Also dating from 1979, The Land of the Long White Cloud was Philip Sparke's first test piece; it was commissioned by the New Zealand Brass Band Association for their 1980 National Championships (their centenary year) and set for the European Brass Band Championships, held, that year, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Aoteama was the name given to New Zealand by its Polynesian settlers whose first sight of the islands was a long, flat cloud lying low over the land.

The work has no specific programme although many have seen pictures of the surging ocean in the opening bars. A faster dance-like section leads to a slow, haunting solo tor soprano comet; this is taken up by the whole band before earlier material returns‘ The dance-like tune is, this tame, given a fugal treatment and the opening bars return to close the work.