Prize winner home to hear her work

By WILLIAM DART

Composer Penelope Axtens has arrived back in the country to hear what the NZSO makes of her new piece, From the sixth hour. Wellington was treated to the premiere last week, and this Friday, it's Auckland's turn.

It all came about through her winning the Music 2000 prize, a joint initiative of the orchestra and Radio New Zealand, and Axtens admits a full-fledged commission was "pretty scary. The initial thrill was clouded by chilling realities: you've got to write this 20-minute piece - it's been paid for and advertised as happening."

She has a few nagging worries - "Will it sound amateurish? Are the initial ideas broad enough to sustain it? What are the balances like?" - but if her prize-winning Part the Second two years ago was anything to go by, she can relax. As well as coming away with the big prize, it received plaudits from the orchestral musicians.

The same players will be busy on Friday. From the sixth hour is saturated with colour and incident, with a wild percussion section that calls on everything from five timpani to a mark tree.

But it's not just a matter of sloshing around in the musical equivalent of a paintbox.

The word "perfectionist" comes up more than a few times in our conversation and you can see the care taken in the fine detail of the writing.

Then there's the issue of holding the work together: "When a piece is this long you have to go somewhere, especially with all those textural gear changes," Axtens says.

There have been some gear changes in Axtens' life, too, from a childhood growing up on a South Auckland dairy farm, singing along with the Police's Walking on the Moon and dancing around the living room to her mother's Mantovani records.

Piano lessons led to postgraduate composition studies at Victoria University.

Peter Walls, professor at the time and now CEO of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, was impressed by her "meticulous work and the way in which a student could use sophisticated and complicated textures with such assurance".

On the eve of her new premiere, the composer is cagey about discussing its origins, despite the biblical quotes that pepper her programme note: "It's inspired by thoughts that are deeply held" is all that's offered. "Part of me doesn't understand them and perhaps I'm afraid they will lose some of their specialness if I explain it all too much."

She admits the celestial birds that flutter through her soundscape have religious connotations, although there's also a more worldly rationale: "When I was in Raumati writing that section there were a whole lot of birds outside."

And, despite an opening that is "based on a bunch of major chords", there are dark clouds, too. My attention is caught by her description of a "strange, apprehensive dance in the middle of the piece".

Talking to Axtens, one feels a sense of indecision that is perhaps caught in that dance.

At present, London is providing her with experiences she didn't have in this country.

The few concerts she has caught up with range from a John Elliott Gardiner performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis to a gig by jazz pianist Pete Wareham and Norwegian singer Silje Nergaard at Ronnie Scott's, a performance that brought forth the approbatory assessment of "wicked".

New sounds, new sights, new experiences. "There is so much wicked music out there," Axtens continues, "and it's not just classical. Music speaks of something we can relate to even if we can't verbalise what it is. Unlike certain books, which you can't enjoy unless they are translated, music is one of the few things all can share."

* NZ Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Town Hall, Friday, 6.30pm.