New Zealand Music

Whether he had to leave Germany because of a fatal duel, whether he had to leave Italy because he married his teacher's daughter, whether he settled in France because he wanted to protect his publishing rights, whether any of the many rumors about Franz Ignaz Beck (1734-1809) are true or false, it is good to have his set of Six Symphonies, Op. 1, available on disc. Composed sometime in the 1750s and published in 1758, Beck's three-movement symphonies are strongly imagined and successfully realized essays in a form that had only just come into musical existence.

Guitar works by New Zealand composers continue to display a richness of imagination and sense of colour that makes them intensely attractive to listeners. In 1990 Jack Body wrote African Strings, which transcribed music of the Madagascan valiha tube zither and West African kora harp to captivating effect. John Psathas’ Muisca refers to the Chibcha-speaking people of what is now Colombia in music of conversational vitality and driving rhythm. Anthony Ritchie evokes lovers’ dances in Pas de Deux and there is a beautiful arrangement of the famous traditional Maori love song Pokarekare Ana.

Classical guitar music has flourished in New Zealand in recent years, and Bruce Paine, among the country’s leading composers for the instrument, is one of the most imaginative and original. This album charts the course of his writing from one of his earliest pieces, the poetic, witty tone poem Sea Suite , to the recent and substantial Waitematā Reverie. Drawing on an impressionistic palette Paine conjures up chime arpeggios as well as the natural world in Oakura Chimes . The four settings of Māori folk songs were arranged expressly for this album.