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Programme Note

Young’s Brass Quintet No. 1 was composed in 1980 to a commission from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the New Zealand Brass Quintet. It was first performed (with Young himself playing tuba) in Wanganui and Wellington as part of the first half of an NZSO programme which included Stravinsky’s Petrouchka. The following year the work was recorded by the Quintet for the Kiwi Pacific label, along with John Ritchie’s Partita and Douglas Lilburn’s Quartet for Brass.

In writing this Quintet, Young wanted to composed a more substantial work than was common in the brass quintet repertoire of the time; consequently, it has an almost symphonic breadth.
Availability
- New Zealand Chamber Brass - New Zealand Works for Brass Quintet
  
  CD
  
  $30.00
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  - Borrow
- New Zealand Brass Quintet Year: 1983
  
  Vinyl (LP or EP)

Gillian Whitehead

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 1980
for mezzo-soprano and string quartet

Programme Note

Bright Forms Return written in 1980 while I was composer-in-residence for Northern Arts (UK), is one of the first pieces I wrote that is concerned with landscape (and sea-scape). I was living in Northumberland, on the moors north of Newcastle, very near the house where Kathleen Raine had spent her childhood. When I was asked to write a piece for the Cumbria Quartet and mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Lamb, Raine’s poetry was an obvious choice, as its northern imagery was very familiar to me.

Although the piece is designed as a single entity, the quartet falls into four clearly-defined sections in its setting of the four short poems. The vocal writing is relatively simple (rhythmically at least), and the writing for the quartet sometimes reflects the poetic imagery or mood, and is sometimes derived from the formal structure of the poems. The text, which comes from The Oval Mirror published by Hamish Hamilton, is used with the kind permission of the author and her publishers.
Availability
- Whitehead: Bright Forms Return; computer-set
  
  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  
  $22.50
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- Whitehead: Bright Forms Return; facsimile
  
  Score and parts | Hardcopy - facsimile
  
  $29.00
  - Quantity:
- Whitehead: Bright Forms Return; facsimile
  
  Full score | Hardcopy - facsimile
  - Borrow