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Juliet Palmer  

A Bridge of Ice

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 1994
for double bass and tape

John Wells  

A New Zealand Suite (Second Suite)

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 1989
for organ

Jonathan Crehan  

Aftermath

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2004
a sonata for cello and piano

Lachlan McKenzie  

Alice in Wonderland - a ballet suite

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

M Louise Webster  

An Infinite Shore

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2011
Clarinet quintet in three movements

  • Instrumentation
    Bb Clarinet, string quartet
  • Programme Note

    This work for clarinet quintet in three movements was written following time spent in the north of Scotland, during which I visited the remote and desolate places that my family left behind when they emigrated from Scotland to New Zealand in the 19th Century. Although the music is not intended to be strictly descriptive, the image underpinning the work is that of an infinite shore that stretches from the line of steep cliffs at Badbea overlooking the North Sea, around the world to the rocky southern shores of Aotearoa New Zealand. The work draws on the tonal colour and extremes of pitch that are possible in the clarinet, and the extraordinary platform of sound of the string quartet.

  • Availability

Dorothy Buchanan  

An Ocean Between Us

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 2006
for mezzo-soprano and piano quartet

Chris Adams  

Anastasis

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2009
for full orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    3*3*3**3*;4331;timp; perc; hp; strings
  • Programme Note

    Anastasis is an exploration of musical contrasts where chamber music elements of intimacy and social interplay are juxtaposed with the colour and power of a full symphonic orchestra. Baroque Concerto Grosso traditions form the conceptual basis of Anastasis: instrumental divisions within the orchestra, like the wind sections, are exploited, and new instrumental groupings have been created using combinations of individual players across the ensemble. Elements from the twentieth century Concerto for Orchestra form have also been utilised, particularly the focus on the diversity of instrumental colour, extended instrumental range and virtuosity, and the array of dynamic and textural possibilities.

    Anastasis, our first taste of the APO’s resident composer, Chris Adams, proved to be a most attractive score.

    Adams knows where and how to uncover unexpected colours in a piece that enjoys jolting us with huge orchestral shouts in among more subdued, almost filigree passages.

    The second movement unfolds, with woodwind patterning, from lounge-laden harmonies and Adams nods to all manner of musics throughout the piece, right through to its conga-line finale.

    It is an appealing score that deserves a life beyound this single performance."

    William Dart, NZ Herald 7th September, 2009
    For the full article please click here

  • Availability

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.

  • Availability

Michael Vidulich  

Aotea Suite

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 1987
for string orchestra

Juliet Palmer  

Aquamarine

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2000
for piano

  • Programme Note

    The tension between the piano’s percussive mechanism and the fluidity of water has borne fruit in countless works for piano: from Ravel’s Ondine and Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude, to Schubert’s Am Meer. Not coincidentally, these works were among those played by my grandmother as silent film “scores” in the small New Zealand town of Takaka. In Aquamarine watery fragments from the musical past refract and reflect.

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