Gillian Whitehead: Okuru (1979)

Abstract

"Okuru is a Maori word meaning the fifth day of the new moon, and the work is one of a sequence of pieces that take their titles from that culture. The piece falls into four main sections, all based on various aspects of the same source material. In the first and third sections, various types of rhythmic figurations (elaborations of the basic ground plan) occur in both instruments in interlocking, rather than coinciding, segments. In the second section, the violin plays arabesques above a continual semiquaver rhythm, preceded, interrupted and concluded by variations of a chorale-like melody. The final section, which begins with the opening piano figurations of each of the previous sections, is essentially a 3:2 retrograde canon between piano and violin, the piano weaving its elaborate material around the continuing line of the violin. Okuru was written in 1979, and was first performed in Auckland by Mary O'Brien and Janetta McStay." -- Gillian Whitehead