Music
Search this list of all my publicly available works using the search box, or the category and year lists. Information about each work includes where to buy, borrow or listen to it.
Out of this nettle, danger
For mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet, cello, keyboard and percussion
Text by Fleur Adcock, based on Katherine Mansfield’s writings from the last 3 years of her life
The first performance was given by Anthea Moller (mezzo) with the Australian Chamber Players conducted by Graham Hair.
About this work
The text of Out of this nettle, danger was commissioned by the Literature Board of the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs and the music received a First Use fee from the Music Board of the Australia Council.
It is based on the letters, diaries and other writings of Katherine Mansfield. All the excerpts come from the winter of 1919–20, 3 years before her death in 1923. She was at the time 23 years old, living by the northern Mediterranean coast, as it was essential for her health that she avoided the English winters. This separated her from her husband, John Middleton Murry, who had to work in London to earn enough to keep them both.
The writings express the exaggerations of emotion engendered by tuberculosis, and trace various events of the winter – the visit by her wealthy father, bringing cigarettes and daisies but no money at a time of financial crisis; the dark days of her sojourn at Ospedaletti with her companion who, like her husband, was frequently the recipient of hatred and bitterness; happier times at Menton; and a dream that she had.
The title comes from one of her favourite quotations. ‘Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety’, spoken by Shakespeare’s Hotspur in Henry IV Part 1 and chosen by her for her epitaph.
Score and recording
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
Out of this nettle, danger — SOUNZ
RNZ Concert recorded this work in 1987.
Out of this nettle, danger — audio
Review
‘Out of this Nettle, Danger is intimate, acute, fleet, with a fascinating sensitivity to the deep implications of the text. There is a big range of percussion instruments, used with the greatest economy and power of suggestion so that no sound or thematic fragment is perfunctory, each has a voluptuous, expressive, original shape. The piece moves forward in small episodes, held together partly by text, partly by the sheer consistent quality of the imagination.’
— Meredith Oakes, The Independent
Low tide, Aramoana
For large SATB choir and small brass ensemble
Text by Cilla McQueen
Low tide, Aramoana was commissioned by the Auckland Choral Society, and first performed by them conducted by Ray Wilson, in the Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell, Auckland on 2 August 1982.
About the work
Low tide, Aramoana is a setting of a poem by Cilla McQueen, and is used with her kind permission.
The piece is an evocation of an estuary at the turn of the tide. The poem itself describes Aramoana at the mouth of Otago harbour which was significant at the time because of the threat of the aluminium smelter that, because of the strength of local protest, was in fact not built. For me, however, it was the estuary where the Ruakaka River meets the sea south of Whangarei that was significant.
Instrumentation
The work is scored for STAB choir with divisi, and 3 trumpets, 2 trombones and timpani.
The score is notated in C; trumpets may be in C or B flat. Trumpet 1, trombones and timpani form a central ensemble. Trumpets 2 and 3, as well as forming part of the central ensemble, take up initial and final positions remote but equidistant from the central ensemble, but with access to it.
Instrumental lines that are bracketed and asterisked may be omitted — the lines here only give and sustain the vocal pitches.
Score
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Monodrama for mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra
Text by Fleur Adcock
The first performance of Eleanor of Aquitaine was given in September 1988 at the New Directions Festival in Sydney by the Seymour Group with Jeannie Marsh (mezzo) conducted by Paul Stanhope.
About the work
Eleanor of Aquitaine was commissioned by the Northern Sinfonia with funds from the Arts Council of Great Britain.
The powerful and politically acute 12th century queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of 2 kings and mother of 2, was married first to the monk-like King Louis of France — their marriage was annulled and she strategically married Henry II of England.
Henry, alarmed by her political manoeuvring and the growing power of their sons, had her imprisoned in Chinon for 17 years. In our monodrama, Eleanor, in prison, looks back to her marriages and forward to the time when she will be freed and her son, Richard Coeur de Lion will become king.
Score
Buy or borrow the full score from SOUNZ.
Pao
For soprano, clarinet and piano
Whakatau-kī translated from Māori by Margaret Orbell
Pao was commissioned by the Northumberland-based Syrinx Trio, with financial assistance from Northern Arts. They gave the first performance in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1981.
About the work
Pao is the name given by Māori to 2-lined epigrammatic songs which comment on a wide range of subjects such as love, war, politics or religion, often topical, often improvised.
Most of the songs set here were collected in 1864 from Māori prisoners captured during the land wars in the Waikato area south of Auckland. The couplets are not connected in any way except for the central group, set for unaccompanied voice, concerning Pikeri, a character famous at the time for his escapades evading the police; in this instance, enforced separation during a love affair is charted.
The central section, Pikeri can be performed separately.
About the text
Margaret Orbell’s English translations of these pao, published in her Māori Poetry, an introductory anthology (Heinemann, 1978), are used with her kind permission.
Score
Pikeri was published in Kowhai an album of songs by New Zealand women composers. It is now out of print.
Buy or borrow the score of Pao from SOUNZ.
Pikeri
For solo voice
Whakatau-kī translated from Māori by Margaret Orbell
About the work
Pikeri is the middle section of a larger work, Pao for soprano, clarinet and piano, but can stand alone.
Scores and recording
Pikeri was published in 1993 in Kowhai, an album of songs by New Zealand women composers in celebration of 100 years of women’s suffrage. This is now out of print.
Buy or borrow the scores of Pao and Pikeri, or borrow Kowhai, from SOUNZ. They also have audio of a performance of Pikeri.
RNZ Concert recorded Pikeri in 1995.
Requiem
For mezzo-soprano and organ
Text: Latin
Requiem was to have been performed in 5 cathedrals around Britain during the summer of 1982 with a company of 5 dancers. The dance component was cancelled and so the work received a performance by Elizabeth Lamb (mezzo) only in Carlisle Cathedral.
About the work
Requiem was originally intended for 5 dancers and organ — the soprano was added at my request. I initially delayed beginning work on the piece, since my sister was expecting a baby, and a requiem did not seem an appropriate preoccupation. The successful birth was however followed by 2 close family deaths and it was these which provided me with the emotional impetus to proceed with the composition.
It was subsequently presented with a solo dancer, Bronwyn Judge, at the 1987 Sonic Circus in Wellington. The singer on that occasion was Glenys Taylor and the organist Douglas Mews. It has been performed several times since and recorded.
Scores and recordings
Requiem was published by Waiteata Music Press in 2001.