Four Songs for Baritone & Piano
My Father Today - words by Sam Hunt
The Bay - words by James K. Baxter
Lament for Barney Flanagan - words by James K. Baxter
Tangi - words by Hone Tuwhare
These songs for baritone come from three different compositions by Anthony Ritchie.
My Father Today and The Bay are from To Face the Night Alone (1990) for baritone, choir and orchestra, composed originally for the City of Dunedin Choir.
Lament for Barney Flanagan (1981) is a stand-alone song, composed while Ritchie was still a student at Canterbury University. It was premiered by his friends Campbell McLachlan (baritone) and Alistair Lennie (piano), at the Cambridge Music School in the 1980s.
Tangi comes from the chamber opera The Trapeze Artists (1995), commissioned by Louise Petherbridge and first performed at the Otago Festival of Arts, in 2000.
These songs have been slightly edited and revised for this edition.
The poems by Hunt, Baxter and Tuwhare deal in various ways with the themes of loss and death. My Father Today and Tangi are laments for lost loved ones. Lament for Barney Flanagan mourns the death of a publican in a more ribald manner, sounding a cautionary note to all heavy drinkers. The Bay mourns the loss of childhood innocence, with reflections on the poet's early days around the seaside town of Brighton, near Dunedin.
These songs may be performed separately or as a group.
Total Duration: approximately 20 minutes
