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.
Lullaby for Matthew
For piano
I wrote this lullaby to celebrate the birth of my nephew, Matthew, and it is dedicated to my sister Joyce, and Matthew. It was premiered by pianist, David Guerin in Germany in 1982.
About the work
This work for solo piano has been described by Fred Blanks of the Sydney Morning Herald as ‘a haunting gem for a modern baby.’
In Music in New Zealand Gillian Bibby wrote, ‘In a simple arch structure of 8-bar phrases, [Lullaby for Matthew] progresses in variations from naive simplicity to what could almost amount to a nightmare in the centre, then back to slumbering innocence once again.’
Lullaby for Matthew is suitable for intermediate pianists, about Grade 5.
Scores and recordings
Lullaby for Matthew was published by SOUNZ in First XV, an album of piano works for intermediate pianists. This is now out of print.
You can buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
The work was recorded by Dan Poynton in 1997 on an award-winning CD.
SOUNZ released a promotional recording in 1996, and Burnside High School included it in a CD of works suitable for Royal Schools piano exams.
New Zealand colours: alternative piano works for Royal Schools music exams — CD
This work has also been the subject of some education resources.
Tamatea Tutahi
For piano
Tamatea Tutahi was commissioned by Sally Mays with funding from APRA and the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council. Sally gave the first performance at the Radio Theatre in Auckland on 26 May 1980.
About the work
Tamatea Tutahi was written while I was composer-in-residence for Northern Arts, United Kingdom.
Score and recordings
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
RNZ Concert recorded this work at its Auckland premiere and again 2013.
Hotspur
Monodrama for soprano, 2 clarinets, violin and viola (1 player), cello and percussion
Text by Fleur Adcock
Hotspur was commissioned by Gemini with funding from the British Council. They premiered the work in Darlington, United Kingdom with Margaret Field (soprano), conducted by Peter Wiegold. Gretchen Albrecht designed 5 banners for the performance which are now in the Sarjeant Gallery in Wanganui.
About the work
Hotspur was written while I was composer-in-residence for Northern Arts, United Kingdom. It was completed at Great Bavington in Northumberland in October 1980, while Fleur and I were both fellows of the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
The piece is the lament of Elizabeth Mortimer, wife of Henry Percy, the 14th century north of England warrior known as ‘Hotspur’.
While writing it in Northumberland, not so far from the site of the battle of Otterburn, I was very aware of the harsh quality of life in those border regions in Hotspur’s day, when skirmishing and rieving was the way of survival in a wild and exposed, though beautiful landscape, with a climate sometimes benign, but often treacherous. Something of this has influenced the music.
Although the piece is not simple technically, the text called for certain simplicity. The vocal line had to be direct, and could not depart very far from the idea of the ballad except in the reflective middle movement, and in the recurring prophetic sections. The instrumental sections sometimes accompany, sometimes comment on, sometimes reinforce the expression of the text. They also often contrast suggestions of movement and stillness, or of sounds of battle and sounds of nature.
There are 5 sections in Hotspur:
- Elizabeth sings of her husband
- The siege of Newcastle
- Carrying Hotspur’s child, she reflects as she waits on the evening of the battle of Otterburn
- The battle of Otterburn
- The death of Hotspur
Scores and recordings
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
There is a recording on Volume 32 of the Anthology of Australian Music on Disc.
Anthology of Australian Music: dramatic vocal music — CD
SOUNZ also has an archival recording.
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.