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Concertino for Clarinet and String Orchestra (1957)
Allegro moderato * Andante piacevole * Allegro scherzando
This Concertino received its first performance in 1958 with Frank Gurr and the National Symphony Orchestra (now the NZSO) conducted by the composer. It was published by Novello (London) and subsequently recorded by Gurr with the Alex Lindsay Orchestra for Kiwi Pacific Records.
The first movement, a thrusting rhythmic venture, derives its impetus from the opening ritornello upon which the soloist is called to comment and enlarge with brilliance and subtlety. There are occasional reminders from the orchestra of the principal theme and also digressions into other keys and contrasting themes.
The second movement in C-sharp minor sways in a gentle 6/8 until the emergence of a contrastingly agitated section to which the whole tone scale adds piquancy. This subsides to a brief recapitulation, followed by a digression for strings alone and a reminiscent coda.
The Allegro scherzando starts with soloist alone setting the pace and mood. Beginning firmly in D major, there is much cross-rhythmic exploitation and the tonality wanders freely. The basic tune is altered to become a contemplative and passionate contrasting section in which the orchestra alone takes control until, following a climax, a brief solo cadenza occurs before the work rushes to an end.
Suite No.1 for String Orchestra (1956)
Allegro * Air * Intrada and Fugue
Throughout a long composing career, John Ritchie has chosen to write in an accessible and traditional manner, often in stark contrast to much of the work being produced by his contemporaries in the style of the European ‘avant garde’. The suite is representative of Ritchie’s composing style.
Suite No.1 for String Orchestra is dedicated to Alex Lindsay. It was completed in April 1956 and performed soon after by the National Orchestra (now the NZSO) under John Hopkins.
The first movement develops the opening ideas in a traditional sonata manner, before the flow is interrupted by a slow variant for solo violin and viola. There is a resumption of growth and then the ending.
The second movement comprises a solemn folksong-like melody, a more intense contrasting section, and a reprise of the opening material.
The third and fourth movements, Intrada and Fugue, make a self-contained pair and can be performed as a stand-alone piece. A preoccupation with divided violas is a feature of the chordal intrada while the jaunty fugue on a ‘jazzy’ theme provides all-round scope for a good string orchestra.
Aquarius – Suite No.2 for String Orchestra (1982)
Allegro vivace * Andante pastorale * Allegro moderato
This suite was commissioned by the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand for the Schola Musica and its founding conductor, Ashley Heenan, on the occasion of the orchestra’s 20th anniversary. The title Aquarius recognises the founding date of the orchestra, February 1961. It also conveys an image of An, the ancient sky god, who poured the waters of immortality on the earth, thereby establishing the tradition of the water-carrier. The basic musical intervals of the outer movements of the suite suggest An as depicted by the poet Aratus. In between is the murmuring quietude of the sea, home of Piscus Austinus, the southern fish.
The first movement has baroque origins. Two solo violins decorate and enlarge the ritornello theme with which the work opens – a dorian melody involving considerable cross rhythms and rhythmic ambiguity. It is a strong melody which leads in a number of tonal directions and to a variety of developmental situations, including a drum-like passage and a ‘waltzy’ venture into bitonalism. The concertino/ripieno relationship is to the fore throughout.
The slow movement comprises an introduction followed by a pastoral melody of folksong-like character (“one of my best tunes” says the composer), which Ritchie used in a more extensive form in his Snow Goose for flute and orchestra.
The finale begins with a major seventh which becomes the predominant melodic characteristic throughout. It initiates the main theme at bar 11, sets going a hiccuping fugato in the middle of the piece and informs the coda so that the last two notes of the movement are the same as the first two.
Papanui Road (1987)
This concert overture was commissioned by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra for its 25th anniversary concert season in 1987, celebrating its foundation in 1962 (the orchestra was conducted by John Ritchie for its first five years). The work received its first performance on 2 May 1987, under American conductor Donald Johanos.
For all its pictorialism, the overture is a serious, even a nostalgic work. Its aim is to evoke memories of an important, busy thoroughfare in the composer’s home town.
Ritchie writes of the work:
Having lived near Papanui Road for most of my life – having cycled, driven and walked on it, having shopped, eaten and prayed in or on it, I feel at home there. As young people say, it has ‘vibes’ for me. It certainly has memories.
From the Number 1 tramcar which lurched and swung from Bealey Avenue to a far and real roundabout, to the Number 1 bus which nowadays glides in elegant, if polluting splendour, Papanui Road (the Maori track to ‘a large flat land’) is a true artery carrying the lifeblood of Christchurch City. For me it is a microcosm of shops, schools, churches, motels and the Carlton; cycles, taxis, cars, trucks and the Big Reds. It is not simply a long, busy street, it is people and gardens, lawns, trees, flowers and the St Alban’s stream which slips by secretly at the back of the Merivale shops.
This concert overture tries to hint at the bustle, the vitality and the peace of Papanui Road; an impression rather than a picture. But if you, the listener, happen to notice a tram or a bus, a hymn from St Mary’s, or bagpipes from St Andrew’s College, you won’t be mistaken. For me, such everyday externals surround the memory of a good friend, pilot, priest, and All Black, Ian Botting, who died tragically on Papanui Road.
The piece begins and ends with Shosty (short for Shostakovitch), the Ritchie cat, furtively examining the kitchen window of a nearby restaurant.
Gradually the focus expands to the shoppers, the school children, cyclists and motorists and eventually we all become involved. In a very real sense the orchestra mirrors this expanding involvement itself in its various treatments of the early theme:
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The recordings that feature on this disc were sourced from the archives of Radio New Zealand and Concert FM.
Concertino for Clarinet and String Orchestra Recorded in St. Theresa’s Church, Karori, Wellington, 13 February 1998
Producer Tim Dodd
Engineer Keith Warren
Suite Nos 1 and 2 for String Orchestra
Recorded in Sacred Heart Cathedral, Wellington,
4 February 1997
Producer Roger Smith
Engineer Keith Warren
Papanui Road
Recorded in Symphony House Studio, Wellington, 3 December 1998
Producer David McCaw
Engineer Keith Warren
Executive Producers
Janey MacKenzie / Ross Hendy
Remastering Richard Hulse, Radio New Zealand
Booklet Editor Janey MacKenzie
Design Mallabar Music
Boyd Webb (b. 1947) Aurora (1985), unique Cibachrome print, 1230 mm x 1580 mm. Private collection, Auckland. Reproduced by permission of the artist.
Boyd Webb’s Cibachrome photographs are the only remaining trace of the intense sculptural activity that marks his life as an artist. These temporary structures-cum-environments are worked on and transformed over extended periods of time, the Cibachromes becoming the evidence of the consistency of this recreated world.
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