Sub Navigation

Search Music:

Search for music by typing a word or phrase in the box below or by selecting one or more categories from the list on the side.

Or search for products by selecting an option below, and typing a word or phrase in the box above

  • Scores
  • CDs and DVDs
  • Downloads
  • Education Resources

Thomas Goss  

A Village Wedding

Duration: 14' 05" Year: 2003
a suite for string orchestra with continuo and solo obbligato in the second movement

  • Programme Note

    A Village Wedding combines two different conceptual approaches; that of the program piece wherein images or activity is described by music; and that of the concerto grosso, a Baroque form which both collectively and individually showcases the players of an ensemble. In the latter case, the piece would seem to fulfill many if not all of the 18th-century requirements. After an overture, movements based on dance rhythms ensue, including the Pavane, March, Gigue, and Rigadoon. Yet the material is cast in a mold that is necessarily programmatic. The Overture, with its opening solemnity, birdsong trills, and developing energy, is intended to describe the bright Sunday morning of a country village, along with the excitement and bustle of wedding preparations. The _Meditation_’s searching cadenza and pensive sweetness exhorts the attendants to send out their blessings to the bride and groom, while the Processional calls the wedding party to the altar. The Dance at the end paints a fiddler’s paradise of flying knees and elbows to jigs and reels as the whole village joins in the revelry.

    The piece is dedicated to the composer’s fiancée Erica, and acknowledges with gratitude and appreciation the dedication and excellence of the members of the YPCO.

  • Availability

Lachlan McKenzie  

Alice in Wonderland - a ballet suite

Duration: 21' 00" Year: 2003
a ballet suite for orchestra

Rachael Morgan  

Armannai

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 2003
for string orchestra

Christopher Prosser  

Birds Reply to Bartok: 44 Violin Duos

 Year: 2003
improvisatory violin duos

David Hamilton  

Bound for Canaan Land

 Year: 2003
for unaccompanied SSAA choir

Claire Cowan  

Bus Stop

Duration: 06' 00" Year: 2003
for six percussionists

Thomas Goss  

Cadenza to the 3rd Brandenburg Concerto of J.S. Bach

Duration: 03' 45" Year: 2003
solo harpsichord (as part of a performance with string orchestra), to be inserted between the 1st and 2nd movements

  • Programme Note

    This cadenza represents part of an attempt to reestablish some of the bravura tradition of the late Baroque, so easily passed over in modern interpretations of the period’s music. A case in point is the 3rd Brandenburg Concerto, which supplies a simple cadence as a stepping-stone between its two movements. On nearly every recording of this piece, one will hear the reverential yet unimaginative error of playing the score exactly as written, with two blunt chords executed with the utmost seriousness, then leading directly on into the next movement. Yet what is called for in style of the period (if not the score itself) is an extended improvisation by the continuo player, more than the few feeble arpeggios that are often heard.

    Goss’s cadenza melds some of the muscular, intellectual style of J.S. Bach with other influences from the period, including Frescobaldi, Scarlatti, and a touch of Couperin, blended together with a sensibility and flair borrowed from the approach of Bach’s son Karl Phillip Emmanuel. The overall effect is to evoke the younger Bach in a mischievous mood, alternately eliciting groans and intrigued sighs from an attentive father as the themes of the concerto are whimsically run through a series of transformational episodes. These are in essence private jokes, referring to some of the works like the Well-Tempered Clavier upon which the Bach boys cut their virtuosic teeth.

  • Availability

David N. Childs  

Cantate Domino, Benedicamus Domino

 Year: 2003
for SATB choir with one piano/four hands and trumpet

Sandra Lynch  

Chasing Seagulls

 Year: 2003
short work for piano

Rosemary Russell  

Coastal Sunset

Duration: 02' 43" Year: 2003
for SATB vocal ensemble or chamber choir

  • Programme Note

    One evening driving south along the Kapiti coast I was captivated by the sun setting into the sea which turned an oily steel blue while an early moon appeared above me. The gradual fading of light created sharp shadows in the hills while at the same time the western sky turned salmon and was ornamented with a few wispy clouds. The gum trees at Mackay’s crossing were lit up like flames. I wrote the words as I drove… The piece is an art song for SATB quartet or chamber choir.

  • Availability