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John Rimmer  

Europa

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

  • 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.

  • Availability

John Rimmer  

Explorations-Discoveries

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 1971, r. 2012
concerto for horn and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    3[1.2.picc.]23[1.2.bass cl.]2; 4331; timp., 3 perc., harp, solo horn, strings
  • Programme Note

    A concerto for horn and orchestra, Explorations- Discoveries was composed in the early 1970’s at a time when the James Cook bicentenary was being celebrated. Just as the famous sailor explored and discovered, so to the composing of the work.

    The work is structured in five interrelated sections contrasting fast with slow preceded by a slow introduction and concluding with a slow coda. All these sections orbit a central palindrome.

    The horn is treated both lyrically and dramatically. Its music covers a wide range of pitch and dynamics and the instrument frequently is in dialogue with the orchestral horns.

    Explorations – Discoveries was first performed in 1975 at a studio recording by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alex Lindsay with Marcel Lambert as the horn soloist.

  • Availability

Maria Grenfell  

Maui tikitiki a Taranga

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 1998
concerto for flute and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    solo flute; 022(bass)2; 2200; perc.; strings
  • Programme Note

    Maui Tikitiki a Taranga (“Maui formed in the topknot of Taranga”) was a demi-god found in the tribal myths of the Māori people of New Zealand.

    Maui, the fifth and youngest child, was born at the edge of the sea. His mother, Taranga, thought he was stillborn, and wrapped him in a tuft of her hair and set him adrift. He was cared for by the seaweed until a breeze blew him ashore, where he was saved and brought up by one of his great-ancestors.

    Maui was a great prankster. In one of his mischievous moods he decided to put out all the fires in the world. To bring fire back, he had to find Mahuika, the goddess of fire. He was awestruck upon meeting her, but decided to play a trick on her by taking fire from her fingernails one at a time, until she realised his game and threw fire to the ground, catching everything alight. Maui changed himself into a hawk to escape the flames, which singed his feathers. He called upon his ancestor to send rain and drench the fire, depriving Mahuika of her powers.

    Maui decided to defeat death by journeying to where the earth meets the sky, where lived his great-ancestress Hine nui te po (“Great Hine the Night”). He was accompanied by many birds, and told them his plan to enter the body of the sleeping Hine and so defeat death. The birds sat quietly trying not to laugh as Maui, in the form of a caterpillar, crawled towards Hine. Suddenly the fantail could be quiet no longer and laughed aloud, dancing about with delight. Hine awoke with a start, realised Maui’s trickery, and he was killed.

  • Availability

Gillian Whitehead  

Piano Trio

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2005

  • 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.

  • Availability

Douglas Lilburn  

Salutes to Seven Poets

Duration: 29' 00" Year: 1952
for violin, piano, and narrator

  • Programme Note

    Curnow requested this work from Lilburn in 1952 for a poetry reading at Auckland University College. The event took place on the evening of 9 August that year, and involved a substantial amount of poetry (twenty-two poems in total) read by the poets involved. (Actually the works of eight poets were represented: Baxter read “Canto at Twenty-seven” by Louis Johnson).

    Lilburn’s music was premiered by Antonia Braidwood (violin) and Donald Bowick (piano). One movement was supposed to precede each reading, providing the audience with the composer’s musical impressions of the work and personality of each poet. In the event, however, the order was reversed, which led to some confusion for the audience and some displeasure for the composer. Typical of New Zealand composition of the time, there was no fee to be had for the work. Lilburn even had to pay his way to Auckland for the rehearsals. On his return to Wellington, Lilburn shelved and forgot about the work. It was not until a chance meeting at his doctor’s surgery in 1988/89 that he was reminded of its existence by Lady Dorothea Turner, who had reviewed the first performance. At that point Lilburn contacted the violinist Dean Major to ask if he would be interested in performing it. After some negotiation the composer also determined that he would write a narration to go along with the music in lieu of the twenty-two poems, and (most surprisingly) volunteered to read this himself.

    Salutes to Seven Poets was recorded by Concert FM on 5 September 1989, by Major (violin), with Rae de Lisle (piano). As if to make up for thirty-eight years of neglect of the work, this recording received a Mobil Award in 1990.

    (Note by Nancy November).

  • Availability

Graham Parsons  

Sonata for Violin and Piano

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2012
a four movement sonata for violin and piano

  • Programme Note

    This sonata was written for an accomplished amateur violinist and pianist.

    1st Movement: Begins with a smooth flowing melody over a restless accompaniment. A contrasting second theme is rather more active for the violinist. A third lyrical tune with its development is followed by a development of the second theme. The movement closes with the opening theme.

    2nd Movement: A gentle opening is followed by a skittish theme which moves into a very strict march. this finally dissolves back to the gentle opening.

    3rd Movement: A lively movement with a number of semiquaver, quaver figures, which eventually tune into quasi ‘circus music.’

    4th Movement: This movement opens with a repeated note figure followed by a chirpy second subject. This is extended into a short development before a dramatic return to the repeated note theme, and ending with a final flourish!

  • Availability

Denis Betro  

Symphony No 1

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 1990, r. 2011
a symphony in four movements.

  • Instrumentation
    picc2222contra 4 331 Tp Perc(2) Str
  • Programme Note

    At age 15, during school holidays, I hitch-hiked the length of New Zealand from Dunedin to Auckland with various side trips in between. The sheer beauty and panorama of rolling hills, lofty mountains and shimmering sea entered my soul and stayed there. Sleeping rough in the great openness somehow connected me to the natural wonders that were all around me and this connection became ingrained and part of my being.
    The composing of my first symphony allowed me to relive that life changing experience and the work recalls impressions and emotions that I felt at the time, but not specific places.
    -Denis Betro

  • Availability

Jenny McLeod  

The Emperor and the Nightingale

Duration: 23' 00" Year: 1985, r. 2010
for narrator and orchestra

Anthony Ritchie  

Viola Sonata

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 1994
for viola and piano

Chris Adams  

Viola Sonata for Helen

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2000
for viola and piano