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Anthony Ritchie  

Symphony No. 2 - The Widening Gyre

Duration: 31' 00" Year: 2000
for orchestra

Score Sample
Audio Sample
  • Instrumentation
    2(2nd doubled piccolo)232; 4231; timp (4-including piccolo timp), 2 perc (bass drum, 4 tom toms, suspended cymbal, large suspended cymbal, crash cymbals, tam tam, xylophone, marimba,glockenspiel, log drum,hammer(hitting a metallic object), poi (suspended between two strings) hp, pf,electronic keyboard,strs
  • Programme Note

    “Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed on the world . . .”

    from The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats

    When asked to compose a work on the meaning and symbolism of the new millennium, I decided to use William Butler Yeats’ famous poem The Second Coming as a starting point. Written in 1921, when the old order in Europe was breaking down, it suggests a revolution or rotation in history (the gyre) will bring about a ‘second coming’ of an important historical figure, and the dawn of a new millennium. Yeats’ vision of the new world order to come is not, however, optimistic. He sees the coming of a ‘rough beast’ with a ‘lion body and the head of a man’, a cold and heartless creature that might be equated with certain infamous and autocratic leaders in the 20th century.

    The ‘gyre’ or revolution is represented in the symphony by a rolling, sliding timpani sound, accompanied by bass drum and tam tam at the start of the work. This idea becomes an important motif and appears at the very start. Following the ‘gyre’, we hear a ‘life and death’ theme that begins like a cradle song (the birth of Christ), rises, and then twists downwards in a chromatic line. This theme provides most of the material for what follows. The slow introduction climaxes with hammer blows, a reference to the death of Christ. From this a trumpet call emerges, becoming a significant motif later in the movement. In the allegro that follows, the ‘life and death’ theme is transformed into a fast and restless melody, beginning as pizzicato on the strings. Complimenting this is a macabre and folky theme on muted trumpet and clarinets, evoking a sort of frenzied, gyrating dance. The music quietens and a lyrical theme appears on flute, accompanied by timpani and harp and developed by the strings. As the music climaxes again, the trumpet call reappears, shared around other brass instruments. The significance of this trumpet call can be seen with reference to another poem, this time by New Zealander Peggy Dunstan:

    Stratagem of Trumpets

    “Then the trumpets sounded
    Not in a flare of pomp and pageantry
    But with a golden lilting laughter

    That seemed to open up the sky
    So that the music dropped like rain
    Upon the upturned faces
    And the enchanted ears were closed
    To everything except those throbbing notes. . . "

    The trumpets distract the listeners, and make them unaware of the advancing enemy. Dunstan’s poem goes on to describe a massacre of Serbs in 1389 at the time of the battle of Kosovo between Serbs and Turks. At the time of composing my symphony Kosovo was once again in the grip of war and atrocity, only this time the Serbs were the aggressors and Albanians were the victims.

    It seems to me that Kosovo sums up a situation common in our past millennium: an endless cycle of struggle for land and power, costing many innocent lives. In the music, the log drum heralds a sort of ‘musical battle-field’ in which the ‘life and death’ theme becomes an aggressive, jagged idea, used fugally in an increasingly dissonant texture. Following the ‘battle’, solo strings, piccolo and harp provide a brief lament for the dead and the music returns to the music of the Introduction. This time it is mixed fragments of the flute theme, and the movement ends quietly with the ‘gyre’ motif.

    If the first movement represents the past, then the second movement is a comment on the present. The title Mi-1st refers to the heavy emphasis on the note E (or Mi in the sol-fa system) as a central pitch, but can also be interpreted as ‘me-first’. Essentially this music is about the natural human tendency to be self-centred, which I believe has become much more prevalent in our own society. It is perhaps one aspect of Yeats’ ‘rough beast’ that hinders our progress. There are three main ideas in this presto movement. The first is a savage chromatic theme that encircles the note E, played initially on strings. It is immediately followed by a vigorous, syncopated theme on strings and winds. As a contrast, the harp accompanies a quieter, smoother theme on the violins, which also includes the twisting, chromatic motif from the first movement. In the middle, the music becomes increasingly chaotic until a climax on C is reached, with hope for resolution to the discords. However, the music slips into the key of B, and the strings play a restless, anxious version of the contrast theme. The frenetic energy of the first part gradually dissipats, and the movement collapses into a web of solo violins. The ‘gyre’ motif has the final say.

    There are a number of themes in the third movement, but all evolve in some way or other from the constantly twisting, turning melodic line that appears at the start. Used in close canon, this melody represents the intertwining DNA molecule, and hence the title of the movement, Double Helix. Discovered recently in our history, genetics are sure to have a highly significant role in the future. This music looks forward with the hope that genetics will be used in a positive way. It also acknowledges that we carry with us the characteristics of previous generations (covering a whole millennium and more!), and that the future will be significantly shaped by these characteristics. At the same time we need to learn from the hard lessons of previous generations in order to make progress.

    Consequently, the symphony has an optimistic and celebratory end, which is tempered by a sense of warning. In the coda, the threads of Double Helix motifs are combined with a return of the main theme from the first movement, played on full brass.

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Helen Fisher   Ngapo Wehi  

Tete Kura (Fern Frond)

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2000
bicultural work for solo soprano and tenor, choir and kapahaka

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    Karanga, haka, waiata Tangi, Poi +SATB choral, guitar, soprano and tenor soloists
  • Programme Note

    The title “Tete Kura” represents “fern frond” [from the Maori saying :“Mate atu he tetekura, ara mai he tetekura”, and this is a work about journey and growth dedicated to the Youth of New Zealand. “Tete Kura” takes the shape of a “Hohou Rongo”, a process of reconciliation, where issues of pain and injustice are brought into the open, in order to restore people’s inner dignity and to bring about true peace. It opens with an expression of te taha wairua of two Aotearoa cultures (Karanga and Gregorian Chant “Veni Sancte Spiritus”), then a journey away from te taha wairua and te taha aroha towards greed and materialism (Corporate Beat, Haka). This leads to experiences of pain, confusion and abuse (I Crave That Place, Waiata Tangi ), out of which come insights, hope and a sense of self-worth ( Kia Hoatu He Tumanaako, Karakia ki te Wairua Tapu), to embrace energetically and enthusiastically the questions and challenges of the new millenium : about individuals-in-community, and social and cultural values based on te aroha and te taha wairua (Nga Porowhita Aroha). “Tete Kura” is a bicultural, collaborative composition for choir, kapa haka, kai-karanga and solo soprano and tenor. The music was composed by Helen Fisher, Ngapo and Pimia Wehi and Taru mai-i-tawhiti Kerehoma. The lyrics were written by Ngapo and Pimia Wehi, John Greally, Oriini Kaipara, Helen Fisher, as well as including some biblical extracts. “Tete Kura” was performed by Te Waka Huia and the New Zealand Youth Choir for the Wellington Youth Arts 2000 Festival, being funded by a project grant from Creative New Zealand Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa.

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Gillian Whitehead  

the improbable ordered dance

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 2000
for full orchestra

Audio Sample
  • Instrumentation
    3334, 4331, hp, pf, timp, perc. 3 players (resaresa (rainstick), 7 roto-toms, xylophone, vibraphone, claves, metal chimes, tamtam,bass drum,tapped stones, 5 suspended cymbals, flax bundle, 5 woodblocks, guiro) strs.
  • Programme Note

    In his 1974 collection ‘The lives of a Cell’, Lewis Thomas wrote a memorable essay devoted to the spectrum of sound made by all living creatures. He believes that as well as producing sounds in every possible way to send messages to their own kind, all creatures have the urge to make some kind of music. The rhythmic sounds emitted by all creatures might, Lewis suggests ‘be the recapitulation of something else – an earliest memory, a score for the transformation of inanimate random matter in chaos into the improbable ordered dance of living forms.’ It was this essay, together with my fascination in the rediscovery of the part of Auckland I knew as a young child, that have shaped this piece.

    The basis of the piece is the twelve possible three-note groups which function to form molecular structures – harmonic, textural, gestural, melodic – some simple, some complex, often symmetrical. The piece could be regarded as part of a classical tradition, in that it focuses primarily on balance of pitch and orchestration rather than on gesture or programmatic elements, and places the instrumental writing well within the range of the instruments rather than exploiting their extremes.

    The improbable ordered dance is in a single movement and begins with a ghostly chant-like melody over a drone; this recurs in different forms several times during the piece. A transition section based on transformed sounds of nocturnal birds leads to a metrically free ‘dawn chorus’. The following chorale-like passages and the rapid sections that follow are part of a restless upward-moving continuum which can never settle nor ever finish. The later sections of the piece recycle, combine and finally dissipate the earlier material.

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Pepe Becker  

Virgo One

Duration: 04' 00" Year: 2000
For vocal quartet (SATB)

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