Two reflective songs using recently written poems by Cilla McQueen
Opus No : 115
Category : Solo songs
Year : 2005
Duration : 9 minutes
Texts: Cilla McQueen
Commissioned by: Tom McGrath and Geoknil Biner-Meyer
Instrumentation: soprano and piano
Level :
3 - for professional musicians
Available from
the composer
These songs were commissioned by and written for Geoknil Biner-Meyer and Tom McGrath, as part of my work at the University of Otago. Initially, Cilla McQueen offered me the poem 'Bluff Pantoum' to set to music. After the commission from Geoknil and Tom I requested another pantoum from Cilla, and she obliged with 'Mining Lament'. A pantoum has 4-line stanzas, rhymes, and repeats lines in the following pattern:
A B C D B E D F E G F H G I H J etc
The poem Bluff Pantoum was written in 2003 for a friend of the poet's, to give to her husband on her birthday. It draws on images of the sea which dominate the environment of Bluff, in Southland. Mining Lament (2004) bemoans the destruction of a "golden hill" in Riverton, Southland, by sluicing.