31 Aug 2019

Gendall's piece revisits shameful stain on Aotearoa’s past

From Sound Lounge, 9:30 pm on 31 August 2019

A horrifying mass execution on our own shores during World War II was the unlikely inspiration for Chris Gendall’s orchestral work Incident Tableaux Part One.

In a prisoner-of-war camp based in Featherston near Wellington a number of Japanese prisoners were shot in an onslaught of confusion and miscommunication.

Fatigue squad on the way to work, at the Japanese prisoner of war camp near Featherston in 1943

Fatigue squad on the way to work, at the Japanese prisoner of war camp near Featherston in 1943 Photo: Ref: 1/4-000776-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23082641

For decades this incident was covered up by the New Zealand government until it was exposed by Vincent O’Sullivan in the 1980s in his play Shuriken. This same material informed Chris Gendall’s opera Incident from which his Incident Tableau Part One was extracted.

Chris explored the psychology of incarceration through the textures of his music. Metallic tone colours express barbed wire; the sound of lock-and-key that echoed through the characters' imprisonment are echoed in the music; the seemingly endless days of captivity are mirrored in the seemingly endless musical forms Chris conjures.

In honour of the victims' homeland, a Japanese influence manifests at times, like the ancient rituals of 16th-Century Japanese court music, and at times through the phrasing and rhythms of haiku.

Today, a haiku on a plaque commemorates the Featherston site:

    Behold the summer grass
    All that remains
    Of the dreams of warriors.

Incident Tableaux is a challenging look back at a shameful stain on Aotearoa’s past.