Intimate and expressive settings of poems by Lonie and Hall. Simple in textures but demanding in performance, and ranging in mood from the capricious 'Stone Woman' to the desolate 'Collection Day'.

Opus No : 76

Category : Solo songs / tenor / guitar

Year : 1996

Duration : 15'00

Texts: Iain Lonie and Bernadette Hall

Commissioned by : Tony Donaldson

Instrumentation: for tenor and guitar

Level : 3 - for professional and semi-professional musicians

Available from the composer

Programme Note

Poems by Iain Lonie and Bernadette Hall

Commissioned by Tony Donaldson for performance by himself (guitar) and Robert Oliver (tenor) in 1997, with funding from Creative NZ.

  1. Collection Day - poem by Iain Lonie
  2. Lovesong - poem by Bernadette Hall
  3. My Toaster Tells the Time - poem by Iain Lonie
  4. Song - poem by Bernadette Hall
  5. Tomahawk Sonnet - poem by Bernadette Hall.

Collection Dayand My Toaster Tells the Time come from Dunedin poet Iain Lonie's posthumous book Winter Walk at Morning, published by Victoria University Press.

Lovesong, Song and Tomahawk Sonnet are new poems, written in 1997 as part of Bernadette Hall's time as Burns Fellow at The University of Otago. Originally from Dunedin, Bernadette studied Classics under Iain Lonie at Otago University.

I have to thank two other Classicists with regard to the selection of these poems for setting: Andrew Barker who put me onto Iain's poetry, and Gail Tatham who recommended Bernadette's poems to me.