This is the voice of one who doubts the traditional religions but who loves the world around him, the natural and the unnatural and the delicate balance between these worlds. This piece tries to combine these two, the natural and the unnatural, in such a way that one can enhance the other, but also to warn of the disastrous consequences of an unconsidered combination, the dominance of one over the other can cause.
It is also an admission of nostalgia—a longing for the natural voices of the composer's country of origin, New Zealand: four bird songs are included (Kiwi, Bellbird, Fantail and the Little Grey Warbler) not to mention the plaintive sound of the Humpback Whale.
Some of the material of this piece was used originally for the Credo in the collective Work of five Swiss composers: Missa digitalis.
This work was never published (although I like it even more than Contrasts to which it is similar in many ways). Recently, however, I have used much of it again in the ‘tape’ part of Schubert 1828, 3rd movement.