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Kenneth Young  

Symphony

Duration: 42' 00" Year: 1987
for orchestra

Andrew Perkins  

Symphony - Der Bote

Duration: 30' 00" Year: 1992
for mezzo soprano and orchestra

Tecwyn Evans  

Symphony - Organ

Duration: 53' 00" Year: 1995
for full orchestra and organ

Michael Vinten  

Symphony - The Elements

Duration: 35' 00" Year: 2010
for full orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    3*2*3*3*, 4331, timp, 3 perc, strings
  • Programme Note

    Written in 2010 this is my first large-scale orchestral work.
    Each of the four movements is based on the idea of one of the four classical elements – Fire, Water, Air, Earth. It also contains an idea of the creation of the world.
    It employs a large orchestra and is fairly traditional in form and structure. Each of the movements has thematic links which unify the piece.

  • Availability

Christopher Blake  

Symphony - The Islands

Duration: 43' 00" Year: 1992, r. 1995
for orchestra

Ross Harris  

Symphony III

Duration: 40' 00" (can vary) Year: 2008
for full orchestra including accordion

  • Programme Note

    The initial musical thoughts for Symphony III came from two related sources of inspiration – the paintings of Marc Chagall and Klezmer music. I had been playing accordion in a klezmer band in Wellington for a year or so before starting the work. I was intrigued by the genre and began writing klezmer influenced tunes for the band to play.

    The simple klezmer tunes are woven into the piece in different ways. Some of them are treated as symphonic themes that are developed and transformed while others are quoted as melodies from popular music. There are passing references to dances, marches, and the use of solo violin and the novel appearance of accordion make reference to folk-like musical ideas inspired by klezmer.

    Symphony No. 3 is in one movement divided into five sections generally alternating between slow and fast music. Sometimes the music is very transparent and simple at other times dense web-like textures emerge.

    Symphony III can be heard as a unfolding journey, following paths whose destination is uncertain or unknown. It might almost be thought of as a saga, a story which is sometimes mysterious, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic but, I hope, always stimulating to the listener’s imagination.

    Ross Harris

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Douglas Lilburn  

Symphony No. 1

Duration: 30' 00" Year: 1949
for orchestra

Anthony Ritchie  

Symphony No. 1 - 'Boum'

Duration: 32' 00" Year: 1993
for full orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    (1)222(1)alto sax2; 4231; perc; timp; strings
  • Programme Note

    The title of this symphony comes from the ominous tam tam stroke that opens the first movement, a mysterious sound heard by two of E M Forster’s characters in A Passage to India when they investigate the Marabar Caves. This is a sound which symbolises the mysteries of life and death, although Ritchie warns us not to take it all too literally. “The echo is only a starting point to a general theme of human struggle. The listener can interpret the music in his or her own way.”

    The first movement opens sonorously in the tonality of G, pulsating chords leading us inevitably to the first main theme, a theme that Ritchie himself characterises as a “muscular, Brucknerian theme”, although the momentum that it engages owes more to Shostakovich. A sinuous saxophone theme is very significant in the central section, as is the lengthy oboe theme in the moderato section. The second movement opens with the sharp, bright sounds of oboes and clarinets accompanied by Cook Islands log drums. The log drum punctuates the movement’s textures and creates a sense of propulsion. A light-hearted dance introduced by string quartet offers an opportunity for a change of mood. The third movement is a lament for the victims of the Bosnian wars.

    The highly evocative scoring of the opening pages was inpsired by the wailing of a Maori karanga, while tolling bells imbue this elegy with a special sense of tragedy. The symphony ends with a ‘grand dance’ which shows Ritchie has not been untouched by rock music. Several themes are brought together in an ecstatic coda, after which the music slowly unwinds over a reiterated pedal note. The opening of the first movement returns, and the final sound we hear is a single stroke on the tam tam.

    Symphony No.1 ‘Boum’ was completed while Ritchie was Composer-in-residence with the Dunedin Sinfonia in 1993, and first performed the following year, under the baton of Sir William Southgate. It has received numerous performances, and was recorded for radio by the NZSO, in 1998, Auckland Philharmonia in 1996, Dunedin Sinfonia in 1994.

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Ross Harris  

Symphony No. 2

Duration: 31' 00" Year: 2006
for mezzo-soprano and orchestra