L'Etoile Inconnue

Carlos Micháns (b.1950, Argentina/Netherlands) Music for harp and clarinet
Michans is a Dutch composer of Argentinian descent. The music for harp and clarinet is an early work (1985). Traces of the composer's latin background can be found in the music.

Jack Body (b.1944, New Zealand) Aeolian Harp (solo cello)
The Aeolian Harp is an instrument whose strings are activated by the movement of air, rather than by human fingers. I have tried to recreate this resonating of the strings through their harmonics but using the first three natural harmonics on the strings of the violin. Because there are significant duplications between the four strings (being tuned in 5ths) I ask the violinist to tune two of the strings a minor 2nd lower, thereby providing a greater range of possible pitches. Aeolian Harp exists in versions for violin, viola and cello.

Lyell Cresswell (b.1944, New Zealand/Scotland) Lacrimae (solo cello)
During the siege of Sarajevo by Serbian forces from April 1992 the Bosnian cellist Vedran Smailovic played in the streets and bombed out buildings of the city despite the bombs, sniper fire and mayhem all around. Just before Christmas 1993 he was spirited out of Sarajevo and brought to Edinburgh where, shell-shocked and exhausted, he spent some time trying to recover - often in our flat playing chess. Lacrimae was written for him in 1994. It has another life as one of the movements of Cresswell’s work for solo violin – Whira

Douglas Lilburn (1915-2001, New Zealand) Piano Sonatina no.1 (solo piano)
Douglas Lilburn left New Zealand in 1937 to study with Ralph Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music, London.  When he returned in 1940 he found himself something of a celebrity, having won three out of four of the prizes awarded as part of New Zealand‚s centennial celebrations.  The following decade saw the composition of many sizeable instrumental works, including his first two symphonies and this Sonatina (1946).  It is typical of Lilburn‚s style at this time, rooted in tonal idioms, but showing his spare, individual voice: ŒAlone he paces an empty beach, creating in his head bare harmonies of sand and wave‚ (Alistair Campbell)

The first movement begins in a rather dour and serious mood, but contains several different kinds of material and ends up covering quite a wide emotional range.  The Poco adagio, with its Sarabande rhythm and arching cantilena, suggests an origin with J. S. Bach, but also perhaps something of Shostakovich.  The finale is ebullient and playful, concluding in an unexpectedly quiet manner.

Eve de Castro-Robinson (b.1956, New Zealand) Commemoration for Gerard Crotty (solo cello)
This pieceis a short elegy written for Eve de Castro-Robinson’s friend and fellow composer Gerard Crotty, who died of cancer in 1988 at the age of 30. This work is dedicated to his memory. The work has been recorded by Alexander Ivashkin on two CDs: Chaos of delight: music by Eve de Castro-Robinson, Atoll CD9806, and Under the Southern Cross: works for cello, Ode Manu 1543/4

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Zwei Gesange Op.91 (soprono, cello, piano)
Brahms was at once a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Baroque and Classical masters. He was a master of counterpoint, the complex and highly disciplined method of composition for which Bach is famous, and also of development, a compositional ethos pioneered by Beethoven. Brahms aimed to honour the "purity" of these venerable "German" structures and advance them into a Romantic idiom, in the process creating bold new approaches to harmony and melody. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as the progressive Arnold Schoenberg and the conservative Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Brahms]

Brahms Opus 91 was originally written for viola, contralto and piano, Brahms wrote his Opus 91 songs for his friends Amalie and Joseph Joachim - she an acclaimed singer, and he one of the foremost violinists of the nineteenth century.

1 - Gestille Sehnsucht
Steeped in evenings golden glow,
how solemnly the forests stand!
In gentle voices the birds breathe
into the soft flutter of evening breezes.
What does the wind whisper, and the birds?
They whisper the world into slumber.

2 - Geistliches Wiegenlied – A lullaby for the Christ child.
You palms of Bethlehem in the roaring wind,
How can you today bluster so angrily?
O roar not so!
Silence the treetops!
My child is sleeping.

Alphons Diepenbrock (1862-1921, Netherlands) Berceuse (1912) (voice, piano and cello)
Prominent among composers of berceuses were Franz Liszt, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Maurice Ravel. This Berceuse written by early 20th-century Dutch composer Alphons Diepenbrock is an appealing example of Berceuses. The piece was written by Diepenbrock for Julie and Gerard Hekking. Gerard Hekking was at this time solo cellist with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Diepenbrock wrote mostly Lieder and influence of the french style is clearly deceptable in Diepenbrock’s work.

Berceuse

Julius Röntgen (1855-1932, Netherlands) Impromptu (solo piano)
Julius Röntgen was born in Leipzig, but spent most of life in the Netherlands. He remained in close touch with German musical life, however, and was a good friend of Johannes Brahms.  Röntgen’s long life covered seven decades of musical ferment and revolution, and he remained active as a composer and open to fresh ideas right up until his death, writing over a hundred pieces in the last eight years of his life.  This Impromptu (from 1910) is essentially late-romantic in style, but in certain harmonic details we can hear the stirrings of change.

Jean Françaix (1912-1997, France) Scherzo, Double concerto for flute and clarinet (alto flute, bass clarinet, piano)
The double concerto for flute and clarinet, written at the tender age of 79, is a relatively unknown work. Yet it carries all the hallmarks of the composer: fresh, accessible, yet inventive and varied. "The idea to write a Concerto for Monsieur le Clarinettiste and madame la Flûte pleases me, in view of these difficult times the institution of marriage must be protected", Francaix wrote. In this third movement, both soloists swap to their secondary instruments: the alto-flute and bass-clarinet.

Armando Ghidoni (Italy/France) L’Etoile Inconnue Trio Opus 93 (flute, Sax, harp) ***
Commissioned by the Jean Wiener National Music School in Bobigny (France) where the work was premiered on April 5, 2003 by the Opus 93 Trio.

*** These works were purchased by the Wellington Public Library (WCL) at the request of the Caprice Arts Trust (CAT) and are available for the general public to borrow. It is envisaged that music purchased by the WCL and performed by CAT musicians will encourage more people to give contemporary music a go themselves.