Stephen Gosling
Jeremy Fitzsimons
New Zealand String Quartet

1 Fragment (percussion version) (2:58)
Stephen Gosling / Piano
Jeremy Fitzsimons / Percussion

2 Happy Tachyons (7:39)
Stephen Gosling / Piano
Jeremy Fitzsimons / Percussion

3 - 5 Piano Quintet (18:32)
Stephen Gosling / Piano
New Zealand String Quartet

6 Jettatura (4:33)
Stephen Gosling / Piano

7 Matre’s Dance (9:37)
Stephen Gosling / Piano
Jeremy Fitzsimons / Percussion

8 Fragment (piano duet version) 3:45
Stephen Gosling / Piano

Total duration 47:06

MMT2047
DIGITAL STEREO RECORDING
© 2003 HRL MORRISON MUSIC TRUST
P 2003 HRL MORRISON MUSIC TRUST

Fragment (2001)
This short work is an adaptation for vibraphone and piano of the original piano duet (track 8). At the time of its composition, I was engaged in writing my double concerto for percussion, piano and orchestra, View From Olympus, and in mood and musical material, Fragment is related to the second movement of that work (in fact, it forms an optional encore to the concerto).

John Psathas

Fragment is a refreshing piece to play. It makes me think of water and crystal, like icicles melting in the spring – you can hear the water dripping from the icy structures. The pure sound of the vibraphone has the opportunity to shine through. It is a joy to play: every note is important.

Jeremy Fitzsimons

Happy Tachyons (1996)
Happy Tachyons, for vibraphone, marimba and piano, was written at the request of Evelyn Glennie. The technical demands of the work are deliberately pitched at the edge of what is humanly possible, particularly the passages where the percussionist is required to play both vibes and marimba simultaneously. The exuberant high spirits which pervade the piece reflect the fact that during its composition Carla and I were expecting our first child, Emanuel, who was busy preparing his entrance into this world.

John Psathas

One word really sums up Happy Tachyons for me: Whew! It’s a really rewarding work to get one’s teeth into. After a run-through I feel the same euphoria and endorphin-rush as I would after having run a marathon. What a buzz!
I would like to say a special ‘thanks’ to Sarah for having put up with me learning this piece for months on end.

Jeremy Fitzsimons

Piano Quintet (2000)
The Piano Quintet was written during the recent millennial changeover. It is inspired by and reflective of four composers by whom I have been influenced: Arvo Pärt, Alfred Schnittke, Jack Body, and Johann Sebastian Bach. There is a fifth element of inspiration functioning here also; the collective ‘composer’ made up of a great many unknown musicians who live in the folk music traditions of the Greek islands. This island music has always moved me in both its simplicity and refinement. The second movement of this piece is based on a transcription I made of a recorded improvisation by the brilliant Greek violinist Stathis Koukoularis.

\While no music I’ve written has been programmatic, or had a literal narrative, I have come to realise that it is impossible to exclude what is immediately happening in one’s personal life from the final complex of ideas and emotions that make up a new piece of music. This autobiographical aspect of composition is nowhere more apparent to me than in this work. An example of how this manifests itself: some three or four minutes into the first movement, the second violin and viola burst out in melody. Prior to this moment I had spent almost an entire week failing to find a way forward from the previous bars. My family (three generations in the house at this point) took control and absolved me from all other responsibilities. Relieved of a great number of other pressures, I immediately found a way forward in the music, and the sense of liberation and sudden release is clearly audible in the second violin and viola as they sing out.

The third movement is an expression of the wonder and luminous joy I experience when looking at our beautiful daughter, Zoe, who came into the world as I was working on this piece. The Piano Quintet is dedicated to Jack Body.

John Psathas

Jettatura (1999)
For a country that is home to me in so many ways, Greece has not been so kind to this particular absent son. Practically every journey I have made there has left me with a permanent reminder of some unpleasant and often bizarre experience. After donkey bites to the groin, motorbike accidents on the island of Santorini and a protracted bout of salmonella-induced weight loss that would have made Jenny Craig’s eyes water, it was not surprising that members of my family there began to imagine I had fallen under the influence of someone’s evil eye.

An expedition to Greece in 1998 brought an unprecedented onslaught of bad luck, this time involving my wife and son. My dear, concerned, sister went to the village expert in such matters to discover if I was afflicted with the evil eye (otherwise known as mal occhio, or jettatura). ‘Jettatura’ is the ancient belief that the gaze of strangers casts unwanted magic into the lives of the innocent. The belief is that a person – not otherwise malefic in any way – can harm you, your children or your livestock merely by looking at them with envy and praising them. The soothsayer, when checking my aura by long distance (these days such matters can of course, be conducted over the phone via pay-per-call numbers), gasped, went silent, and then declared I was so heavily and completely hexed that my halo was utterly opaque. In Greece there is a talisman one can wear, or place in a car, house or shop which offers protection against the evil eye (in some countries, one protects oneself against false compliments by spitting on the person who proffers a compliment). This talisman is in the form of a glass blue eye, a ‘good eye’. Jettatura, written upon my return from Greece, is my talisman, my good eye, and is dedicated to my sister Tania.

Matre’s Dance (1991, rev. 1994)
Created during an intense eight days, and originally commissioned as a violin solo, Matre’s Dance was premiered by David Guerin and Bruce McKinnon in the Adam Concert Room of the Victoria University School of Music in 1991. This was the first piece which suggested to me I might have some future in composing. Following its première, Matre’s Dance passed from my hands into Evelyn Glennie’s and has now seen much more of the world than I will.
Evelyn, Matre’s Dance, and I were recently reunited in Bologna’s beautiful opera house, where after a much-rehearsed introduction (in Italian) by Evelyn, I, the composer, was presented to the audience. As I rose in my private box to give the royal wave, the house went completely dark – to which the audience politely applauded. Considering my friend from New Zealand was shrieking with enthusiasm, gyrating and gesticulating with the euphoria more often found at a Rugby World Cup final, this unexpected blackout was no small blessing.

John Psathas

This recording was a great opportunity for me to re-learn an old favourite, having played an earlier version of Matre’s Dance with John on piano back in 1994.
This is a work which has become part of the core international repertoire, and so for me the challenge has been to try to add something new. The percussion timbres are crucial to the impact of the piece, and I had been searching for years for the perfect sound for the highest drum in the set-up. Finally I found it: a little 8-inch diameter snare drum. This, coupled with two timpani (tuned to A and C) and three double-headed tom toms, gives a really punchy set-up.

Jeremy Fitzsimons

Fragment (2001)
This piano duet was composed to commemorate the occasion of the retirement of my first piano teacher, Peter Williams. The première was given at a special function in Napier to celebrate the achievement of Peter Williams, in March 2001, where the pianists were Anne Jago and Dermot Horne. Fragment is dedicated to Peter for setting me on the right track.

John Psathas