Chamber ensemble (2-7 players)
Hineraukatauri
Duet for flute and taonga pūoro
Hineraukatauri was written for, and dedicated to, Alexa Still and Richard Nunns. They gave the first performance at the 1999 National Flute Convention in Atlanta, USA.
About the work
In Māori tradition, Hineraukatauri is the goddess of music and dance. She is embodied in the form of the female case-moth, who hangs in the bushes and sings in a pure, high voice to attract the male moths to her. Her hair is found as a fern, the hanging spleenwort, and her voice is heard in the sound of the pūtōrino, an instrument known only in Aotearoa. The pūtōrino is an instrument that can be played in various ways – as a flute, as a trumpet and as a means of enhancing or altering the human voice.
Instrumentation and scoring
The flautist plays piccolo, concert flute and alto flute.
The taonga pūoro include 3 different pūtōrino — one made of albatross bone and 2 of wood, and both the flute and trumpet voices are used. Other instruments used are a karanga manu (bird-caller), a pūrerehua (swung bull-roarer) and tumutumu (tapped instruments).
The flute player’s part is notated, but the music for the taonga pūoro is improvised; there are areas when the flute player is encouraged to improvise with the taonga.
Scores and recordings
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ, or buy an MP3 recording.
There are several CD recordings of this work.
Silver Stone Wood Bone — CD and digital album
Hineraukaturi has been recorded twice as part of SOUNZ’s Resound project.
Hineraukatauri was also included on a double CD called Sound Barrier, a major promotional project for New Zealand music.
Commentary
Kirsten Eade focused on this work in her dissertation.
The influence of Māori music traditions in the flute compositions of Gillian Whitehead — publication
Ka maranga ngā kapua
For violin, cello and piano
Ka maranga ngā kapua was commissioned by NZTrio and premiered by them on 12 December 2021 in Auckland Town Hall.
About the work
Ka maranga ngā kapua translates as ‘the clouds will lift’. There are 3 short pieces in the work, and the last 2 were written just after the whole of Aotearoa went into Level 4 Covid-19 lockdown in August 2021.
The pieces reflect our changing perceptions through the juxtaposition of ideas or styles from different times.
Score and recording
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
Watch and hear a recording of the premiere.
Manutaki
For flute (and piccolo), clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano
Manutaki was commissioned by the Australia Ensemble with funding from the Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council, and it was first performed by them during a tour for Chamber Music New Zealand in 1986.
About the work
At that time I composed this I was using quite complicated structures to organise the music — similar to the isorhythmic structures used in the music of Machaut and Dufay. These hold the piece together, but you’re not aware of those structures when you hear the music.
Before I began writing it I spent some time at Whatipu on the west coast of Auckland and was fascinated by the swallows darting around the cliffs. Their movement certainly influenced the surface of the piece, and if I believe it was a conversation with Peter Scholes, clarinettist and conductor, that gave me the title, Manutaki, the lead bird in a flock of birds.
Score and recordings
Waiteata Music Press published Manutaki in 1993.
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
Tall Poppies in Australia released a recording on CD in 1991.
Members of the Auckland Chamber Orchestra performed it in 2017 during a ‘composer portrait’ concert.
Moon, Tides and Shoreline
For string quartet
Moon Tides and Shoreline was commissioned by the New Zealand Music Federation (now Chamber Music New Zealand) with funding from the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council for the New Zealand String Quartet. They gave the first performance in Napier on 28 September 1992.
About the work
Moon Tides and Shoreline was inspired by Paekakariki on the Kapiti Coast north of Wellington — ‘home’ during a 6-week residency at Victoria University in 1989.
The relationship between music and environment is particularly strong. The cello’s low repeated D, which opens the piece, is the fundamental pitch heard in the sea and the restless semi-quavers evoke the continuous movement of waves crashing on the Paekakariki shore.
My fascination with mediaeval philosophy and music, incorporating natural cycles, is reflected both in the title and in the compositional process, where magic squares were used to generate the background structure.
Scores and recordings
Hire the parts from Waiteata Music Press or buy the score they published in 1993.
Moon, Tides and Shoreline — publication
It was also released on a Waiteata Music Press CD of my works.
Composer portrait: Gillian Whitehead — CD
RNZ Concert recorded Moon, Tides and Shoreline in 2010.
Moon, Tides and Shoreline — audio
Reviews
‘This is a rich evocative piece that is never merely picturesque, as the title might suggest. It has a lyrical complexity reminiscent of Tippett … [it] achieves moments of great beauty.”
— Tim Bridgewater, The Dominion
‘The highlight for me was the premiere of Gillian Whitehead’s Moon Tides, and Shoreline. … Perhaps there are marine associations to be heard in the score, but, more importantly, one appreciates the work’s cool and eminently logical form. The various musical motifs are inventive in themselves and intriguingly handled.’
— William Dart, Music in New Zealand
Moonstone
For viola and piano
Moonstone was commissioned by Glynne Adams, with funding assistance from the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA). It is dedicated to Glynne Adams and Janetta McStay. The first performance was probably given by Robert Ashworth and Sarah Watkins in 2021.
About the work
Moonstone was written in London and Orkney around 1976 or 1977.
At that time I was exploring the possibilities of using proportions based on the patterns of magic squares, known since the Middle Ages and even earlier, and associated with the planets, sun and moon. In these squares, a series of consecutive numbers (1-9, 1-16, 1-25, etc) are arrayed to form a solid square in which the vertical, horizontal and diagonals all add up to the same number.
It’s not necessary to know any of this to experience the piece, but the title, as well as being the title of a book by Wilkie Collins, indicates the use of the square of the moon — the numbers 1 to 81. This was the first time I’d experimented with that square, which was also the basis of a number of later pieces such as Moon, Tides and Shoreline and Resurgences.
There are 4 movements. The first and most substantial, can stand alone, while the second is scherzo-like. The third, which again can stand alone, has elements of improvisation — the performers are given 9 boxes, and it’s up to them to determine the order, dynamics and tempi of the fragments. The piece ends when one box is played for the third time.
Score and recording
I’d like to thank Elliot Vaughan for his transcription and editing of a fairly complex handwritten score, and Robert and Sarah for their tremendous dedication to giving the piece life.
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
A CD including this work can be bought from all good record stores.
Napier’s Bones
Arranged for 6 virtuoso percussionists and improvising pianist
The first performance of this arrangement of Napier’s Bones was given by Judy Bailey (piano) and the New Zealand Percussion Ensemble, conducted by Kenneth Young, in the Wellington Town Hall during the 1996 New Zealand Composing Women’s Festival.
About the work
The original version of Napier’s Bones was written in 1989. It is scored for 24 percussionists and improvising pianist.
I wrote this version to involve the improvising talents of pianist, Judy Bailey during the Composing Women’s Festival.
The title has many resonances, but the Napier referred to is Sir John Napier, the inventor of logarithms, and Napier’s bones in Africa were strips of ebony and ivory used for calculating, suggesting to me both rhythmic complexity and the layout of a keyboard.
The piano part is almost entirely improvised, although the pianist is given basic material to work with. There are various forms of interaction with the ensemble for the soloist — call and response, elaboration of harmonic patterns, decoration of percussion textures, improvised duets with percussion instruments, free solo improvisation. The details will vary greatly from performance to performance, although the shape of the piece, which encompasses many speeds, moods and textures in its single movement, remains constant.
Instrumentation
This version of Napier’s Bones is scored for piano and percussion as follows:
- Percussion 1 — vibraphone, antique cymbals, rototoms
- Percussion 2 — vibraphones, timpani, 3 triangles, 3 metal plates, 3 brake drums, 3 almglocken.
- Percussion 3 — marimba, glockenspiel, tubular bells, timpani, rasp, bell tree
- Percussion 4. — rasp, marimba, glockenspiel
- Percussion 5 — celesta, bell tree, glockenspiel, 2 bass drums
- Percussion 6 — piano, drum of fluctuating pitch, 6 cymbals, 2 gongs, 2 tamtams, large tamtam.
Score
Contact me if you want to see the score.