Commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra for the 2009 Michael Hill International Violin Competition, Gareth Farr's Wakatipu is a virtuoso romp around the violin. Employing angular driving rhythms and unusual scales, the work was performed by the competition's 18 semifinalists in a challenging test of their technical and expressive abilities. The work's title refers to Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown, New Zealand, and the mysterious Maori legend behind it.
A Contemporary Gem That Began Its Life as an Ancient Myth', by Mimi Rabson, Strings, 19 July 2012.
Wakatipu is a lake in New Zealand in which the water level mysteriously rises and falls every few minutes. The mythical explanation for this involves love, abduction, a giant demon, a daring rescue, and a great fire: fine inspiration for a work of art.
Gareth Farr's namesake piece for solo violin lives up to the challenge beautifully. It's rare to find a composer who is able to sustain and develop intensity as effectively as Farr. He catches the listener's ear right away with unfamiliar scales and angular rhythms. But these choices are not alienating-the way he introduces this unconventional vocabulary, the way he weaves the story, draws listeners into the spellbinding tale. There is enough of the expected to engage audiences, but the constant evolution keeps them on the edge of their seats. Wakatipu is a breathtaking thrill ride that uses exotic musical language to invoke all the drama of its namesake legend.
Farr begins with a beautiful melody, using only ethereal harmonics to set the mood and the harmonic vocabulary. He then introduces the story with the catchy rhythmic motif that pops up repeatedly throughout the piece. Farr skillfully develops this phrase into higher pitch centers, longer iterations, and shifting phrase lengths. He juxtaposes it with his second motif, the smooth, quick runs that also expand in pitch and duration as the piece develops. These two contrasting themes work together to bring the piece to a fever pitch, at which point the exquisite melodic line of high-pitched minor sixths played slowly and mournfully caps the action before the last mad dash for the end.
The symmetrical diminished scale that is the harmonic backbone of the piece may be familiar to jazz players and fans of such Romantic composers as Ravel and Debussy. In this piece, it sounds otherworldly, adding to the supernatural flavor of the story. The scale is introduced in pieces, a few notes at a time. By the end of the piece, Farr writes sweeping runs three octaves long that catapult the listener into the next event.
Despite all this unusual vocabulary, Wakatipu is truly violinistic. It's certainly not easy, but the piece's technical demands are within the reach of any good violinist. Wakatipu should become part of the encore repertoire.
It's a gem of drama and adventure, just like the story that inspired it.
Gareth Farr is an indisputably colourful figure in New Zealand music. And whether scored for percussion duet or the resources of two large orchestras, Farr's music reflects his personality – bold, brash, or delicate and sensuous, but inevitably, immediately, engaging. Rhythmic elements of his compositions can be linked to the complex and exciting rhythms of Rarotongan log drum ensembles, Balinese gamelan and other percussion music of the Pacific Rim. In addition to his music for the concert chamber, Farr has written music for dance, theatre and television.
