Landforms

Chamber orchestra:
2*2*2*1, alto sax, 2220, 3 perc, 8 solo strings: 3221

Composed 1998, duration 16’30”

The music draws on images of the natural environment, and in particular New Zealand’s coastal landscape. One might imagine the sounds of wind and water, and birdsong, and the dim outlines of rugged coastlines and bush-covered hills. These shadows come in and out of focus, against the backdrop of the work’s technical explorations. Formally, there is an emphasis on organisation at the sonic level, and particularly the way in which accumulations of timbres, densities and textures change over time. Each player is a soloist, while at the same time ever-changing instrumental groupings fuse into composite sound-masses. There is a constant tension between these shifting masses and the virtuosic individual lines which scatter around them.