Work
Horses of the Dawn
for voice and piano
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Call of the Huia (A Collection of Early NZ Art Songs, Part One) — downloadable PDF SCORE and MP3 ALBUM
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About
Originally published by Augener, Horses of the Dawnwas Mary Brett's first published song. Mark Pirie in the Spring 2014 edition of Poetry Notes about the poet Meriada Batten gives a January 12, 1928 Evening Post report of a performance of the song by Mr. Gordon Cleather “from the manuscript”, saying “It was accorded a vociferous encore”. Although the poet was present it seems the composer wasn’t.
The song was published the same year and became a test piece for the vocal competition in the Auckland Competitions in the 1950s. A copy of the song is amongst the Molly Atkinson papers in the Alexander Turnbull Library with a signed dedication from the composer to the singer, dated 1931. Atkinson, a well-known singer and teacher in Auckland and Wellington, was an adjudicator for the Auckland Competitions in the 1950s and may have been the one to set the song as a test piece.
Dedication note
Dedicated to Madame Cyril Towsey
Text note
Text by Marieda Batten (1875–1933)