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.
Bright forms return
For mezzo-soprano and string quartet
Text by Kathleen Raine from ‘The Oval Mirror’ published by Hamish Hamilton
Bright forms return was commissioned by the Cumbria Quartet, with financial assistance from Northern Arts. It was premiered by them with Elizabeth Lamb (mezzo) on 11 June 1980 at the historic church in Grasmere during the Lake District Festival, United Kingdom.
About the work
Bright forms return is in 4 movements:
I. Allegro molto con energia
II.
III. Ritmico con energia
IV.
It was written while I was composer-in-residence for Northern Arts (UK) and is one of the first pieces I wrote that is concerned with landscape and sea-scape. I was living in Northumberland, on the moors north of Newcastle, very near the house where Kathleen Raine had spent her childhood.
When I was asked to write a piece for the Cumbria Quartet and mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Lamb, Raine’s poetry was an obvious choice, as its northern imagery was very familiar to me.
Although the piece is designed as a single entity, the quartet falls into 4 clearly-defined sections in its setting of the 4 short poems. The vocal writing is relatively simple (rhythmically at least), and the writing for the quartet sometimes reflects the poetic imagery or mood, and is sometimes derived from the formal structure of the poems.
Scores
Buy or borrow the score and parts from SOUNZ.
Okuru
For violin and piano
Okuru was written in 1979, while I was composer-in-residence for Northern Arts, United Kingdom and a Fellow of Newcastle University.
About the work
On one level the composition is a 4-section working out of a complex mensural canon, and on another is my response to the arrival of spring after a particularly rigorous winter which I spent in an isolated cottage on the Northumbrian moors, north-west of Newcastle.
Score and recording
The score and part were published in 1991.
Contemporary Australian Violin: thirteen compositions for solo violin — publication
A recording was released on CD as part of a major project to record new Australian music.
For Timothy
For guitar
I wrote this work when I was living in Northumberland to celebrate the bar mitzvah of Timothy Fox.
About the work
For Timothy is in 4 short movements. The 2 middle movements are based on 2 folksongs — Binnorie, O Binnorie, a Scottish song dating from the 1650s, and a Northumbrian ballad, Buy Brooms, Buzzems. These are preceded by a prelude which is repeated as a postlude.
Score and recording
Contact me if you are interested in seeing the score.
Matthew Marshall has recorded this work.
Hoata
For chamber orchestra
Hoata was written for the Northern Sinfonia, who, conducted by David Haslam, gave the first performance during the 1980 Newcastle Festival.
About the work
I wrote Hoata, named for the Māori phase of the moon when the new moon is barely apparent, while I was living on the Northumbrian moors north of Hexham and while I was composer-in-residence for Northern Arts and a Fellow of Newcastle University. It was a cold winter, and the snow around the small remote cottage, which was not well insulated, lay on the ground for 4 months as blizzard followed blizzard, and something of the isolation and the environment seems to have got into the piece.
Hoata consists of sections built up in a mosaic-like manner, separated by freer sections, which may be cadenzas, or have a degree of improvisation; there is at times perhaps a suggestion of birdsong.
Instrumentation
Hoata is scored for: 121(+bass clarinet)2; 2000; timpani and strings.
Score
Buy or borrow the score, or hire the parts from SOUNZ.
The Tinker’s Curse
Children’s opera for 6 adult soloists, 2 children’s choirs, 10-piece ensemble and 6-piece children’s percussion ensemble
Libretto by Joan Aiken
The Tinker’s Curse was written with a grant from 1YC Telethon Trust for the Year of the Child while I was composer-in-residence for Northern Arts, United Kingdom.
About the work
The Tinker’s Curse was tailored for performance in Cumbria, United Kingdom, involving local schools and musicians. Because of publishing deadlines not being met, the performances were cancelled. The story is particularly appropriate for Northern England or Scotland, but maybe not appropriate elsewhere.
This opera is dedicated to my parents, Marjorie and Ivan Whitehead.
Synopsis
Act 1
A travelling tinker, seeking shelter in a moorland house, is killed for his possessions and his body is thrown in the lake, and his angry ghost, lamenting, promises ill fortune to any who hear his voice.
Many years later a young couple settle in the house. When his wife is in labour, the husband, who wants a son, runs off to fetch the doctor. His wife hears the ghost of the tinker, and when her husband returns, his wife has died in childbirth, but the child, a girl, is alive. The husband refuses to accept the situation.
14 years later, the child, Helen, who has been born deaf, is teased by the local children, and admonished by her father, who considers her useless and lazy. She tries to play with the other children, but it is discovered that she has the ability to find what is lost. She is befriended by Andy, who explains how people should talk to her.
The doctor comes past, and recognises the place where the tragedy took place many years before. Eventually, with Andy’s help, he can talk to Helen, who helps him find his watch, lost 14 years before. The doctor tests her hearing, and says he can give her an operation which will restore her hearing.
Act 2
The second act begins in the hospital, with the nurses and matron. The operation takes place successfully — it’s an operation quite outdated today — and everything is finally resolved back home outside the cottage.
Cast
The cast consists of 6 adult soloists and 2 childrens’ choirs.
Instrumentation
The opera is scored for string and wind quintets with childrens’ percussion (6 players). It can be accompanied by piano.
Score
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
Tirea
For chamber orchestra
Tirea was commissioned by the Contemporary Baroque Ensemble with funds from the Arts Council of Great Britain, and was written when I was composer-in-residence for Northern Arts in the United Kingdom.
The first performance was given by Sandra Mackay (oboe), Joyce Nixon (violin), Penelope Cliff (cello) and Dan Saunders (harpsichord) with the Contemporary Baroque Ensemble conducted by Alexander Cowdell, at New Zealand House, London on 27 September 1979.
About the work
Tirea is the name for the second day of the Māori lunar calendar. Some technical aspects fo the piece — pitch, texture and rhythm — are derived from the proportions and symmetries of the magic square of the moon, of European or Middle Eastern origin, in which horizontals, verticals and diagonals all add up to the same number.
The overall 3-movement form has something in common with the Brandenburg Concertos in its pitting of a concertino (oboe, harpsichord, violin, cello) against a body of strings, but the detail, although largely canonically conceived, is very different from that of Bach. The first movement is tripartite, with the third section a varied recapitulation of the first. A harpsichord solo leads into the second movement, which makes some use of octave figurations, while the third picks up tempo and energy.
Instrumentation
Tirea is scored for oboe, violin, cello, harpsichord and strings.
Score and recording
Buy or borrow the score, or borrow an archival recording from SOUNZ.