Abstract
The driving force and subject of Anthony Ritchie's third symphony is the idea of being human, which encompasses the full range of highs and lows of extreme emotions. Winner of "The Supreme Achievement Award" by The Listener magazine in New Zealand (2010) for the first performance, the work is bold in colour and gesture with challenging orchestrations that interweaves soloistic passages throughout all sections of the orchestra.
The symphony portrays two sides of human personality, represented by the two movements of the work: "Up" and "Down". Ritchie writes: "the music depicts the constant struggle to find balance in one's life, in terms of mood and relationships with other people." The work is rich with layers of textures and colour, "Up" underpinned by continual momentum forward, driven by the prominent log drum and tom toms of the percussion, bright brass and the upper registers of the woodwind. The second movement, "Down", contrasts markedly with the first by being melancholic, slow and mournful in mood with interjections of agitated gestures. The tension that they create ultimately subsides as melodies of the strings emerge.
This work reveals Ritchie's highly personal and compelling writing, and extracts the inner world of human emotion as a heightened experience through the orchestra. This publication is the first of the University Edition New Zealand Series, which showcases important works by leading composers in New Zealand.
Premiered at the Otago Festival of Arts by The Southern Sinfonia.