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.
Te āhua, te atārangi
For string quartet
Te āhua, te atārangi was the winning work in the 1971 string quartet competition sponsored by APRA, the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation and the New Zealand Music Federation (now Chamber Music New Zealand). It remains unperformed, as does the work Lyell Cresswell entered which was the runner-up.
About the work
Te āhua te ātārangi is an extremely difficult piece.
The title translates as the form (appearance), the shadow, and refers to the form I was experimenting with, in which a series of 4 movements are followed by short interludes that negate the gestures of the preceding movement. So something low and slow might be contrasted with something high and rapid and short.
I think this way of writing might have come from a dream I had as a child, when I looked down the road and saw 2 figures walking towards me from the distance. Suddenly the scene went from colour to sepia and the figures rushed towards me, with a sensation of terror, then back to normal colour and normal pace, then again sepia and rapid movement, and terror. Strange, as I didn’t see a lot of cinema.
Score
Contact me if you would like to see the score.
Pākuru
For mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet, viola, cello, piano and percussion
A setting of Hone Tūwhare’s poem, ‘Thine own hands have fashioned’
The first performance of Pākuru was given by Pierrot Players conducted by Peter Maxwell Davies in 1968 in Berlin’s Akademie der Künste in a programme presenting young British composers.
About the work
Hone Tūwhare’s text comes from his first poetry collection No ordinary sun (1967).
Pākuru was first aired at the prestigious Dartington Summer School of Music, but the first public performance was in Berlin with a very poor audience as there was a strike in Berlin that day. It was the first piece I wrote when I arrived in London.
The title Pākuru means a chant accompanied by tapped sticks, or a taonga pūoro consisting of wooden sticks tapped together: there is a substantial role for percussion in the piece.
Score
Contact me if you would like to see the score.
Fantasia on three notes
Fantasia on three notes was my first commission, requested by New Zealand pianist Tessa Birnie. She gave its first performance for Radio Turkey in 1967.
About the work
When I was writing Fantasia on three notes, I had begun studying with Peter Maxwell Davies in Adelaide, and revelled in discovering ways to extend and control my expanding technique, resulting in a technically difficult piece.
Emma Carlé writes:
‘The title refers not so much to free fantasy but to the imagination required to create music from minimal material — in this case, the opening 3-note motive. The work is in 3 sections, corresponding to these notes, and the fabric of the entire piece is generated from them. There are patterns that emerge within sections, as well as those spanning the whole work, trills and tempo changes included.
Because of the inherent symmetry of the generated material, with layers building up both forwards and backwards, the composer’s original intention was to make a palindromic structure, but it became instead, a through-composed work with coda.’
Scores and recordings
The score was published by Waiteata Music Press in 2001.
Fantasia on three notes — publication
Waiteata also released a recording in their CD series.
Qui natus est
Carol for SATB choir
Latin and English text
Qui natus est was first performed by the University of Auckland Choir.
About the work
The mediaeval text of this carol is macaronic, mixing Latin and English phrases, and was written in Adelaide in 1966.
The Latin text translates as, ‘He who was born of a virgin, O Lord, grant me thy salvation.’
Score and recording
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
The University of Auckland Festival Choir released this work on CD.
Three bridges to cross PRIVATE
For flute, violin and gongs
Three bridges to cross was composed during my time as a student in Sydney.
About the work
Three bridges to cross is music for a film about about Cambodia published by Australian Broadcasting Corporation and NHK (Japan) in 1966.
Score
The score is in the National Library of New Zealand and can be viewed with my permission.
Karakia
3 pieces for piano
These short pieces are suitable for intermediate performers and were written while I was a student at the University of Sydney.
Score
Contact me if you are interested in seeing the score.