, glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone, tubular bells, snare drum, 2 bongos, 3 tom toms, bass drum.)
    Brass Band: sop cornet, solo cornet, 1st cornet, 2nd cornet, 3rd cornet, flugelhorn, tenor horn, baritone, tenor trombone, bass trombone, E flat euphonium, E flat bass, B flat bass
  • Programme Note

    In composing this concerto I recognise two contrasting musical cultures within the European artistic tradition. The Brass Band represents what I call a ‘closed’ musical system portrayed by its standardised instrumentation heard to great effect in its stirring marches, sonorous hymn playing, contest pieces and arrangements of popular and show music, while the orchestra with its dazzling array of many instrumental colours, its flexible instrumentation and its potential for pushing musical boundaries, represents an ‘open’ musical system. I wanted also to exploit the virtuosic capacity of the brass band as a concerto soloist and to celebrate through this work the unity and solidarity amongst brass musicians.

    Europa is a one movement work in five main sections which alternate slow atmospheric music with a fast and rhythmic style. The latter is heard in the many rapid passages which switch from band to orchestra and vice versa. Notable also is the relationship between the band and the orchestra particularly in the cadenzas for the brass band followed by the orchestral brass.

    I was spurred into composing this work after reading about Europa, one of the large moons of the planet Jupiter first seen by Galileo in 1610 and named after a goddess of Greek mythology. Such thoughts were instrumental in generating my first musical ideas, for instance the name ‘Europa’ is represented by a six note melody heard throughout the work. However, my initial thoughts about Europa receded as I explored and developed the musical material. ‘Europa’ was commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia. The work was first performed by the Dalewool Auckland Brass and the Auckland Philharmonia conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya on 13 June 2002 in the Auckland Town Hall.

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John Psathas  

Helix

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2006
for piano trio

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Gillian Whitehead  

Hineputehue

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 2002
for string quartet and taonga puoro (Maori instruments)

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

    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.

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Lyell Cresswell  

Of Smoke and Bickering Flame

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 2002
concerto for chamber orchestra

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    2 fl, 2 ob+ C.A, 2 cl, 2 bsn; 2 hn, 2 tpt; strings
  • Programme Note

    “And from about him fierce effusion roll’d Of smoke and bickering flame, and sparkles dire” John Milton Paradise Lost Book IV Smoke and bickering (or flashing) flame surround Messiah’s chariot “driving into the midst of his enemies” on the third day of the battle against Satan and his Angels. Unable to resist “they leap down with horror and confusion into the place of punishment prepar’d for them in the Deep: Messiah returns with triumph to his Father”. With consignment to “The Deep”, I imagine Satan’s followers must be faced with many conflicting emotions – even nostalgia for their past condition. “Of Smoke and Bickering Flame” comprises eight short movements. The movements are related to each other in pairs after the following pattern: I and VI, II and V, III and VII, and IV and VIII.

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Gillian Whitehead  

Piano Trio

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2005

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  • Programme Note

    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.

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Kenneth Young  

Symphony No. 2

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 2004
for orchestra

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Lyell Cresswell  

The Voice Inside

Duration: 23' 00" Year: 2001
concerto for violin, soprano and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    222(bscl)2(ctrbsn); 3211; percussion; strings
  • Programme Note

    The Voice Inside, a concerto for violin, soprano and orchestra, was commissioned by the BBC and comprises settings of seven poems by Ron Butlin relating to the violin.

    The various movements of the concerto explore different relationships between the two soloists and the orchestra. The soprano is mostly unaccompanied in the first movement, but as life is breathed into the violin it refuses to be hushed by the voice. The first scherzo is a game of tag and catch between the two soloists, with the orchestra acting as a referee. As befits a concerto, confrontation between violinist and orchestra begins the third movement. This grows into a three-way conflict once the soprano enters. The slow movement is an intense cantilena for the two soloists, with, for the most part, light orchestral accompaniment. In the second scherzo flashy violin writing alternates with orchestral outbursts and the soprano’s attempt to reel off the names of virtuoso violinists. The burlesque, with its reference to twelve equal tones, makes some misguided allusions to the Violin Concerto by Alban Berg, and the last movement is a desperate plea,simply asking to be heard.

    Notes taken from Cresswell: The Voice Inside, NAXOS 8.570824

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John Psathas  

View from Olympus

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2002
double concerto for percussion, piano and orchestra

Score Sample
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  • Instrumentation
    2222;4331; timp; 2 perc. ( triangle, snare drum, mark tree, glockenspiel, tubular bells, marimba,cowbell, vibraphone, cymbals -splash, medium crash, china crash), bass drum, tambourine, 3 high tom toms (different pitches), finger cymbals; harp; strings; solo piano; solo percussion ( vibraphone, marimba, simtak, dulcimer, bass steel drums, wind chimes (2 or 3 sets), bell tree, mark tree, triangle, finger cymbals, drum station (4 octobans, 4 tom toms, 3 paddle drums, cymbals (trash, splash, medium crash, china crash, plus a cluster of smallest-possible splash cymbals), hi-hat)
  • Programme Note

    I The Furies – The Furies were avenging spirits of retributive justice whose task was to punish crimes outside the reach of human justice. Their names were Alecto, Megæra and Tisiphone. This movement contains an adapted transcription of a fragment of improvised playing by one of my favourite Greek violinists, Stathis Koukoularis (It appears as a solo for violin about 2 minutes into the movement).

    II To Yelasto Paithi (The Smiling Child) – This is the closest I’ve come to expressing – in a way not possible with the spoken or written word – the feelings inspired by my precious children, Emanuel and Zoe. In this movement is also caught the summer I spent working on the concerto at my parents’ house just outside the village of Nea Michaniona – a house perched on a cliff which looks down on the Aegean and up to Mount Olympus.

    III Dance of the Mænads – Draped in the skins of fawns, crowned with wreaths of ivy and carrying the thyrsos – a staff wound round with ivy leaves and topped with a pine cone – the Mænads roamed the mountains and woods, seeking to assimilate the potency of the beasts that dwelled there and celebrating their god Dionysos with song, music and dance. The human spirit demands Dionysiac ecstasy; to those who accept it, the experience offers spiritual power. For those who repress the natural force within themselves, or refuse it to others, it is transformed into destruction, both of the innocent and the guilty. When possessed by Dionysos, the Mænads became savage and brutal. They plunged into a frenzied dance, obtaining an intoxicating high and a mystical ecstasy that gave them unknown powers, making them the match of the bravest hero.

    John Psathas, 2001

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