Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
“There’s a sun dial in the gardens near our house in Edinburgh and it says on one side, ‘I number none but sunny hours’. And on the other side it says ‘So passes life. Alas, how swift!”
Lyell was acutely aware of time. The older you get the faster it goes, he said in 2014, on the eve of New Zealand celebrations for his 70th birthday. The concept of time and clocks enter many of his titles. And he always loved writing fast music - observed once that it was getting faster and faster as time went on - loved playing with meter and tempo. And not only that. “Ideas happen more quickly now. I used to have pieces growing out of a long span of gradual development. Development now tends to happen more quickly, so it’s not just the speeding up of the pace, it’s the speeding up of the working out of ideas as well.”
So of course he had to write a moto perpetuo, a virtuosic burst of energy. Perpetual motion - motion that, once started, will go on for ever unless stopped by other forces or worn out. The music ebbs and flows around a lively speed of MM120 (i.e. 2 beats per second). It fluctuates only slightly, between MM138 (2.3 beats per second) and MM104 (1.7 beats per second). Moto Perpetuo was commissioned by NZTrio, with funding from Creative New Zealand. Programme notes by Charlotte Wilson
Performed by NZTrio: Amalia Hall (violin), Matthias Balzat (cello) and Somi Kim (piano) in the Concert Chamber of the Auckland Town Hall, 16 November 2025. Filmed and edited by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Audio recorded by RNZ Concert (producer Emre Ekici; engineer Adrian Hollay). Film funded by NZ On Air.
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Learn more about the composers and performers of music from Aotearoa New Zealand on our website (sounz.org.nz), or by following us on Facebook (@SOUNZnz), Instagram (@sounz_nz), or TikTok (@sounz_nz).
#nzmusic
“There’s a sun dial in the gardens near our house in Edinburgh and it says on one side, ‘I number none but sunny hours’. And on the other side it says ‘So passes life. Alas, how swift!”
Lyell was acutely aware of time. The older you get the faster it goes, he said in 2014, on the eve of New Zealand celebrations for his 70th birthday. The concept of time and clocks enter many of his titles. And he always loved writing fast music - observed once that it was getting faster and faster as time went on - loved playing with meter and tempo. And not only that. “Ideas happen more quickly now. I used to have pieces growing out of a long span of gradual development. Development now tends to happen more quickly, so it’s not just the speeding up of the pace, it’s the speeding up of the working out of ideas as well.”
So of course he had to write a moto perpetuo, a virtuosic burst of energy. Perpetual motion - motion that, once started, will go on for ever unless stopped by other forces or worn out. The music ebbs and flows around a lively speed of MM120 (i.e. 2 beats per second). It fluctuates only slightly, between MM138 (2.3 beats per second) and MM104 (1.7 beats per second). Moto Perpetuo was commissioned by NZTrio, with funding from Creative New Zealand. Programme notes by Charlotte Wilson
Performed by NZTrio: Amalia Hall (violin), Matthias Balzat (cello) and Somi Kim (piano) in the Concert Chamber of the Auckland Town Hall, 16 November 2025. Filmed and edited by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Audio recorded by RNZ Concert (producer Emre Ekici; engineer Adrian Hollay). Film funded by NZ On Air.
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Learn more about the composers and performers of music from Aotearoa New Zealand on our website (sounz.org.nz), or by following us on Facebook (@SOUNZnz), Instagram (@sounz_nz), or TikTok (@sounz_nz).
#nzmusic
