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John Rimmer  

Composition 1

Duration: 05' 00" Year: 1968
for horn and electronic sounds

Ross Harris  

Contours

Duration: 07' 00" Year: 1988
for horn and piano

Dorothy Freed  

Diversion for Ten Brass Instruments

Duration: 08' 00" Year: 1967
for concert brass

David Farquhar  

Divertimento

Duration: 09' 00" Year: 1960
for brass ensemble (11 players)

Anthony Ritchie  

Down in the Brunner Mine

Duration: 09' 00" Year: 1995
for brass band

  • Instrumentation
    E flat sop crnt, 4 solo B flat crnts, repiano crnt in B flat, 2nd & 3rd B flat crnts, B flat flugel hn, solo E flat hn, 1st & 2nd E flat hns, 1st & 2nd B flat baritones, Euphonium in B flat (2), 1st & 2nd B flat trbn, bass trbn, E flat Bass (2), B flat Bass (2), 3 perc, timp, bass drm, side drm, tenor drm, tamtam, clash cymb, susp cymb.
  • Programme Note

    Down in the Brunner Mine was commissioned by The Onslow Brass Band in Wellington and first performed and broadcast in 1996. It is a short set of variations based on a New Zealand folk song called ‘Down in the Brunner Mine’. The folk song describes the coal mine on the West Coast, near Greymouth, and tells of the disaster that occured there in the 1890s when about 60 men were killed in a mine collapse. Here is the first stanza: We worked in the heat and the thick black dust, Sticks to your skin like a burnt pie crust, We rue each day the miner must Go down in the Brunner Mine. The folksong tune is announced by the cornets at the beginning, playing in their low register, accompanied by heavy chords in the low brass. Variation 1 features a horn solo, and the cornets return for Variation 2, playing in fourths. Variations 3 and 4 are strident in character and feature short flourishes. The snare drum enters at the start of Variation 5 and the cornets play a punchy idea using repeated notes. This idea returns in contrapuntal form in Variation 7, while the 6th variation inbetween features little fragments of the theme on various instruments. Variation 8 is powerful and buffeting, and uses the theme in canon. Variations 9-11 make use of the theme’s arpeggio outline and the music builds to a climax. Following this, the music gradually winds down in Variation 12, with the theme appearing in inversion against a repeated bass pattern. After a reflective silence, the short chorale-like coda rounds off the work, and is marked “in memoriam”.

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Hugh Dixon  

Dream Odyssey (horn quartet version)

Duration: 08' 00" Year: 1997
for horn quartet

Rachael Morgan  

Encoded in the Ancestry of a Male Bee

Duration: 07' 00" Year: 2005
for solo trombone

  • Programme Note

    This work began as an exercise in the use of L-Systems as a compositional tool, inspired by Hanspeter Kyburz’s Cells and Michael Norris’ research into methods of using these patterns. L- Systems are algorithms designed by the biologist Aristid Lindenmayer to imitate natural processes of growth and decay and can be musically interpreted in various ways. Three different L-Systems were used for this work; the example on the following page is that of the first movement. Here, and similarly in the third movement, each letter of the pattern was substituted with a different musical gesture. Using gesture rather than specific motifs allowed more compositional freedom to develop ideas while working within the set pattern. In order to create a more lyrical second movement, I experimented with substituting pitch class sets to the pattern, rather than gestures. As a result, the musical growth that is evident in the other movements is not so clear. No mathematical system can be adhered to precisely without a loss of musicality, hence the L-systems I used quickly became macrostructural. These patterns also reach a point where there is too much self-similarity and they must be abandoned in favour of musical intuition. The title refers to the Fibonacci series. Many L-systems (although not the following example!) bear a relationship to this in the length of each new generation.

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Robbie Ellis  

Fanfare of the Earth

Duration: 05' 00" Year: 2004, r. 2011
for brass section

  • Instrumentation
    for 4 horns in F, trumpet in Eb, 2 trumpets in Bb, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba
  • Programme Note

    Written for the 2004 Douglas Lilburn Trust Composition Prize competition, Fanfare of the Earth dates from my second year of undergrad at the University of Auckland. The première was by a scratch ensemble in the Prize Gala Concert. Due to the difficulty in scheduling and assembling 11 brass players (an unwieldy task I set myself mostly to prove I could), the one and only rehearsal finished 55 minutes before the gig. The performance was, as I remember, functional to put it kindly; dodgy to put it honestly; a bit shit, to be blunt.

    Losing nearly all of my Sibelius files in a hard drive crash the following year, it was only on paper that this piece languished in my archives (a Bernadino wine box in my parents’ attic). But when Lee Martelli, Education Manager of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, mentioned to me that she’s always on the look-out for brass music, I saw a chance to literally dust off and figuratively resuscitate it. Inputting it into Sibelius again (and reflecting on how that software has changed – what wonders Dynamic Parts and Magnetic Layout are!) I’ve made revisions, mostly to articulation, phrasing and dynamics.

    The piece itself then? I suppose I should say something about it. So…
    It’s a fanfare… and it’s written for brass… kind of does what it says on the tin, really. No complex layers here.

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John Elmsly  

Fantasia

Duration: 05' 00" Year: 1984
for brass octet

Tony Ryan  

Fugue for Brass Quintet

Duration: 05' 00"

  • Instrumentation
    2 trumpets in B flat, horn in F, trombone, tuba.
  • Programme Note

    Originally written for the Linwood High School Brass Quintet, this work has also been performed by the Canterbury Quintet, Wellington Polytechnic Brass Quintet and the Auckland Air Force Band Brass Quintet. It comprises a single high-spirited movement, involving a brief parody of Irving Berlin’s Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better, in a competitive encounter between the 2 trumpets.

    The Christchuch Press review of Canterbury Quintet performance on May 22 1992 noted that this was, “a lively conversation between musicians…The offbeat harmony suited the occasion beautifully…” (Christchurch Press May 23 1992.)

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