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Richard Madden  

Balulalow

Duration: 01' 00" Year: 1989
for unaccompanied SATB choir

Jack Speirs  

Cantico del Sole

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 1989
for soprano soloist, mixed choir and chamber orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    3000;0330; perc, hp, pf; strings
  • Programme Note

    Commissioned by the Schola Cantorum of Dunedin to celebrate its 125th Jubilee in 1988, this work for for soprano soloist, mixed choir and orchestra sets the first part of S. Francesco d’Assisi’s Canticle of Brother Sun.

    The Canticle is an expression of the medieval belief in the beauty, goodness and intelligibility of the created world. It is also an expression of Francis’s own idea of all creation living in a spirit of fraternity and community. This vision of the total reconciliation of humanity with the universe is symbolized in a number of ways. One such is the ordering of the elements in pairs, which combine the masculine and feminine: sun-moon, wind-water, fire-earth.

    In this setting, the soprano soloist represents the feminine principle, and the choir the masculine. A version of the work has been arranged for a smaller orchestra, with organ replacing the strings. The work has been described by one critic as “one of the most exciting and satisfying works for choir and orchestra by a New Zealander”, and by another as a work which “will undoubtedly continue to be performed regularly on account of its accessibility and performability”.

  • Availability

Jack Body  

Five Lullabies

Duration: 14' 00" Year: 1989
for SATB choir or vocal ensemble

  • Programme Note

    Risky, perhaps, to create a set of ‘Lullabies’, if one wants to avoid sending an audience to sleep! But a lullaby might not always be soporific, if we consider the state of mind of the singer, who may be singing as much for themselves, projecting onto the child their own anxieties, frustrations, aspirations, hopes.

    The musical language tries to suggest a folk-like simplicity; the invented languages likewise hinting at distant regions, no. I African perhaps, II Turkish, III Latinate, IV Pacific. In the final movement, the word ‘Calumbaya’ is borrowed from the name of a Filipino friend’s barrio, a name so euphonious as to be irresistible.

    Invariably, mature age is a time for surrendering to seductive nostalgia and sentimentality, the very things one had previously studiously avoided. But the challenge is to find true beauty in the banal, and mystery in common cliché, something I attempted in my several settings of old songs, remembering my dear, departed paternal grandmother, and also my hale and hearty 100 year-old father, whose musical tastes extend little further than old style tunes like these.

    Five Lullabies was composed in 1989 as a tribute to Peter Godfrey on his retirement, and was first performed in its entirety by the Tudor Consort. Musically, they were partly inspired by my discovery of the wonderful vocal polyphonies of some of China’s minority cultures, sometimes characterised by the so-called ‘dissonant’ interval of a 2nd being held to resonate as a consonant.

  • Availability

Leonie Holmes  

Hodie Christus Natus Est

Duration: 05' 00" Year: 1989
for SATB choir, 4 women soloists and two bongo players

Anthony Ritchie  

Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd'hui

Duration: 04' 00" Year: 1989
for unaccompanied SATB choir

David Hamilton  

Poem about the Sun Slinking off and Pinning up a Notice

Duration: 01' 00" Year: 1989
for a cappella SATB choir

Helen Fisher  

Pounamu

Duration: 07' 00" Year: 1989, r. 1997
for SSAATB choir, alto soloist and koauau

  • Programme Note

    Inspired by sparkling waters of Tasman Bay Nelson, this choral work (SSAATB) was originally composed with flute accompaniment, which has been substituted in performances by the Shakuhachi (traditional Japanese flute) and also the Koauau (traditional Maori flute). There are recordings of Pounamu with each of these flutes. The piece’s choral texture uses Maori vowel sounds and a text which is a whakatauki (proverb) from the Waikato region.

  • Availability

Helen Fisher  

Pounamu

Duration: 07' 00" Year: 1989, r. 1997
for solo flute, SSAATB choir

Stephan Schulz  

Pressure

Duration: 05' 00" Year: 1989
for baritone and SATB choir

David Hamilton  

Song for a Young Country

Duration: 04' 00" Year: 1989
for SSAATTBB choir