Music
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