Work
In the Rangitaiki Valley
for mezzo-soprano and piano
About
In November 1907, Kathleen Beauchamp (later Katherine Mansfield)—then aged 19—joined friends on a lengthy camping trip through the heartland of the North Island, travelling by caravan from Hastings through to Rotorua, along what is now State Highway 5. At the Waipunga Falls near the settlement of Rangitaiki (sometimes misspelled ‘Rangitaki’) on the border of Hawke’s Bay and Bay of Plenty, she experienced one of those typical shimmering summer days, where the boisterous winds placed the world into constant motion around her. A year or two later, after she had left New Zealand never to return, she would look back on this day and capture her impressions in the unabashedly romantic and joyous poem ‘In the Rangitaki Valley’.
Commissioned note
Commissioned for ‘Child of the Sun’ — A Celebration of Katherine Mansfield in Song
Text note
Text by Katherine Mansfield