The dramatic is definitely the order of the evening here at the Auckland Town Hall … it’s an exciting and turbulent programme of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and one of Aotearoa’s most innovative composers of the moment, Gemma Peacocke.
Cellist Julian Steckel Photo: Marco Borggreve
Gemma Peacocke’s 2022 work, White Horses, co-commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia and inspired by the tragic and mysterious 1937 death of NZ pilot Viva Waud Farmer. An experienced aviator and First World War nursing veteran, Farmar was crossing the Cook Strait in a biplane when she leapt without warning into the choppy waters below.
Her co-pilot was unable to retrieve her body and later said that the rough seas looked like “white horses everywhere.” This image of the white caps in the churning Cook Strait swell informs Peacocke’s composition, and the work imagines Farmar’s frame of mind when she saw the sea on that fateful day.
Recorded by RNZ Concert, Auckland Town Hall, 15 February 2024
Producer: Tim Dodd
Engineer: Adrian Hollay
