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• Bolley: Concerto for orchestra; facsimile 

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• Bolley: Concerto for orchestra; facsimile 

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The Flute Concerto was composed for flautist Alexa Still in 1993 while Ritchie was Composer-in-Residence with the Southern Sinfonia. Unlike the Symphony “Boum”, written in the same year, this Concerto is a generally happy and open-sounding work, and reflects aspects of Alexa Still’s personality as well as her playing. She first performed the concerto on September 4th, 1993 in The Glenroy Auditorium, and subsequently recorded it with The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

The first movement is energetic in style, with a bubbling first theme. This is contrasted by a darker and slower second theme, exploring the lower register of the flute. The music accelerates back to the main theme before heading into a percussive middle section. The flute then presents a lyrical idea that is related to earlier themes, and this leads to a cadenza. A brief recapitulation drives the music to a forceful ending.

The slow second movement is lyrical and improvisational in style, and begins with a solo for bass clarinet. A warm and gentle theme appears, followed by a short cadenza for flute. The orchestra returns with a fuller version of the theme, but it soon fades into anxious repeated chords on the oboes and bassoon while the flute plays nervous, flickering gestures. As the tension dissolves the clarinet introduces a laconic theme, interspersed with little cadenzas on the flute. The music builds to a climax where the main theme returns in a contrapuntal version, again fading into the anxious chords. A brief and mysterious coda contains references back to the opening cadenza, and the movement ends unresolved.

The third movement is like a sequence of dances with different characters, bound together by a buffeting crotchet rhythm. After a flourish from the orchestra, the flute introduces a sprightly theme, followed by a quirky, subsidiary idea. The buffeting rhythm from the start is transformed into a pop-styled ostinato pattern, and the flute plays a lyrical melody above it. This theme was inspired by the composer attending a performance by The Muttonbirds, a well-known NZ rock group. The quirky theme returns in a more subdued setting, the music slows, and unexpectedly becomes a dreamy and child-like waltz. This distraction is swept away by a loud chord, and the main theme returns with renewed purpose, leading to an exciting conclusion in which all the elements of the movement are combined.

The Flute Concerto was recorded by Alexa Still and the NZSO in 1996, on the Koch CD 3-7345-2-H1, entitled ‘Kiwi Flute’. The second movement of the concerto was published in a special version for piano and flute by the Centre for NZ Music, in their 1998 publication Little Dancings: A Selection of flute music by New Zealand Composers.

• Ritchie: Flute Concerto (hire set); computer set 

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• Ritchie A.: Flute Concerto; facsimile 

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• Ritchie, A.: Flute Concerto; computer-set  Year: 2009 

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• Orchestra Reading Panel 1 

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• Kiwi Flute  Year: 1995 

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• Remember Parihaka - orchestral music by Anthony Ritchie  Year: 2009 

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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.

• Ritchie A: Symphony No. 1 - 'Boum'; facsimile 

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• Ritchie A.: Symphony - Boum; facsimile 

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• Anthony Ritchie: Symphony "Boum" 

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• Anthony Ritchie: Symphonies 1 and 2  Year: 2007 

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• Denis Betro: Symphony No.2 - hire set 

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