|
Haere mai nga iwi
Ngapo Wehi
This Maori waiata is a song of welcome written by Ngapo Wehi and his whanau (family). The tune is original and the harmony strongly influenced by the European cultures which colonised New Zealand in the late 19th century. Performances vary, one from the other, since the harmonies are improvised and often the singing is accompanied by a guitar. This free improvisation reflects the strong oral tradition of the indigenous peoples of New Zealand and the piece is best performed with action and movement.
Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe
Felix Mendelssohn
Along with the Heilig and the Kyrie, this work constitutes Mendelssohn's Three Sacred Pieces (op. posth.) which were written for the protestant service and completed on November 6, 1846. Scored for 8-part choir and a quartet of soloists this setting reflects Mendelssohn’s interest in Renaissance and Baroque music as the antiphonal choral writing and sectional treatment of the text in particular, suggest. It is an exuberant work which has the various sections of text musically expressed with great textural and dynamic variety. The opening invocation begun by the tenors and basses is continued at length by the double choir. After the solo quartet appeals to God for mercy the antiphonal choir makes the final affirmations ‘for you alone are Holy...‘ before the triumphant and final ‘Amen.’
O salutaris hostia
Gioacchino Rossini
The nineteenth century Italian composer Rossini is best known for his opera, especially his comic opera characterised by his sparkling wit and the vivacity of the music. O salutaris hostia serves a totally different purpose as a motet for four voices with a text that begs for God’s help and strength in the face of war. The quiet and intimate opening is immediately contrasted with the rather grand musical gesture used at the text “bella premunt hostilia” in which the expansive soprano line and chromatic Neopolitan harmonies are certainly reminiscent of the composer’s operatic style. The piece concludes quietly with a gracious dotted rhythm figure in the melody which has all the qualities of an aria.
Magnificat
Charles Theodore Pachelbel
Charles Theodore was one of Johann Pachelbel’s sons who was born in Stuttgart and died in Charleston, South Carolina. He was an organist as well as a composer and took his father’s influence to the British American colonies after 1730, working in Boston, Newport, New York and Charleston. Pachelbel’s Magnificat was written before he left Germany and is a lively double choir setting which uses the customary fugue in the doxology “sicut erat”.
Appropriate contrasts of texture reflect the various moods of the text as emplified by the antiphonal triple-metre setting of the “gloria patri”. The work concludes with a triumphant and virtuosic “Amen”.
from 'Quatre petites prières de Saint François d'Assise'
Francis Poulenc -
When Poulenc's nephew, a young Franciscan monk at Champfleury, sent him a copy of these prayers of St. Francis, the composer responded with music of great devotion and humility expressed through the richness of men's voices and often with tantalising and sensual harmonies. In this recording the men sing the second, third and fourth prayers.
Ave Maria
David MacIntyre
Canadian composer David MacIntyre wrote this piece for Electra, the acclaimed Canadian women’s choir from Vancouver. The eight-part texture is a moto perpetuo from start to finish in an essentially antiphonal setting. The repetition of the only two words in the text “ave maria” has the occasional interpolation of a melodic line and exploits rhythmic hocket, tossing notes from one choir to the other. By the end these rhythmic phrases culminate in a frenzy of repetition, leaving the listener wondering whether or not the piece has finished.
Requiem
Aeternam Zdenek Lukás
Czech composer, Lukas’ setting of the Requiem text is at first impassioned and full of anguish in its plea for eternal rest, expressed through powerful unison singing in the opening bars. There are strong textural contrasts with thick vertical sonorities alongside the women’s voices and immediately the men’s voices, as well as polyphonic layering of vocal colours. The central “te decet hymnus” section is the dynamic climax of the movement where the dramatic 6-part choral writing culminates in the hymn to God. From this point there is a sense in which hope is lost and the cries of “requiem aeternam” dissipate as do the musical textures. The final plea is almost without voice in the very soft final uterances from the choir.
Five Mystical Songs
Ralph Vaughan Williams
The religious poets of the seventeenth century, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw and Thomas Traherne, are generally described as ‘mystics’ to distinguish them from the metaphysical poets (such as John Donne). Whereas metaphysics is an enquiry employing ratiocination, mysticism is the spiritual apprehension of that which is beyond understanding. This apprehension, for Vaughan Williams, came through music.
Rytmus
Ivan Hrusovsky
Ivan Hrusovsky was born in Bratislava and attended several music institutions there. He studied composition under Alexander Moyzes at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava until 1957. He has been teaching at this Academy since 1953 and became a Professor of Composition there in 1984. Prof. Hrusovsky is a musicologist and educationalist in the field of contemporary Slovak and European music. He has written several books and given a number of radio broadcasts. His compositions include choral, chamber music, orchestral and instructive works. Some of the most important are the Cantate Trilogy Against the Death (1965); the oratorio Canticum pro pace (1985); the First Symphony for large string orchestra (1988); the Second Symphony for chamber orchestra and piano (1996); the Missa 'pro juvente' for mixed choir (1994); and three string quartets.
Didn't It Rain
David Hamilton
Born in Napier, David Hamilton attended Auckland University and completed a BA and MMus with tutors Douglas Mews and John Rimmer. He studied at Auckland Teachers' College (1980) and was Head of Music, Epsom Girl's Grammar (1986-1998). He has won a variety of awards and all New Zealand's principal music groups have commissioned Hamilton's work. An ex-member of the New Zealand Youth Choir, he is a prolific composer of choral music with over 60 choral works to his credit. In this fun piece, David Hamilton sets an American folk text, which tells the story of Noah and the Flood. Despite the ever-changing time signatures, the refrain always returns, sometimes playful, sometimes cautionary: 'Now didn't it rain, my Lord, now didn't it rain, rain, rain'.
Minoi, minoi
Christopher Marshall
Christopher Marshall's chamber and choral music has been widely performed and broadcast in New Zealand and overseas. In 1994, Marshall was appointed to the position of Mozart Fellow at the University of Otago for two years. In 1996, he received a Fulbright Research Grant and took up residence at the Eastman School of music in Rochester, New York. His numerous settings of New Zealand texts have received much favourable attention. His music is accessible, idiomatically written and often exhilarating in its rhythmic ingenuity. This piece is a setting of a Samoan folk song.
|
|
Sopranos
Hester Lees-Jeffries, Shelley Liken, Anna Pierard, Stephanie Shroff, Lauren Armishaw
Megan Flint, Bronwyn Harrison, Brigitte Murray, Anna Sedcole, Ruth Shwer
Altos
Judy Dale, Sarah McOnie, Daniela Phelon , Zoë Triggs, Sarah Walmsley, Rosamund Allison, Rhonda Browne, Alexandra Hill, Megan Hurnard, Cecilia Vakameilalo-Kioa
Tenors
Chris Bowen, Albert Mata'afa, Andrew Milner-White, Philip Roderick, Phillip Collins, Luke Gorton, Tim Jackson, Ken Ryan, Ken Trass
Basses
John Duncan, Andrew Kania, Matthew Leese, Rowan Payne, Sam Piper, Andrew Withington, Christopher Adams, Peter Aitken, Simon Baskerville, Andrew Crooks, Rowan Johnston, Rowan Payton
|
