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"Pink and White"

~

New Zealand organ music from
1944 to 2005

Martin Setchell on the Christchurch Town Hall Rieger organ, recorded and released in 2005
Atoll ACD 605

Review of Pink and White, by William Dart. Published in The New Zealand Herald, May 20, 2005.

When I first heard that Martin Setchell, high priest of the Organ Bonbon, was releasing a CD titled Pink and White, I assumed it might have something to do with coconut ice.

I was wrong. The album is a collection of New Zealand organ music, its title taken from a Anthony Ritchie piece that recreates the 1886 Tarawera eruption. The CD cover features the celebrated Hoyte watercolour of the Pink and White Terraces.

Setchell is on home ground at the Christchurch Town Hall's Rieger organ, and producer Wayne Laird has created an ambience to bask in. And, believe me, the Gothique thunderings of Ritchie's Pink and White are spine-shivering.

There is more local music for the New Zealand organist than you might think. Setchell has chosen eight samplings written over the past 60 years, from Lilburn's 1944 Prelude and Fugue in G minor to recent works by Jack Body and Tecwyn Evans, rounding it all off with a jolly, if old-fashioned, ramble on Pokarekare Ana composed by the organist himself.

The Lilburn is a minor classic and the composer's "serene flow" is caught with ease. Setchell's articulation in the pastoral fugue is particularly sensitive, a feature which, along with perfectly considered registration, makes for the utmost clarity in David Farquhar's From Heaven I Come. Setchell revels in the pageantry of John Ritchie's Let the pealing organ blow and the mercurial colour play of Douglas Mews' Prelude and Fugue, a timely reminder of the late composer's enviable fluency. I am imagining how Mews' brow might crease and his bushy eyebrows furrow if he could read my words suggesting that some Bernard Herrmann harmonies are possibly lurking in his Prelude.

Though both Anthony Ritchie and Tecwyn Evans, in his prowling Gerauschvoll, cater for the grander capabilities of the Rieger instrument, Body's Tui, korimako and kokako is a fragile wonder - to paraphrase Hildegard, "a feather on the breath of Tane Mahuta". It is not quite South Pacific Messiaen, as the composer uses actual birdsong recordings among the organ sonorities, but I couldn't imagine a more perfect evocation of that eternal duet between man and nature, functioning so beautifully as both celebration and warning.

William Dart, New Zealand Herald, May 20, 2005

THE INNOVATION on Pink and White is organist Martin Setchell's discovery that we do have a patchy organ writing tradition of sorts. The outstanding title work, by Anthony Ritchie, is matched perfectly by the cover reproduction of Hoyte's 1873 watercolour of the terraces.

Other personal favourites are the sensitive match of birdsong with organ in Jack Body's "Tui, korimako and kokako"; Douglas Mews's clear and light "Prelude and Fugue"; the exuberance of John Ritchie's "Let the pealing organ blow"; Tecwyn Evan's "Gerauschvoll", which has far more under its hat than flamboyant noise; and Setchell's "Pokarekare Ana Suite" for its humour.

Setchell plays all eight works with clarity and vivid colouring on the Christchurch Town Hall 's piquantly voiced new Rieger organ.

Reviewed by Ian Dando for The “ New Zealand Listener”, November 5, 2005

Tracks:
Anthony Ritchie - Pink and White

David Farquhar - From Heaven I Come (with song and dance) variation on Von Himmel hoch

Douglas Lilburn - Prelude and Fugue in G minor (Antipodes)

John Ritchie - Let the pealing organ blow

Douglas Mews - Prelude and Fugue

Jack Body - Tui, Korimako and Kokako (for organ and birdsong)

Tecwyn Evans - Gerauschvoll

Martin Setchell - Pokarekare Ana Suite

Buy your copy now from:

• This website, nzorgan.com
• Marbecks at www.marbecks.co.nz or
  15 Queens Arcade
  Auckland, New Zealand
  Phone: +64 9 379 0444
  Fax: +64 9 307 9275
• Parsons in 126 Lambton Quay, Wellington,
  Ph: +64 4 472 4587 e-mail for info
• Opus CDs online (www.opuscds.com) (MP3 sound samples of tracks available from here)
• From reception in the foyer of the Christchurch Town Hall, Kilmore Street, P.O.Box 13144, Christchurch.

More about organist Martin Setchell at www.organist.co.nz“.. he's an outstanding artist and impeccable stylist on the colourful Rieger organ in Christchurch's Town Hall.”
“New Zealand Listener ”“Martin Setchell thoroughly earned his standing ovation on Saturday night . . . here an incredible palette of sound colours was brought forth from the Rieger organ.”
“The Press” ~ Christchurch, New Zealand“How a mere ten fingers and two feet, along with a lot of Austrian organ-building wizardry, could weave such magic remains quite a mystery. .. Impeccable technique and an intimate understanding of the instrument itself hardly need mentioning.”
“The Press” ~ Christchurch, New Zealand

“In Setchell's hands, the organ achieves a broad spectrum of colour, dynamics and expression”
“University Chronicle” - NZ

“(Setchell’s) own arrangements and compositions are worthy of a Lemare and his fingerwork as neat and fleet as Bach's feet are supposed to have been. And that's saying something.”
“Organists’ Review” - UK

Many thanks to Creative New Zealand for funding help.

For more information about the Tarawera eruption, visit www.anheizen.com - The story of Tarawera, the landscape renovator. This beautiful and informative site has anything you would want to know about the eruption of a mountain that destroyed a wonder of the world.