“This performance featured the world premiere of Ross Harris’s Chamber Symphony and the first live performance in Aotearoa of Lyell Cresswell’s Kaea. How fitting it is that we are playing this as a memorial for this great New Zealand composer. Since Lyell’s piece takes as its starting point, the sound of Taonga Pūoro - and the Pūkāea in particular - it is wonderful that we are able to host Te Reiroa Sellars to be able to tell us about and let us hear these instruments. I would like to thank David Bremner (such a wonderful musician and a huge contributor to music in Aotearoa) for being our soloist.”

Peter Walls

Chamber Symphony by Ross Harris (born 1945)

Ross Harris composed his Chamber Symphony in 2021 (dedicating it to “Peter Walls and Opus Orchestra”) after he heard Opus perform the chamber-orchestra version of his Three Pieces for Orchestra (2010). We feel honoured by this.

Ross Harris’s music takes full account of the European musical tradition, notably the contrapuntal legacy developed in the 17th and 18th centuries and then re-imagined by Schoenberg and his associates in the early 20th century. Ross also has a strong interest in klezmer (writing for and performing as an accordionist in The Kugels). His music thus encompasses both sophisticated counterpoint and improvised Jewish folk music; moreover, it is often laced with a sardonic militarism reminiscent of Shostakovich. This is most evident in the works that have as their subject the loss of liberty and humanitarian values as the seemingly inevitable outcome of war such as the operas Tanz der Schwäne and Brass Poppies and the monologue To the Memory of I. S. Totzka. Ross has a longstanding interest in Te Ao Māori which can be traced back to his opera Waituhi (1984). The choral work Requiem for the Fallen makes prominent use of Taonga Pūoro. Vividly expressionist elements are evident in works like his song cycle The Floating Bride, the Crimson Village (one of many notable collaborations with the writer Vincent O’Sullivan). Several of these strands are evident in the Chamber Symphony.

The Chamber Symphony is built on a 12-tone row though (in a manner reminiscent of Alban Berg) it also has strongly tonal features. The tone row initially functions as a bass line for a series of luminescent primary chords in the strings. These, like towering kahikatea, are filled with birdsong (the woodwind mainly, though solo violin and cello participate). The twelve-note row in its various forms emerges as intertwining sonorous melodies first on bassoon and clarinets but then appearing throughout the orchestra. – an eloquent human response to the beauty of the opening tableau. As the tempo increases, the profound peace of the natural environment is disturbed by, it seems, human intervention – including military intervention. Bassoons punch out the tone row beneath a side drum tattoo in a scherzo section. The finale combines these elements in what seems like triumph (possibly ironic triumph). Just before this, the peaceful vision of the opening bars is recalled – though the string chords (still beautiful) are now bi-tonal (with one glimpse of radiant C major).

The Pūkāea

The Pūkāea is often described as a ‘war trumpet’ because of its loud heraldic sound – but it was clearly capable of a wider expressive range. In 1857, the missionary Richard Taylor was taken up the Whanganui river in a waka whose occupants “announced our approach with the trumpet, for they had brought two with them, each fully six feet long, which really made a sweet and distinct sound.” Pūkāea often accompanied the ceremony of kumara planting and were played to promote well-being. Brian Flintoff writes that “some instruments are capable of being blown over five or six harmonics and will readily slide between these to create a spine-chilling sound.”

Kaea, by Lyell Cresswell (1944-2022)

In calling his trombone concerto Kaea, Lyell Cresswell sets out to evoke the Pūkāea. In doing so, he explores every aspect of this instrument’s character beginning with its intimidating warlike fanfares but extending (especially in the slower sections) to soft and sinuous glissandi. Other instruments also emulate Taonga Pūoro. The piece opens, for example, with piccolo, flute and clarinet imitating flute-like instruments (of which there are many - Kōauau, Pōrutu, Rehu, etc.)

Lyell Cresswell wrote of Kaea that it is a “trombone concerto . . . in one continuous movement although traces of a four-movement form (fast; slow; scherzo and trio; fast finale) can be detected. It is as if these four movements are played simultaneously, taking various turns to come to the fore. In the slow introduction the piccolo plays a descending melodic line covering a limited pitch range.

This material, in various guises, acts as a thread throughout the work and is used extensively at its core: the slow middle section.” This slow section (which appears twice) is like a nocturne. There are two other quiet sections where bird calls surround a slow lyrical melody played as a duet, first between trombone and contrabassoon/ clarinet and then trombone and solo cello. Elsewhere, Kaea is energetic and characterized by the layering, juxtaposition and collision of a kaleidoscopic array of motifs.

Kaea was commissioned by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra who gave the first performance in February 1998 conducted by Joseph Swenson with Christian Lindberg as soloist. It was recorded by the NZSO conducted by James Judd with David Bremner as soloist in 2007. Today’s performance with Opus Orchestra is Kaea’s first public performance in Aotearoa.

After studying at Victoria University and then in Toronto, Lyell Cresswell spent most of his career living in Scotland – though he identified strongly as a New Zealander (and organized a number of festivals of New Zealand music in Edinburgh). He was enormously respected in Europe. The composer Sir James McMillan studied with Lyell and acknowledged him as a major influence on his own work. Like Ross Harris, Lyell had a complete mastery of counterpoint and long-range structure. Lyell was very pleased to learn last year that Opus was planning to perform Kaea with David Bremner (whose playing he greatly admired). It was a shock to us all when he died (after a relatively short struggle with cancer) earlier this year. He was a kind, gentle, generous human being famous for his sense of humour. He is greatly missed by the musical community in Aotearoa.

You can also watch the video via Vimeo https://vimeo.com/782764900/db258c4bae