Aotearoa / New Zealand… New Sounds and Cultures for Classical Music

The Music

The Words

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the ‘Classical For Everyone’ Podcast… five hundred years of incredible music. My name is Peter Cudlipp and… If you enjoy any music at all then I’m convinced you can enjoy classical music. All you need are ears. No expertise is necessary. If you’ve ever been curious about classical music… or explored it for a while once upon a time… or just quietly wondered what all the fuss was about… then this is the podcast is for you.

And because there’s a lot of music out there each episode has something of a theme. And for today it is… the music of New Zealand which is also known as ‘Aotearoa’. Even if you have listened to a fair bit of classical music then I think there is every chance you will not have heard a note of any of what I am going to play you… unless you might happen to hail from, or reside in that, jewel of a nation. And there is another special reason why this episode is dedicated to the music of New Zealand/Aotearoa… I am recording this episode whilst gazing at Te Mata Peak in Hawkes Bay in the North Island. Apologies if I have made you jealous.

I also want to say that hearing music that you have never heard a note of before… can in some ways be thought of ‘hard work’ or perhaps ‘less rewarding’ and can sometimes lead to a certain discouragement. And for a show to consist of only unfamiliar music is a big ask. But maybe all I can say is… everything you have ever listened to was once something you had never heard. And pretty much every time you sit through a film or TV show you are hearing ‘new’ music. And I think you are going to hear some remarkably good music… music well worth hearing… music by Anthony Richie, Gillian Whitehead, Martin Lodge, Tabea Squire, John Psathas, Douglas Lilburn and Claire Cowan.

Ok, the composer Anthony Ritchie was born in 1960 and remains prolific with six symphonies to his name to date… amongst many other works. The piece of his I am going to play is called ‘A Bugle Will Do’ from 1995. Here is a note from Anthony Ritchie…

“I was approached by the NZSO to write an overture to commemorate the recent death of New Zealand's most famous war hero, Sir Charles Upham. Upham was famous for having won the Victoria Cross twice for bravery during World War II. He was, however, extremely modest when it came to discussing his achievements. Some years before his death it was suggested to Upham that he have a state funeral; he simply replied, "A bugle will do". This comment seemed like a good starting point for my piece.”

The piece is about 8 minutes long and is performed here by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tecwyn Evans. Anthony Ritchie’s ‘A Bugle Will Do’.

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That was Anthony Ritchie’s ‘A Bugle Will Do’ performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tecwyn Evans.

Ok. A little under 20% of the population of New Zealand identify as Māori… the descendants of Polynesian settlers who arrived in the country sometime in the 1300s. The Māori word ‘waiata’ has come to be used frequently for ‘song’ in Aotearoa and in 2004 the composer Gillian Whitehead took a waiata lyric written by Aroha Yates-Smith titled ‘Taiohi taiao’ which very roughly translates as ‘the young natural world’. On her website website Gillian Whitehead has written…

“The waiata acknowledges the vital role natural springs have in providing clean, delicious drinking water, which nourishes humankind and the wider environment. The water is also used in traditional and contemporary forms of blessing our young.The second verse focuses on the importance of generation after generation preserving all that is important. It refers to the fountain of humankind, that is, the womb which produces the future progeny of our people.”

Ok. Here is ‘Taiohi taioa’ by Gillian Whitehead with words by Aroha Yates-Smith. Here are the Tower Voices of New Zealand, the soloists Andrea Cochrane and Albert Mataafa, and the traditional Māori instrumentalist Richard Nunns. And they are all conducted by Karen Grylls. It is about 11 minutes long and it is just beautiful.

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That was ‘Taiohi taioa’ by Gillian Whitehead with words by Aroha Yates-Smith.

It was performed by the Tower Voices of New Zealand, the soloists Andrea Cochrane and Albert Mataafa, and the traditional Māori instrumentalist Richard Nunns. And they were all conducted by Karen Grylls.

If you enjoyed that and I hope you did I encourage you to visit Gillian Whitehead’s website where you can search her list of compositions by year. The list starts in 1963. So there is over 60 years of music to explore. I’ll put a link in the show notes for this episode. And a quick aside, I want to thank my friend Juliet Dreaver for introducing me to that wonderful piece of music and indeed for doing a lot to help me put this whole episode together.

The New Zealand composer Martin Lodge died just last year at the age of 70. The website SOUNZ, that’s S O U N Z, has a great overview of his life and work including this…

Typically, in his music rhythmic drive is complemented by carefully conjured colour. He was especially interested in links across chasms of time and place, and how music as a public or shared event can so acutely reflect the interior landscapes of many people.

Perhaps his best known work is a piece called ‘Hinterland’ from 1998. Here it is performed by the NZSO conducted by Kenneth Young. It is about eleven minutes long and starts quietly. ‘Hinterland’ by Martin Lodge.

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That was ‘Hinterland’ by Martin Lodge. It was performed by the NZSO conducted by Kenneth Young.

Next up in this all music of New Zealand episode of ‘Classical For Everyone’ is a piece for string quartet. It is called ‘I Danced, Unseen’ and is by the composer Tabea Squire. She wrote it in 2021 for a concert series featuring the New Zealand String Quartet and a group of dancers. I can’t easily find any sort of a programme to go with the dance so it may have been essentially abstract but it seems to me that the music develops from a somewhat traditional slightly shy, song-like melody to a more energetic and exuberant style and I think this is supported by the idea behind the title… ‘I Danced, Unseen’. Here is what the composer had to say about that on the SOUNZ website…

“One day I started to remember an old habit of mine. From childhood through young adulthood I would sometimes shut myself in the living room – no-one else was allowed in – and put on music to dance to. It was a very private experience, and a sort of cathartic process, which was somehow being evoked in my mind by the material I was writing for the piece, years later.”

Here is ‘I Danced Unseen’ by Tabea Squire. It is about 9 minutes long and is performed by the New Zealand String Quartet.

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That was ‘I Danced Unseen’ by Tabea Squire performed by the New Zealand String Quartet.

John Psathas is today one of New Zealand’s most widely performed composers. ‘View From Olympus’ is a 24 minute Concerto for Solo Piano, Solo Percussion and Orchestra in four parts written in 2001. I’m going to play you the first part called ‘The Furies’ and here is what the composer had to say about it…
The Furies were avenging spirits of retributive justice whose task was to punish crimes outside the reach of human justice. The section contains an adapted transcription of a fragment of improvised playing by one of my favourite Greek violinists, Stathis Koukoularis (It appears as a solo for violin about 2 minutes into the movement). Commissioned by percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, View From Olympus has become one of my landmark works. This double concerto takes listeners on a journey through the world of Greek percussion styles and playing techniques.
Pedro Carneiro is the percussion soloist, Michael Houston plays the solo piano and
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Marc Taddei. Here is the first part of John Psathas ‘View From Olympus’.

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That was the first part of John Psathas ‘View From Olympus’ Pedro Carneiro was the percussion soloist, Michael Houston played the solo piano and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Marc Taddei.

My name is Peter Cudlipp and you have been listening to the ‘Classical for Everyone’ Podcast. I have a couple more pieces coming up but before I get to them I want to give you 60 seconds of information that I hope you find useful… If you would like to listen to past episodes, of which there are more than twenty, or get details of the music I’ve played please head to the website classicalforeveryone.net. That address again is classicalforeveryone.net There you will also find some mini-episodes that address some of what I want to call the vexing questions for a listener new to Classical Music like… ‘Are conductors actually important?’; ‘Why does the word ‘sonata’ keep turning up?’ and ‘Why is almost everything in Italian?’. And on the individual episode pages of the website there are links to Spotify playlists with the full versions of most of the music played in each of the episodes.
I hope you have enjoyed this music of New Zealand / Aotearoa episode of ‘Classical For Everyone’. If you want to make sure you don’t miss the shows as they are released then please Subscribe or Follow wherever you get your podcasts. That would also mean the search algorithms will smile more benignly on the show and it might reach a few more people. For that I would be very grateful. And if you want to get in touch then you can email… info@classicalforeveryone.net.

Alright, to finish this episode I have  piece that is probably the oldest piece of New Zealand classical music still performed.  It is a concert overture written by Douglas Lilburn written in 1940. He gave it the name ‘Aotearoa Overture’… using that wonderful Māori word that is now I think heard almost as often as ‘New Zealand’ to denote the nation.

The overture remains a landmark work in New Zealand classical music, representing one of the first significant attempts by a local composer to create a distinctively New Zealand symphonic voice. Composed when Lilburn was just 25 years old and still studying at the Royal College of Music in London, the work consciously seeks to evoke the New Zealand landscape and spirit through its musical language, employing open harmonies, expansive melodic lines, and orchestral textures that suggest the country's vast spaces and natural grandeur. Critics have claimed to hear the influence of Jean Sibelius and the composer who tutored Lilburn at the Royal College… Ralph Vaughan Williams. In terms of influence what cannot be denied is that over the subsequent decades Lilburn would, as an educator and composer, influence the musical life of New Zealand. Here is his ‘Aotearoa Overture’ performed by the NZSO conducted by James Judd. It is about eight minutes long.

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That was Douglas Lilburn’s ‘Aotearoa Overture’ performed by the NZSO conducted by James Judd.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to playing you some more incredible music on the next ‘Classical For Everyone’. This podcast is made with Audacity Software for editing, Wikipedia for Research, Claude for Artificial Intelligence and Apple, Sennheiser, Sony, Rode and Logitech for hardware… The music played is licensed through AMCOS / APRA. Classical For Everyone is a production of Mending Wall Studios and began life on Radio 2BBB in Bellingen NSW, Australia thanks to the late, great Mr Jeffrey Sanders. The producers do not receive any gifts or support of any kind from any organisation or individual mentioned in the show. But, never say never.

And if you have listened to the credits… here is a little bonus for you… When The Royal New Zealand Ballet commissioned Composer Claire Cowan to write the score for Hansel and Gretel in 2019, she became the first woman in NZ to compose a full-length ballet, and one of only a handful of women worldwide to do so. I hope someone gets Claire Cowan to turn the ballet into an orchestral suite so this very fine music can be heard more broadly. In the meantime the whole ballet is well worth listening to… but I am just going to play you one section. This is the ‘Mother and Father Pas de Deux’ from Hansel and Gretel by Claire Cowan performed by the NZSO, and the conductor is Hamish McKeich. Thanks for listening.