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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.

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• 5 Works by M Louise Webster 

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The title is a line from John Dryden’s Ode for Saint Cecilia’s Day and comes from the end of the first stanza, the 2nd half of which runs as follows:

The tuneful Voice, was heard from high,
Arise! Arise!
Arise ye more than dead!
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap!
And music’s power obey!
And music’s power obey!

Text of the work though is a set of three poems about music, speaking in turn about its personal importance and effect, its use as a lullaby, and its magical and healing properties. The first text is by American poet and writer Marnie McGee who is best known for her children’s books. The second text is by Clemens Brentano, and early nineteenth century German writer of poetry and short stories, who spent much of his later life promoting the Catholic faith. The final text is a sonnet by American poet Elizabeth Bishop who won amongst many awards a Pulitzer Prize, and during 1949-1950 the USA’s poet laureate before spending fifteen years living in Brazil.

Anzacs Remembered is a setting of a verse from For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon spoken each 6pm at RSA’s throughout Australia and New Zealand.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
- Laurence Binyon

• Rimmer: Anzacs Remembered; computer-set 

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Since enjoying 2007 as the Ursula Bethell writer-in-residence at the English Department of the University of Canterbury, I had wanted to thank the University in kind by setting one of Ursula Bethell’s poems. On receiving an invitation from the Christchurch City Choir to compose a work to celebrate the choir’s 20th anniversary I immediately thought of Bethell’s ‘At the Lighting of the Lamps’, which carries the subtitle in brackets ‘(For Music)’. In the first three cantos of this she describes, in an extended musical metaphor, the setting of the sun over the Southern Alps, the beginnings of a symphony of light as lamps are lit across the Canterbury Plains, and the heavenly effects of ‘the music of the spheres’ as starlight illuminates the night sky.

Bethell, one of the pioneers of modern New Zealand poetry, was a long-time resident of Cashmere until her death in 1945 and recorded in verse many such sights, and associated reflections, from her elevated vantage point on the hills.

With the tragedy of the 2011 earthquakes and the postponement of many cultural activities, the Christchurch City Choir’s anniversary for celebration passed from the 20th to the 21st. As a result of the earthquakes, Ursula Bethell’s words have assumed new meaning – the lighting of the lamps can now symbolise hope, signs of a city and its surrounds in renewal: ‘from the deepening dark, sudden a new song springs…’.

I have dedicated this work to my muse, Alison, on the occasion of our thirtieth wedding anniversary.

- Philip Norman, 2012.

• Norman: At the Lighting of the Lamps; computer set 

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‘Baxter Songs’ is a setting of three poems by James K Baxter. The three poems are ‘High Country Weather’, ‘Let time be still’ and an extract from ‘Stephanie’. The first two poems were composed early in the poets career and express his more romantic sentiments. When I hear these poems, I think of Baxter as a young poet in the South Island (Otago and Canterbury universities) exploring the Otago hinterland. I think, too, of the early days of his relationship with Jacqui Sturm and imagine the two of them exploring the hills and mountains. The extract from ‘Stephanie’ is from much later in Baxter’s life. He is older now and life has had its way with Baxter (or perhaps the other way around?). The poem follows a family tragedy and there is a sense of heartbreak in the voice.

• Royal: Baxter Songs; computer set 

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• Charles Royal: Baxter Songs; video 

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In 2010, I co-wrote The Lover’s Knot with playwright Renee Liang as part of the 2010-2011 Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra Composer Workshops, which led to a performance with actor Stuart Devenie and conductor Kenneth Young. Stuart played the role of Walter Bolton, the last man given the death penalty in New Zealand, in the hours before his execution.

Various instruments represent various characters in this story – clarinet for Bolton’s flighty paramour Florence, contrabassoon for the stench of death, and harmon-muted trombones for the justice system. Bolton’s ailing wife Beatrice is represented by extensive solos for the cor anglais. At the request of Lee Martelli, Education Manager of the APO, I excerpted one of these into a demonstration piece for an education concert.

• Ellis: Beatrice; hire set 

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One afternoon Margaret Medlyn and I sat across her kitchen table to discuss poems I might set as the basis of a song cycle for her. She produced quite a stack of New Zealand poems for me to consider: among the items in this pile was a slim, rather unassuming little volume by Alistair Campbell titled Galliploi & Other Poems. Whilst Gallipoli naturally conjures up powerful socio-historical associations for all New Zealanders, I was almost immediately drawn to the second set of poems in the book titled Cages for the Wind and decided to set the last five poems in the collection as a cycle. What struck me most, and still seems so fresh now, was Campbell’s talent for evoking deeply powerful images and feelings in poems of matchless delicacy and subtlety. This understated approach is what drew me to a poem like “Whitey” in which Campbell couches a rumination on death in what appears to be at first an almost whimsical remembered dialogue with a blackbird (the eponymous Whitey) that used to frequent his garden. Most important for me as a composer, though, was the immediately singable lyricism of the poems. I distinctly recall the way, as I began reading it, “Words and Roses” (the first song, and one of Campbell’s most famous poems), began to suggest musical atmospheres and vocal lines unfolding in my mind like buds of roses unfurling their petals. When poems being to sing themselves to me, I know I have found the right material.

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Twice a year we alter the clocks for daylight saving, so twice a year we have to battle with our digital clocks, each having its own particular method of adjustment.

• Parsons: Changing the Clocks - Trials of the Digital Age; computer-set 

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Twice a year we alter the clocks for daylight saving, so twice a year we have to battle with our digital clocks, each having its own particular method of adjustment.

• Parsons: Changing the Clocks - Trials of the Digital Age; computer-set 

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Twice a year we alter the clocks for daylight saving, so twice a year we have to battle with our digital clocks, each having its own particular method of adjustment.

• Parsons: Changing the Clocks - Trials of the Digital Age; computer-set 

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