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A Song Of Islands
''A Song of Islands'' is a tone poem (described by the composer as a song) written for orchestra by New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn in 1946. The work is the last in a trilogy of pieces exploring the theme of New Zealand identity; it was preceded by the overture ''Aotearoa'' (1940) and ''Landfall in Unknown Seas'' (1942) for narrator and string orchestra A string orchestra is an orchestra consisting solely of a string section made up of the bowed strings used in Western Classical music. The instruments of such an orchestra are most often the following: the violin, which is divided into first .... History and music Lilburn described the song as featuring "a chorale-like theme" that develops into an "arch-like form". The piece has been recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under Sir William Southgate. A Naxos recording by James Judd with the NZSO was issued in August 2006; it also includes Lilburn's ''Aotearoa Overture'', ''Forest'', ''A Birthday ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Lilburn
Douglas Gordon Lilburn (2 November 19156 June 2001) was a New Zealand composer. Early life Lilburn was born in Whanganui and spent his early years on the family sheep farm in the upper Turakina River valley at Drysdale. He attended Waitaki Boys' High School from 1930 to 1933, before moving to Christchurch to study journalism and music over the next three years at Canterbury University College, then part of the University of New Zealand. In 1936 his career in music was set when his tone poem ''Forest'' won visiting composer Percy Grainger's national composition competition. In 1937 he began studying at the Royal College of Music in London, tutored in composition by Ralph Vaughan Williams until 1939. The two men remained close: in later years Lilburn sent Vaughan Williams gifts of New Zealand honey, knowing that the older man was fond of it. Letters of thanks from Vaughan Williams in 1947 and 1948 confirm this. Lilburn's early works display the influence of Jean Sibelius; the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aotearoa (overture)
''Aotearoa'' is a concert overture written for orchestra by New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn in 1940. The overture is the first of three early works by Lilburn which centre on the theme of national identity; the other two are '' Landfall in Unknown Seas'' (1942), for narrator and orchestra, and the tone poem ''A Song of Islands'' (1946). History and music The title of the overture (''Aotearoa'') is taken from the Māori name for New Zealand. Lilburn wrote the overture while he was still a student at London's Royal College of Music, and it was premiered at a concert held to commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi at His Majesty's Theatre in London. It was not performed in New Zealand until 1959, but it has since entered the country's standard orchestral repertory. Typical of Lilburn's early work, the overture features idiomatic writing for winds, especially flutes, and vigorous dynamic contrasts. Composer Jack Body has said that the work "is the most frequently pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compositions By Douglas Lilburn
Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature * Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include visuals and digital space *Composition (music), an original piece of music and its creation *Composition (visual arts), the plan, placement or arrangement of the elements of art in a work * ''Composition'' (Peeters), a 1921 painting by Jozef Peeters *Composition studies, the professional field of writing instruction * ''Compositions'' (album), an album by Anita Baker *Digital compositing, the practice of digitally piecing together a video Computer science *Function composition (computer science), an act or mechanism to combine simple functions to build more complicated ones *Object composition, combining simpler data types into more complex data types, or function calls into calling functions History *Composition of 1867, Austro-Hungarian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naxos
Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best abrasives available. The largest town and capital of the island is Chora or Naxos City, with 7,374 inhabitants (2011 census). The main villages are Filoti, Apiranthos, Vivlos, Agios Arsenios, Koronos and Glynado. Geography Climate Naxos experiences a Mediterranean climate, with relatively mild winters and warm summers. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "Csa". (Mediterranean Climate). Inland areas of the island are much wetter and cooler in winter. Mythic Naxos According to Greek mythology, the young Zeus was raised in a cave on Mt. Zas ("''Zas''" meaning "''Zeus''"). Homer mentions " Dia"; literally the sacred island "of the Goddess". Károly Kerényi explains: One legend has it that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Southgate
Sir William David Southgate (born 4 August 1941) is a New Zealand conductor and composer. He was the first New Zealand-based artist to be knighted (as a Knight Bachelor, in 1994). Biography Southgate was born in Waipukurau in 1941 to Alfred John and Phyllis (née Maden) Southgate, and grew up in Otago. He showed an interest in music early in life and at about the age of five, he discovered a pianola which encouraged him to learn the piano. At the age of nine, he recorded in his diary that he had decided to dedicate his life to music. Southgate attended Otago Boys' High School from 1954 to 1959 and afterwards, the University of Otago. He graduated with Master of Arts and Bachelor of Music degrees, both with first class honours, and also taught composition, instrumentation and fugue. Among his pupils was his future wife, Rosemary Martin. They were married in 1967. In 1967, Southgate left New Zealand for London. He studied advanced conducting at the Guildhall School of Music and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) is a symphony orchestra based in Wellington, New Zealand. The national orchestra of New Zealand, the NZSO is an autonomous Crown entity owned by the Government of New Zealand, per the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Act 2004. It is currently based in the Michael Fowler Centre and has frequently performed in the adjacent Wellington Town Hall before it was closed in 2013. It also performs in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin. History A national orchestra for New Zealand was first proposed with the founding of the Radio Broadcasting Company in 1925, and broadcasting studio orchestras operated in major cities from the late 1920s. A national orchestra was formed in 1939 for New Zealand's Centennial Exhibition in 1940. The orchestra became permanent in 1946 in the aftermath of World War II as the "National Orchestra of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service" (by Oswald Cheesman and others); the inaugural concert took place on 6 March 1947. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
String Orchestra
A string orchestra is an orchestra consisting solely of a string section made up of the bowed strings used in Western Classical music. The instruments of such an orchestra are most often the following: the violin, which is divided into first and second violin players (each usually playing different parts), the viola, the cello, and usually, but not always, the double bass. String orchestras can be of chamber orchestra size ranging from between 12 (4 first violins, 3 second violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos and 1 bass = 12) and 21 musicians (6 first violins, 5 second violins, 4 violas, 4 cellos and 2 double basses= 21) sometimes performing without a conductor. It could also consist of the entire string section of a large symphony orchestra which could have 60 musicians (16 first violins, 14 second violins, 12 violas, 10 cellos and 8 double basses = 60; '' Gurre-Lieder'' calls for 84: 20.20.16.16.12). Repertoire The repertoire includes several works by Mozart (including '' Eine klei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Landfall In Unknown Seas
''Landfall in Unknown Seas'' is a work for narrator and string orchestra written by New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn and poet Allen Curnow in 1942. It was the second in Lilburn's early trilogy of works dealing with the theme of New Zealand identity, following the overture ''Aotearoa'' and preceding ''A Song of Islands''. History and music The text of the work is taken from a poem by Curnow, and tells the story of New Zealand's discovery by Abel Tasman. It was originally commissioned by John Beaglehole on behalf of the New Zealand government to mark 300 years since Tasman's visit to New Zealand in 1642. The work has three movements, with each movement followed by a reading of one of the three parts of the poem. The first performance, with Curnow reading the poem, was premiered by radio on 13 December 1942, the day of Tasman's arrival in New Zealand. Since then, the work has been widely performed and recorded, and the poem has become one of the best-known of all New Zealand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overture
Overture (from French ''ouverture'', "opening") in music was originally the instrumental introduction to a ballet, opera, or oratorio in the 17th century. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn composed overtures which were independent, self-existing instrumental, programmatic works that foreshadowed genres such as the symphonic poem. These were "at first undoubtedly intended to be played at the head of a programme". History 17th century The idea of an instrumental opening to opera existed during the 17th century. Peri's ''Euridice'' opens with a brief instrumental ritornello, and Monteverdi's '' L'Orfeo'' (1607) opens with a toccata, in this case a fanfare for muted trumpets. More important, however, was the prologue, which comprised sung dialogue between allegorical characters which introduced the overarching themes of the stories depicted. French overture As a musical form, however, the French overture first appears in the court ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tone Poem
A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ''Tondichtung (tone poem)'' appears to have been first used by the composer Carl Loewe in 1828. The Hungarian composer Franz Liszt first applied the term ''Symphonische Dichtung'' to his 13 works in this vein. While many symphonic poems may compare in size and scale to symphonic movements (or even reach the length of an entire symphony), they are unlike traditional classical symphonic movements, in that their music is intended to inspire listeners to imagine or consider scenes, images, specific ideas or moods, and not (necessarily) to focus on following traditional patterns of musical form such as sonata form. This intention to inspire listeners was a direct consequence of Romanticism, which encouraged literary, pictorial and dramati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected and can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, and video games, and are less common in other art forms. Three-part works that are considered components of a larger work also exist, such as the triptych or the three-movement sonata, but they are not commonly referred to with the term "trilogy". Most trilogies are works of fiction involving the same characters or setting, such as '' The Deptford Trilogy'' of novels by Robertson Davies, '' The Apu Trilogy'' of films by Satyajit Ray, '' The House'' of a single anthology stop motion animated film, and ''The Kingdom Trilogy'' of television miniseries from 1994 to 2022 by Lars von Trier. Other fiction trilogies are connected only by theme: for example, each film of Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours trilogy explores one of the political ideals of the French Republic ( liberty, equality, fraternity). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the List of island countries, sixth-largest island country by area, covering . New Zealand is about east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's Capital of New Zealand, capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland. The islands of New Zealand were the last large habitable land to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands and then developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight and record New Zealand. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
