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Douglas Lilburn  

A Birthday Offering

Duration: 11' 00" Year: 1956
for orchestra

Bryony Jagger  

A Mother's Carol

Duration: 03' 00" Year: 1977
for SATB choir with soprano and alto solos

John Rimmer  

A Song of Humility

Duration: 03' 00" Year: 1978
for solo soprano and SA choir

David Farquhar  

A Unicorn For Christmas

Duration: 2h 00' 00" Year: 1962
an opera in three acts

Carol Shortis  

An Tuiream Bais

Duration: 06' 00" Year: 2009
a Gaelic death dirge for a cappella SSAATTBB choir

  • Programme Note

    The Carmina Gadelica, known in Gaelic as Ortha nan Gaidheal, is a six-volume collection of orally-transmitted prayers, poems, blessings and other material, collected by the folklorist Alexander Carmichael in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in the second half of the nineteenth century. Carmichael subsequently translated this material, and edited the first two volumes. The death dirge An Tuiream Bais was published in the third volume, edited by Alexander’s grandson, James Carmichael Watson. I have set the first, fourth, fifth and sixth verses in the original Gaelic language.

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Lyell Cresswell  

And Every Sparkle Shivering

Duration: 21' 00" Year: 1999
for piano quintet

  • Instrumentation
    string quartet and piano
  • Programme Note

    And every sparkle shivering to new blaze,
    In number did outmillion the account
    Reduplicate upon a chequered board

    Dante, The Divine Comedy – Paradise XXVIII
    Translation by Rev. H.F.Cary (1814)

    Observe the circle nearest, and know
    the reason for its spinning at such speed
    is that Love’s fire burns it into motion.

    Dante, The Divine Comedy – Paradise XXVII
    Translated by Mark Musa (1995)

    In Canto 28 of Paradise, Dante, the pilgrim, is faced with an unbearably piercing light reflected in the eyes of his beloved guide, Beatrice. He turns and sees nine ever decreasing circles burning and whirling at different speeds. These circles give off sparks that sing hosannas. Dante has seen a spherical universe with God at the centre. He asks why the universe is not really like this, Beatrice tells him that he is now seeing it from a spiritual rather than a physical point of view, and that the reason for the great speed of the inner circle “is that Love’s fire burns it into motion”.

    This imagery of circles within circles whirling, burning and giving off sparks seems to demand some musical treatment. It suggests a number of musical ideas revolving around each other and establishing a smooth relationship, and the warmer notion of love setting these ideas in motion.

    The quintet, which is in one continuous movement, revolves around five central ideas. These ideas are moved around like pieces on a chessboard, each trying to gain some strategic advantage in pursuit of a single objective. Two of these ideas provide the rhythmic drive of the piece. The first, hesitant, but gathering speed and rising in pitch, is introduced by the viola at the beginning. The second, direct and syncopated, is announced by all four strings when they play together for the first time, before it is taken up by the piano. The main source of melodic material is a quiet tune, a love song, that threads its way through the piece, played first by the two violins and viola. The full version is heard in a piano solo played simply in octaves. In another guise this tune becomes the fourth idea, a fast dance that gathers momentum as the quintet reaches its climax. The fifth idea, fast accumulating scales, links the melodic and rhythmic elements and helps provide energy. The piece begins with a piano chord, which becomes a pivot for all these ideas and crops up in a variety of ways at crucial points.

    And Every Sparkle Shivering is something like a mosaic composed by inlaying small tesserae of coloured stone or glass to create a sparkling over-all design. There is conflict between the warmth and vigour of sparking fire and spinning circles, and the coolness of glinting stone and flickering glass.

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David Farquhar  

Anniversary Duos

Duration: 14' 00" Year: 1961, r. 1993
for two guitars

Bryony Jagger  

Ave Verum Corpus

Duration: 03' 00" Year: 1977
for counter-tenor, two tenors, baritone and bass

Andrew Perkins  

Ave Verum Corpus - Fantasia

Duration: 07' 00" Year: 1994
for pipe organ

Anthony Young  

Be Still

Duration: 03' 30" Year: 2009
for SATB choir

  • Programme Note

    Much of my work is a marriage (or balancing act) between the Western art music tradition and my own position in time and place. Along with many forms, I have had a love for sacred choral music from Mediaeval times through to the present, but in not being a Christian, I have felt a reluctance to set text in which I don’t fully believe.

    In reading the work of spiritual author, Eckhart Tolle, I have discovered a new connection with biblical texts. Tolle quotes the line “Be still, and know that I am God” in his book A New Earth, as an example of a universal truth that is at the heart of all religions and belief systems. In this text “God” may be seen as the Christian God, an omnipresent spiritual dimension or the universe personified. This line, and the rest of the text, is from Psalm 46. In setting this text I have found an opening into the world of sacred choral music that aligns with my own beliefs.

    Anthony Young

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