Front Page
AUSTRALIA
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Introduction
The
pattern of Australian classical music has much in common with
other countries that entered the 20th century without a classical
music tradition of their own, such as Canada or Mexico. The
earlier part of the century was characterised by music that
essentially belonged to European traditions, with the best known
figures working outside Australia. A nationalist period, discovering
indigenous traditions (in the case of Australia, aboriginal
legends and music), has been followed by a generation of younger
composers either following the mainstream European avant-garde,
or combining elements of that very international language with
a continued exploration of Australia's own cultural and native
heritage. However, followers of 12-tone developments have been
rare in Australia; by the time younger composers studied in
Europe, the influences were Boulez, Stockhausen,
Lutosławski and similar models, who in many cases
had themselves moved beyond serialism. Thanks to Australia's
geographical position, many recent composers have also been
influenced by traditional and contemporary music from the Pacific
Rim countries, notably that of Balinese and Japanese cultures.
The
19th century had already seen some colourful, but now forgotten,
Australian composers. The Irish-born composer-violinist William
Vincent Wallace (1812-1865) fell for a Maori princess in New
Zealand, and ended up in Chile, while Isaac Nathan (1790-1864),
who claimed descent from the kings of Poland, was killed by
a horse-drawn tram, after collecting aboriginal songs and transcribing
them to conventional European idioms. Of the earliest generation
recognized as Australian composers, the two best known, Percy
Grainger (1882-1961) and Arthur Benjamin (1893-1960),
spent most of their lives working in Britain or the U.S.A.,
and both came to prominence initially as pianists as much as
composers. Peggy Glanville-Hicks (born 1912), a tireless critic
(for the New York Herald-Tribune) and supporter of new
music, spent most of her life in the U.S.A. and Greece, and
is best known for her chamber music (including settings of some
of fellow-critic Virgil Thomson's reviews) and later operas,
notably Nausica (after Robert Graves, 1960). The main
composer to stay in Australia was Alfred Hill (1870-1960)
who retained throughout his life the musical language he had
learnt in Germany at the end of the 19th century. Also virtually
unknown outside Australia is Margaret Sutherland (1897-1984),
whose main legacy is her chamber music, and whose opera The
Young Kabbarli (1964) was the first Australian opera to
be recorded in Australia. Her pioneering example in a country
not noted historically for its emancipation of women is reflected
in the large number of contemporary Australian women composers.
Other composers of this generation include William Lovelock
(born 1899), but Grainger remains the most widely known Australian
composer, as much for his flamboyant life-style as for his music.
The
rediscovery of Aboriginal ideas and legends was spearheaded
by the landmark ballet Corroboree (1935-1946) by John
Antill (1904-1986), still one of the most successful and evocative
of all Australian scores. Its basis is the opposition of percussion
and high woodwind to the rest of a big orchestra; its colours
are bright and bold, offset by sharp points and the rattles
and hisses of percussion. The atmosphere is of sensuous headiness,
of a primitivism driven by motoric rhythms, and if it has sometimes
been called 'the Australian Rite of Spring', it is much more
accurate to compare it with similar ballet works by Ginastera
and Villa-Lobos, both of whom were responding to similar
discoveries of a rich and earthy natural heritage. It deserves
to be in the occasional repertoire in the West. Of the next
generation of composers, Malcolm Williamson (born 1931)
is the senior figure, who attracted sufficient attention with
his large scale orchestral works to be appointed Master of the
Queen's Musick in Britain in 1975. Since the 1960s, his music
has become increasingly conservative and light-weight, and has
included operas for children and works with audience participation.
Besides Williamson, the best known are Don Banks (born
1923), whose influences are eclectic and include jazz, Richard
Meale (born 1932), whose language is international rather
than identifiably Australian, and perhaps the most familiar,
Peter Sculthorpe (1929), who has been heavily influenced
by music of the Pacific Rim. All three composers have regularly
been heard in Europe and the U.S.A.
During
the 1970s and 1980s, Australia saw an explosion of artistic
activity and cultural self-confidence. The emergence of the
Australian film (and television) industry has been the area
that has most attracted international attention. But the building
of the extraordinary Sydney Opera House, begun in 1957 and completed
in 1973 with four concert halls and two recording halls, designed
by the Danish architect Joern Utzon and one of the most imaginative
buildings of its kind anywhere in the world, marked the maturity
of Australia as a musical country. It is a textbook case of
how money and attention lavished on the arts can bring a country
international acclaim, continuing attention and prestige that
far outweighs the original costs and the considerable outcry
that those costs provoked in politicians and philistines incapable
of looking beyond next year's budget. It is no exaggeration
to say that general public interest in and knowledge of Australians
(beyond stereotypes) among Europeans and North Americans, with
all the consequent ties of business and commerce, is largely
due to the Australian film industry and to the Sydney Opera
House.
That
explosion of cultural activity has had its ramifications in
composition, notably in the opening of a national 24-hour serious
music radio station by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
in 1976. However, familiarity with the large number of composers
currently working in Australia is greatly hampered by the apparent
inability of Australian recording concerns to disseminate Australia's
new music outside Australia. Some of the major recording companies
have subsidiaries in Australia, but are unwilling or unable
to have their material issued by international parent companies.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has made many recordings,
sometimes excellent, but they have appeared outside Australia
only in private issues, and are likely to be found only in the
largest university libraries. This is a regrettable situation,
especially when small companies in other countries have shown
the limited but commercially viable interest and curiosity in
similar material across the Western world. The extreme difficulty
of anyone outside Australasia in encountering the music of Australia's
cultural coming of age has limited the number of composers included
here, and does not necessarily reflect the intrinsic worth of
those excluded.
Among
this current generation of composers who deserve more interest
are Nigel Butterley, whose recent works have included a number
of settings of Walt Whitman, Barry Conyngham (born 1944), who
has explored the Australian heritage in music theatre and opera
(notably the opera Ned, 1974-1978), and Douglas Knehans
(born 1957), who is also turning to opera and music theatre.
Helen Gifford (born 1935) is another composer influenced by
Balinese traditions. John Crocker (b.1944) is an experimenter
in sound as an art form using electronics and multi-media. Larry
Sitsky (1934), born in China, is known for his keyboard music
and his studies of Busoni. Martin Wesley-Smith (born 1945) concentrates
on computer music and audio-visual works, and runs the group
WATT and environmental group TREE. Michael Whiticker has been
influenced by the music of Pacific Rim and the Korean composer
Isang Yun. Betty Beath has written environmental works
and a number of stage works for children to librettos by the
writer David Cox, notably with indigenous, Balinese and Javanese
themes. Ross Edwards (born 1943) has written in both a sparse,
introspective style with Far Eastern influences, and a much
more extrovert and traditional idiom.
Australia
has also produced a number of distinguished interpreters. One
of the most outstanding, the violinist, conductor and composer
Sir Eugene Goossens (1893-1962), brother of the harpists Marie
and Sidonie Goossens and of the oboist Leon Goossens, came to
Australia in 1946 to direct the New South Wales Conservatory
and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and was knighted in 1955
for his services (although he returned to England following
a minor personal scandal in 1956). The two most distinguished
were opera singers. Dame Nellie Melba (actually Helen Mitchell,
1859-1931) was one of the most famous and loved singers of her
age. Dame Janet Sutherland (born 1926), perhaps the greatest
coloratura soprano since the Second World War, needs little
introduction. She retired in 1990. Others include the pianist
and champion of new music Roger Woodward, and the conductor
Sir Charles Mackerras, who has become celebrated for his interpretations
of Czech music. In Peter Conrad, born in Tasmania and now dividing
his time between England and New York, Australia has produced
one of the most provocative contemporary writers on opera.
Australian
Music Centre Ltd.
P.O.
Box N690
Grosvenor
Place
New
South Wales, 2000
Australia
tel:
+61 2 247 4677
fax:
+61 2 241 2873
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BANKS
BENJAMIN
GRAINGER
HILL
MEALE
SCULTHORPE
WILLIAMSON
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BANKS
Don
born
25th October, 1923 at South Melbourne
died
5th September, 1980 at Sydney
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Don
Banks spent many years in Britain, 1949-1972, where he first
came to attention with the Duo for Violin and Cello (1951-1952),
which uses a 14-note row. However, on his return to Australia,
he became established as one of the leading figures promoting,
encouraging and teaching new music. His own music reflects his
eclectic interest in the different techniques available to contemporary
composers.
His
earliest acknowledged works were chamber pieces, but included
transcriptions of Elizabethan works in Elizabethan Miniatures
(1961), for flute, lute, viola da gamba and strings. With Equation
I (1963-1964) for jazz group and chamber ensemble he initiated
a number of works that use jazz musicians (his father was a
jazz player). These include Settings from Roget (1966),
combining serialism with jazz, and Three Short Songs
(1971) for female jazz singer and jazz quartet, Meeting Place
(1970) for chamber orchestra, jazz groups and sound synthesizer,
and Take Eight (1973) for string quartet and jazz quartet.
A flirtation with aleatoric elements was reflected in Form
X (1964), a `graphic score' for two to ten players. Assemblies
(1966) for orchestra was designed to introduce student players
to contemporary techniques, including semi-improvisatory elements,
but is entertaining in its own right. The Violin Concerto
(1966) is unusually constructed (the equivalent of a slow movement
comes in the middle of the last of three movements), and the
melodic solo writing was designed to avoid extended instrumental
techniques while at the same time building a complex of interrelated
series expanding from a single cell, using clusters. Tirade
(1968) for voice, piano, harp, and percussionists (using some
50 instruments) is a kind of polemic against Australia, with
texts by Peter Porter. It presents, amid a welter of percussion,
a picture of Australia as an `ever-present' museum, attacks
the exploitation and rape of the Australian landscape, and savages
the traditional Australian treatment of its culture and heritage.
Its materials range from stark simplicity with characteristic
slow progressions, to frenzy, including a siren. An element
of that violence had already appeared in the short, atonal,
but still slow-moving Pezzo dramatico (1956) for piano.
With
Intersections (1969) for electronic sounds and orchestra,
he added electronic media to his palette, eventually leading
to Shadows of Space (1972) for tape. Limbo (1972)
for soloists, chamber ensemble and pre-recorded tape - even
if it does use a rather pretentious existentialist text (prepared
with Peter Porter) that is a reflection of its late-sixties
origins - shows eclectic diversity, with half-spoken chattering
of chorus (on tape), pop elements, lyrical writing when solo
voice is used against the chamber ensemble, interjections from
the tape, and echoes, perhaps intentional, of Britten
in the duet and trio vocal writing, complete with distant snarling
brass.
A
more straight-forward development of 12-tone principles appears
in the String Quartet (1975), a flowing work in one continuous
movement divided into two sections. It uses two tone-rows designed
to have overlapping and conflicting properties, enhanced by
contrasting timbres and sonorities, at times melodically reminiscent
of Schoenberg. A satisfying if unstartling work, it shows
Bank's skill at combining clarity of thought and structure with
an ease of lyricism that is entirely supported by the use of
the rows.
Banks
initiated an electronic music studio in Canberra, and taught
at the Australian National University and Canberra School of
Music, 1973. He was chairman of the Music Board of the Australian
Council for the Arts from 1972 to 1974.
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works
include:
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series Equations (I and II for jazz group and chamber
ensemble, III for jazz quintet, chamber ensemble, and synthesizers)
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horn concerto; violin concerto; Nexus for jazz band and
orch.
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Assemblies, Divisions, Dramatic Music, Intersections
(with tape), 4 Pieces, and Prospects for orch.
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Meeting Place for chamber orch., jazz groups and synthesizer;
Sonata da Camera for chamber ensemble; Form X
for 2 to 10 players
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Sequence for solo cello; Three Pieces for clarinet
and piano; Three Episodes for flute and piano; Duo
for violin and cello; horn trio; 4 Pieces for string
quartet; Take Eight for string quartet and jazz quartet
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Pezzo Dramatico for piano; Commentary for piano
and tape
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song cycles Settings from Roget and 3 Shorts Songs
for jazz singer and jazz quartet; Findings Keepings for
chorus, drums and bass; Limbo for soloists, chamber ensemble
and tape; Tirade for voice, harp, piano and percussion;
Walkabout for children's voices and instruments
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film music
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electronic Shadows of Space
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recommended
works:
Violin
Concerto (1966)
Tirade
(1968) for voice, harp, piano and percussion
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BENJAMIN
Arthur
born
September 18th 1893 at Sydney
died
9th April 1960 at London
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Arthur
Benjamin (not to be confused with the British composer George
Benjamin, born 1960), a virtuoso pianist and conductor as well
as composer, was together with Grainger one of the first
Australian composers to be noticed internationally, partly through
his residence in Britain from 1921 (teaching at the Royal Academy
from 1926), and a period in North America (1941-1946). He is
primarily remembered for his operas and his lighter music. Of
the former, the comic The Devil Take Her (1931) and Prima
Donna (1933), enjoyed some success, while Mañana
(1956) was the first opera televised by the BBC. The most highly
regarded is The Tale of Two Cities, (1948-1949), but
none have survived in the repertoire. His lighter music includes
Cotillon (1938), a suite of dances for orchestra based
on 17th-century tunes which is an uninspiring diversion that
has retained some popularity in Australia, and the humorous
Overture to an Italian Comedy (1937). The jazzy and entertaining
little Concertino (1927) for piano and orchestra is heavily
influenced by Gershwin and Ravel's piano concertos.
His Harmonica Concerto (1953), with a beautiful slow
movement, has retained its place as one of the very few serious
concertante works for that instrument.
However,
the works most likely to be encountered today are the series
of Caribbean dances and rags, mostly for piano or two-piano
versions, though a number, notably Two Jamaican Pieces
(1938), are scored for orchestra. Benjamin had encountered this
music touring in the area as a Music Board Examiner, but he
himself wrote the pastiche tune for the most celebrated, Jamaican
Rumba (the second of the Jamaican Pieces). The calypso
style is enormously infectious, and there is a delight in the
pianistic adaptation. With its populist, light-music appeal,
it essentially lies beyond the scope of this book, though pianists
looking for light relief will have fun. Of his more serious
works, which include a Violin Concerto (1932) and a Symphony
(1944-1945), the Concerto quasi una fantasia (1949) for
piano and orchestra was written as a showpiece for his own pianistic
powers. Tautly constructed (it ends with a passacaglia) with
predominantly lyrical virtuoso piano writing that is indebted
to Rachmaninov, it is not individual or interesting enough
to warrant more than the rarest revival. His Oboe Concerto
(1940) for oboe and strings is actually a reworking of keyboard
sonatas by Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801), and, though far more
Cimarosa than Benjamin, it is a lithe and gently delightful
diversion.
Benjamin
flew as a pilot in World War One, and was shot down and captured
by the Germans.
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works
include:
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symphony; oboe concerto (after Cimarosa); Concertino for
piano and strings; Concerto quasi una fantasia; violin
concerto; Elegy, Waltz and Toccata for viola and orch.;
Romantic Fantasy for violin, viola and orch.
-
Caribbean Dance, Cotillon, Divertimento on Themes by Gluck,
From San Domingo, Heritage, North American Square Dance, Overture
to an Italian Comedy, Red River Jig and Two Jamaican
Pieces for orch.
-
Ballade for strings; Sonatina for chamber orch.
-
Valses Caprices for clarinet (or viola) and piano; cello
sonatina; violin sonatina; Le Tombeau de Ravel for viola,
cello and piano; 2 string quartets; Pastoral Fantasy for
string quartet
-
many works for piano and piano four hands
-
Nightingale Lane for two voices and piano; Three Impressions
for voice and string quartet
-
Three Mystical Songs for chorus
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operas The Devil Take Her, Mañana, Prima Donna, The Tale
of Two Cities and Tartuffe
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film and incidental music
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recommended
works:
calypso
piano works
Harmonica
Concerto (1953)
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GRAINGER
Percy Aldridge
born
8th July 1882 at Melbourne
died
20th February 1961 at White Plains, New York
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Percy
Grainger's position is a complete anomaly. His name is familiar
to many, his music to few, apart from his orchestral arrangements
of traditional folk-songs or original pieces in similar styles
that are known everywhere, especially Country Gardens
(1925), Handel in the Strand (1913), Molly on the
Shore (1913) and the suite Lincolnshire Posy (1937-1938).
In these his art is that of the miniature, his ability at arranging
such material considerable. What made his arrangements particularly
effective is that he kept the rhythmic, vocal, and sometimes
dialect irregularities that made the original folk-songs so
distinctive, instead of smoothing out such details, as so often
happened when folk-songs were transferred outside their original
context. The result was to give his arrangements an infectious
life and vitality. He was an important early collector of folk-songs
in England (1905-1909, including recording songs on portable
wax cylinder gramophone equipment), and later in Denmark (1922,
1925, 1927).
However,
there was a completely different side to Grainger's work, which
has been obscured by his constant revision, the subsequent chaos
of material, and the failure to pursue ideas to a completed
form. This was entirely experimental, including micro-tones
and electronic ideas (using an early electronic instrument,
the theremin, in Free Music II, 1935-1936), with the
aim of creating a `free music' with a flow of sonorities beyond
conventional techniques. Many of these early experiments used
folk-song or similar material as their base (an exact contemporary
parallel to Ives's experiments in the U.S.A., using hymns
or popular tunes as a base), or explored instrumental ideas
advanced for their time (such as the arrangement of Debussy's
Pagodes for mallet instruments and harmonium, 1918).
The
orchestral score The Warriors (begun 1901, reworked 1906,
otherwise 1912-1916) shows many of these eclectic ideas, and
will come as something of a surprise to those who know only
his popular miniatures. Some of the orchestral ideas it contains,
while familiar today, were revolutionary at the time: the extra
scoring of what Grainger called 'tuneful percussion' (a battery
of tuned instruments), a minimum of three pianos, sometimes
played with marimba sticks, and two assistant conductors to
control offstage forces. These offstage forces sometimes move
at a different speed and in a different key to the main body
in polyrhythmic and polytonal echoes. It is Grainger's longest
continuous score, and has a typical energy and love of bright
effect, its use of orchestral forces and polytonal effects sometimes
anticipating general practice by two or more decades. But it
also shows the weakness of Grainger's experiments: the basic
material, sometimes using the type of melody and material preferred
in the miniatures, is conventional underneath all the exploration
of colour and sonority, a product of the late-Edwardian era
and, in terms of large-scale architecture, somewhat out of control.
It is perhaps Grainger's failure to find a new musical language
to match his aural ideas that has doomed this aspect of his
output to relative obscurity. Nonetheless, Warriors will
fascinate the curious, especially if the listener concentrates
on the wealth of orchestral and colour effects, and it will
be of particular interest to those exploring early experiments
in ideas that have become familiar later in the century. Similar
in concept is The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart
(1918-1943) for orchestra, shorter in length but using even
larger orchestral forces (including wind band, organ, piano
ad. lib. and tuned percussion) that includes free sections for
the percussion. The basic material is again straightforward
but also less interesting than that of The Warriors;
any value lies in the colour effects.
Although
much has been made of this experimental aspect of Grainger in
some quarters, it had no influence in his lifetime, and little
(apart from historical curiosity) since. It may be that as more
emerges, the place and effectiveness of these experiments will
become clearer; in the meantime, he will continue to be remembered
for those catchy miniatures.
Grainger
left Australia at the age of 13, and after a period in Europe
settled in the U.S.A. in 1914, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1918.
He was celebrated as an international concert pianist of flair,
including among his concerts one in the Hollywood Bowl to an
audience of 20,000, at which he was married. He taught at the
Chicago Musical College (1919-1931) and at New York University.
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works
include: (due to re-scorings and re-workings, any comprehensive
list of Grainger's output is almost impossible to cover here.
Readers wishing such information are referred to the entry in
the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians)
-
Free Music I and II (performing versions realized by
Conyngham; I originally for string quartet, II for two theremins)
-
Handel in the Strand, Mock Morris, The Nightingale and the
Two Sisters, To a Nordic Princess, The Power of Rome and Christian
Heart and The Warriors for orch.
-
chamber Hill Song 1 and 2 in various instrumental versions
-
many works in folk-song style for various forces
-
many arrangements of folk-songs for orch., voice, piano and
two pianos
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recommended
works:
orchestral
miniatures based on folk-songs or similar material
The
Warriors (1912-1916) for orchestra
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bibliography:
J.
Bird Percy Grainger, the Man and the Music London, 1976
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HILL
Alfred
born
16th November 1870 at Melbourne
died
30th October 1960 at Sydney
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Alfred
Hill is the grandfather of Australian classical music, occupying
a similar position to Sir Ernest MacMillan in Canada.
He had the distinction of being born a century, to the very
day, after Beethoven, and his staunchly Romantic compositional
style was formed by studies in Germany and by playing in the
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (1887-1891), and then by his discovery
of Maori music during periods spent in New Zealand (1892-1896,
1902-1907).
His
chief legacy are thirteen symphonies (of which ten are numbered).
Eleven of the symphonies are actually re-workings of music written
mostly in the 1930s for string quartet or chamber groupings,
though their origins are well disguised. Partly reflecting this
reworking process, there was a long gap between the Symphony
No.1 `The Maori' (1896-1900) and Symphony No.2 `The Joy
of Life' (1941, based on Life, 1912 for string quartet,
piano, and eight voices) for soloists, chorus and orchestra.
Symphony No.3 `Australia' appeared in 1951, and the rest
of the symphonies in the last fifteen years of Hill's long life.
The Symphony No.4 `The Pursuit of Happiness' (1955) is
one of the symphonies originally written as such. It is cast
in the unmistakable lyrical style of the late 19th century,
with touches of Dvořák, but is exceptionally well crafted,
with a natural, logical and buoyant flow and a lucidity of conventional
orchestration that makes it an appealing work, allowing for
the outdated Romantic idiom. Of the works adapted from chamber
music, the Symphony No.6 `Celtic' recasts a string quartet
of 1938 and extensively uses Irish folk material, especially
jig rhythms, with a direct quotation in the slow movement. Those
who enjoy the symphonies of Parry or Harty will
respond. The light-touched Symphony in E flat (unofficially
No.12, from String Quartet No.13, 1936) has a more intimate,
almost neo-classical feel in spite of a short-lived chromatic
opening, brighter colours being added by tuned percussion, to
slightly disconcerting effect against scoring and material that
looks to Schumann in the final movement. The Symphony in
A minor (unofficially No.13) is for strings alone, and is
based on the String Quartet No.9 (1935), and again has
neo-classical overtones, and a rather beautiful and mournful
Andantino, its mood immediately contradicted by the jaunty
Scherzo.
Hill
still occupies an important position in the musical heritage
of Australia and New Zealand, even if his work is virtually
unknown elsewhere. If his idiom is anachronistic, it is wrought
with skill and with a sense of buoyancy, and historically he
is an admirable example of a composer maintaining the ideas
of his youthful training when attempting to forge a place for
his compositions in a very young classical music culture, with
no traditions of its own but close ties to a European heritage.
Hill was a scholar of Maori music, was Director of the New Zealand
Orchestra, and from 1915 taught at the newly founded New South
Wales Conservatory. Among his pupils was Antill. From its foundation
in 1932 he was active in the early days of the Australian Broadcasting
Commission.
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works
include:
-
13 symphonies (see text: only 10 numbered; No.1 The Maori,
No.2 The Joy of Life for soloists, chorus and orch.,
No.3 Australia, No.4 The Pursuit of Happiness,
No.6 Celtic)
-
piano concerto; trumpet concerto; viola concerto; violin concerto;
Serenade for Flute and Strings
-
The Sacred Mountain and other works for orch.; Green
Water for narrator and orch.
-
17 string quartets; Life for string quartet, piano and
voices and other chamber music
-
72 works for piano
-
choral works and operas
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recommended
work:
Symphony
No.4 (In Pursuit of Happiness) (1955)
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MEALE
Richard
born
24th August 1932 at Sydney
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A
pianist as well as a composer, Richard Meale is the Australian
composer of orchestral music most clearly influenced by the
mainstream advances in European orchestral writing, and his
voice is powerful enough, if not overtly individual, to interest
those following the dissemination of recent European ideas.
Following
the composition of his Flute Sonata (1960), the first
work to suggest this orientation, he withdrew all his earlier
music (although four earlier works, a Flute Concerto, a
Sinfonia, Orenda for piano, and the song cycle
This I still appear in his acknowledged list of works).
A programmatic element, sometimes based on historical associations,
plays a strong role in his works, preferring rugged and atmospheric
ideas to the picturesque. Spanish influence appears in Los
Alborados (1963) for flute, violin, horn and piano and Homage
to Garcia Lorca (1964), which exists in versions for two
string orchestras and two string groups.
Nocturnes
(1967) for orchestra with solo harp, vibraphone and celesta
is highly regarded in Australia, its six sections describing
the movements of the sun and moon, and their symbolic associations.
The rather startling Very High Kings (1968) for orchestra
was the first of an intended cycle, The Mystical Voyage of
Christopher Columbus. It opens with a massive organ chord
against a orchestra holding a hushed chord that emphasises the
minor 7th, reminiscent of Messiaen, before launching
into an atmospheric evocation, short disjointed phrases struggling
against subdued sonorities. There is a wide range of orchestral
effect, notably bells and two amplified pianos, and a massive
climax. Clouds Now and Then (1969) and Soon It Will
Die (1969), both for orchestra, are inspired by Japanese
haiku poetry.
A
two-year compositional silence preceded Evocations (1972)
for oboe and chamber orchestra with violin obbligato, commissioned
by Paul Sacher with the virtuoso oboist Heinz Holliger in mind.
The evocations of the title refer to the interaction of soloists
and orchestra (the latter evoking the former), and musical ideas
(notes, chords, fragments) evoking other similar musical materials.
Veridian (1978-1979 - the title is a play on various
connotations of `green') is similarly atmospheric, with Messiaen
again an influence in melodic phrases. It also has a stronger
sense of linear progression, with less reliance on fragmentation,
than such works as Evocation. With the String Quartet
No.2 (1980) Meale, like many other mainstream contemporary
composers, switched to a neo-Romantic and lyrical style. His
most recent and largest project has been an opera based on perhaps
the most famous of Australian novels, Patrick White's Voss,
a major departure as Meale's only other acknowledged vocal
work (This I, three songs for soprano and piano on verses
by Spender) was written in 1955.
Meale
himself is a noted interpreter of the piano works of Messiaen,
and the influence of the French composer is again evident in
Coruscations (1971 - its title refers to rapid flashes
of light, as in the Aurora Borealis) for piano, although Messiaen's
technique of fragmentation of material is extended into very
short phrases and ideas. It is based on the manipulation and
transposition of ten basic sonorities. Prominent are widely
broken chords high in the keyboard, and the sense of poetic
evocation and atmospheric description is maintained.
Meale
has taught at the University of Adelaide since 1969.
───────────────────────────────────────
works
include:
-
Clouds Now and Then, Images (Nagauta), Soon it will die,
Variations, Very High Kings for orch.; Homage to Garcia
Lorca for two string orch. or groups
-
flute concerto; Evocations for oboe and chamber orch.,
with violin obbligato; Nocturnes for vibraphone, harp
and celesta and orch.; Sinfonia for piano four hands
and string orch.
-
flute sonata; Divertimento for violin, piano and cello;
2 string quartets, Los Alboradas for flute, violin, horn
and piano; wind quintet; Plateau for wind quintet; Interiors/Exteriors
for two pianos and three percussion; Incredible Floridas
(Homage to Rimbaud) for flute, clarinet, horn, violin/viola,
cello, piano and percussion
-
Coruscations, Orenda and Sonatina Patetica for
piano
-
song cycle This I for soprano and piano
-
opera Voss; incidental music; film scores
───────────────────────────────────────
recommended
work:
Very
High Kings (1968) for orchestra
───────────────────────────────────────
SCULTHORPE
Peter Joshua
born
29th April 1929 at Launceston, Tasmania
───────────────────────────────────────
Peter
Sculthorpe is one of the best known of his generation of Australian
composers. His music has been quite widely performed outside
Australasia, and he taught at Yale (1965-1967) and at Sussex
University (1971-1972). He is also one of the major Australian
composers who, in applying an antipodean orientation to the
inheritance of European models, has turned to the concepts and
traditions of the Pacific Rim countries, and merged these influences
with a personal and evocative response to the Australian landscapes
and its indigenous traditions. He remains the most impressive
of all Australian composers, who has forged an idiom that is
individual and recognizable, draws on European roots, and yet
belongs entirely to its own emerging cultural and geographic
origins.
His
oriental interest was announced in the Sonata for Viola and
Percussion (1960), but he came to wider prominence with
a series of works titled Sun Music for orchestra. Part
of the inspiration was the sun-stark Australian landscape, and
the Aboriginal concept of `Dreamtime'; much of the means stems
from music of the Far East. The impressive Sun Music I
(1965) is rich in the sonorities, static motion, and gongs of
Far Eastern ceremonial court music, translated into dense orchestral
textures with a strong sense of ritual, and development by alteration
of sonorities and textures rather than melodic or rhythmic momentum.
Sun Music II (1966-1969) has echoes of Eastern processional
street music, the percussion dominating in sounds used to ward
away evil spirits. Sun Music III 'Anniversary Music'
(1966) sets delicate gamelan sounds, woodwind reminiscent of
Chinese or Japanese models, and high strings against gentle
static textures, with a favourite device of high scraping strings
suggesting bird calls. The melodic content is more direct, and
magically and gradually evolves from that Eastern influence
to a highly atmospheric evocation of the Australian outback
- birdcalls prominent, the rattle of indigenous percussion instruments
adding their own unmistakable timbre - before the Far Eastern
ritual re-emerges. The more tense and intense Sun Music IV
(1967) collects together many of the elements of the earlier
works. The four works, with their inherent contrasts, work well
as a series to be played in succession, the overwhelming sense
of ritual combining with the evocation of landscape to create
a forty-minute score of impressive power and impact that manages
to be international in its implications while specific in its
origins. Sun Music for Voices and Percussion (1966) is
a kind of supplement to the series.
The
influence of indigenous and aboriginal sounds is overt in The
Song of Tailitnama (1974 - the title refers to an Aboriginal
totemic centre) for high voice, six cellos and percussion (version
for voice and piano, 1984). Originally written for a television
documentary, its vivid opening sets a lyrical wordless voice
against the clicking sounds of percussion and high scoops using
harmonic overtones on the cellos, before a solo cello takes
over the melody. The subsequent verses are a wallaby song in
Aranda. With the tangible integration of a very different aural
culture, this would make a fascinating companion piece to Villa-Lobos'
Bachianas brasileiras No.5, which influenced Sculthorpe's
work. How the Stars Were Made (1971), written for the
virtuoso percussion ensemble Percussions de Strasbourg, is also
based on Aboriginal legend, while Port Essington (1977)
for string trio and string orchestra is a musical reflection
of historical events. The town of the title, an early settlement,
was gradually given up to the encroaching bush; the string trio,
recalling salon music, is gradually overcome by the more primitive
cast of the string orchestra. Mangrove (1979) for orchestra
without wind is a reflection of the many associations with that
tree, from Sidney Nolan paintings to a New Guinea concept that
people are descended from mangroves, and the meaning for Sculthorpe
(and also in Elizabethan thought) of `man-woman'. Cast in one
movement, short phrases for brass and percussion are contrasted
with longer, darker passages, including a melody that uses a
gradual phase shift to create echo effects. The multitudinous
bird sounds of a mangrove swamp are marvellously captured in
the use of high strings, remaining musical while being aurally
descriptive. The sense of tropical primitivism is expressed
by a section for drums against increasingly wild calls, joined
by the long string phrases and then brass, to round off a graphic
score.
More
obviously neo-Romantic in mood is the Piano Concerto (1983),
partly reflecting the death of three friends during its composition.
The woodwinds in the orchestra are confined to reed instruments,
and even within its more traditional five-movement European
cast, some of the ideas stem from traditional Japanese court
music, and the repetitions and slow transformations of the piano
writing from Balinese gamelan music, backed by similar percussion.
The result is rather an unusual and disconcerting mixture, the
bright, detailed figurations of the piano regularly setting
up textures against lengthier and more conventional material
in the orchestra. The shifts between echoes of the Romantic
tradition and a soundscape of more dense and unaccustomed origins
produce impressive colours and sonorities. Kakadu (1988)
for orchestra is an evocation of the sounds of Australia's north,
especially birds (the title refers to the German name for the
cockatoo).
Of
his string quartets, the String Quartet No.8 (1969, subtitled
String Quartet Music) has been widely heard through the
justified advocacy of the popular Canadian Kronos Quartet. It
too immediately evokes bird calls, with high string shrills
and harmonics against more conventional melodic material, later
combined with gamelan influences and Balinese `rice-pounding'
music. However, the predominant mood in this strongly evocative
quartet is lyrical, with an often haunting atmosphere in its
sectional structure. His major stage works have been Rites
of Passage (1972-1973) for soloists, chorus, orchestra and
dancers, using Latin texts from Boethius and Southern Aranda
poetry, and a television opera, Quiros (1982).
Sculthorpe's
voice is distinctive and individual, and his combination of
the evocation of the sounds of the Pacific Rim cultures and
his native land has created an idiom of its own. His powers
of recreating sound images suggest the tactile and visual qualities
of sculpture, and should find a ready response in listeners
with a wide range of tastes. For those who have never heard
contemporary Australian serious music it is a rewarding place
to start.
───────────────────────────────────────
works
include:
-
series Irkanda (No.1 for solo violin, No.2 is the String
Quartet No.5, No.4 for violin, percussion and strings)
-
series Landscape (No.1 for amplified piano and tape,
No.2 for piano quartet)
-
series Sun Music (I-IV for orchestra, unnumbered for
voices and percussion)
-
Dream for any instruments and any number of performers
-
guitar concerto; piano concerto; Port Essington for string
trio and string orch.
-
Earth Cry, Music for Japan, Overture for a Happy Occasion,
Rain, Sun Song for orch.
-
At the Grave of Issac Nathan, Mangrove and Small Town
for chamber orch.
-
Cantares for guitars and string quartet; From Tabuh
Tabuhan, for percussion and strings (also percussion and
wind quintet); Autumn Song, Lament for Strings, Little Suite,
2 Sonatas for Strings and The Stars Turn for strings
-
Requiem for solo cello; Alone for solo violin;
Songs of Sea and Sky for clarinet and piano; sonata for
viola and percussion; The Loneliness of Bunjil for string
trio; Tailitnama Song for flute, percussion, violin and
cello; Sun Song for recorder quartet; How the Stars
Were Made for four percussionists; 12 string quartets (No.7
Red Landscape, No.8 String Quartet Music)
-
piano sonatina; Five Night Pieces, Left Bank Waltz and
Mountains for piano; Four Pieces for Piano Duet;
Koto Music I & II for amplified piano and tape
-
Child of Australia for soprano, narrator, chorus and
orch.; song cycle Eliza Fraza Sings for soprano, flute
and piano; Ketjak for six male voices with tape echo;
Love 2000 for rock band, two singers and orch.; The
Song of Tailitnama for high voice, 6 cellos and percussion;
other shorter vocal works
-
music theatre Rites of Passage, Tatea; television opera
Quiros
───────────────────────────────────────
recommended
works:
The
Song of Tailitnama (1974) for high voice, six cellos and
percussion
String
Quartet No.8 String Quartet Music (1969)
Sun
Music I-IV (1965-1967)
───────────────────────────────────────
bibliography:
P.
Sculthorpe Sun Music
M.
Hannan Peter Sculthorpe, His Music and Ideas 1929-1979,
1982
───────────────────────────────────────
WILLIAMSON
(Sir) Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher
born
21st November 1931 at Sydney
died
2nd March 2003, London
───────────────────────────────────────
Malcolm
Williamson was the first Australian composer to be appointed
as Master of the Queen's Musick in Britain (1975, following
Sir Arthur Bliss). He settled in London in his early
twenties, and his earliest works were influenced by Messiaen
(Williamson himself became a virtuoso organist), but his large
output quickly became divided into lighter pieces designed to
entertain, or to be performed by amateur players, and more weighty
works, notably symphonies and concertos. Gradually from the
1960s the former dominated, and in spite of his flirtations
with modernisms, his idiom has emerged as essentially conservative,
the modern and the conservative sometimes sitting uncomfortably
side-by-side. His music increasingly contains something of that
quasi-amateur light-heartedness or jolliness that has bedeviled
English music for two centuries.
The
Symphony No.1 (1957), titled Elevamini, is one
of his finer works. It is based, as are some subsequent works,
on a tone-row, in this case of eight notes, although the row
is designed to give a modal cast. The title comes from Psalm
24 (`Be ye lifted up') and the three movements are programmatic,
describing a soul's journey after death. In the contrast between
the more searching weight of the outer movements and the lightness
of the central movement, a lively Allegretto that delights
in dance cross-rhythms, are the seeds of the later split in
his style, and the moments of less taut, focused writing presage
those of his later less inspired output. The one-movement Symphony
No.2 (1969) is quite different, thoughtful and thick-textured.
Two other symphonies are not numbered. The Organ Symphony
(1960) is for solo organ, in six movements, while the Symphony
for Voices (1960) is a setting of poems by the Australian
James McAuley for unaccompanied choir.
The
Organ Concerto (1961), written for Williamson himself
to play, was a tribute to the conductor Sir Adrian (Cedric)
Boult, using the germ motto ACB. It has an imposing timpani
opening offset by the unlikely colours of a solo harp, joined
in an atmospheric milieu by the soloist. But, in spite of the
pretentious statements from the organ, a kind of vapid bounciness
takes over, complete with little musical jokes, entertaining
enough on first hearing, but unable subsequently to sustain
interest and at times sounding dangerously similar to Poulenc's
incomparably better concerto. The last movement suddenly launches
into an idiom culled from Vaughan Williams. With a quasi-mysterious
slow movement, it seems a score at times brilliantly suited
to a horror-movie spook with a happy ending, at times genuinely
affecting, and it is a frustrating experience, as so many of
the individual moments are full of promise and interest. It
is only fair to say that others may react differently to this
curious work, imbued with both Williamson's strengths and weaknesses,
and it is therefore recommended to those interested.
Among
his finest works is the lyrical Violin Concerto (1965),
written as a tribute to Edith Sitwell, which inserts a playful
scherzo amongst its otherwise melodious and thoughtful writing,
with especially rich and lyrical solo lines set against tough
and tragic orchestral writing in the opening movement. Of his
other concertos, the Sinfonia Concertante (1958-1961)
for piano and orchestra is a vigorous, terse work, recalling
Stravinsky. The Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra
(Piano Concerto No.2, 1960) was written for Australian amateurs
and students. The Piano Concerto No.3 (1962), for all
its Romantic overtones combined with gently dissonant features,
emerges as a piece of light music suitable as a television-score.
With its pseudo-jazz and aimless strings, it is a completely
valueless piece apart from the infuriatingly delightful, simple,
limpid opening idea of the slow movement, reminiscent of Shostakovich's
Piano Concerto No.2 (the rest of the movement is as bombastic
as its surroundings). The rather disappointing Concerto for
Two Pianos and Strings (1973) has a middle movement based
on a slow waltz, and shades of Bartók in the finale.
His
early operas, Our Man in Havana (1963, based on Graham
Greene's famous novel) and English Eccentrics (1964,
after Sitwell) were widely admired when they appeared, but failed
to maintain a place in the repertoire. His subsequent stage
works concentrated on operas for children. His works for smaller
instrumental forces include the modernisms of the Piano Sonata
No.2 (1957, revised 1971).
His
later works, including three more symphonies (No.3, 1972, is
The Icy Mirror for soloists, chorus and orchestra, though
it is not titled as a numbered symphony; No.4, 1977; No.5 Aquero,
1977), and a considerable body of choral music and masses, as
well as music for ceremonial duties as Master of the Queen's
Musick, have failed to have any impact.
───────────────────────────────────────
works
include:
-
5 numbered symphonies (No.1 Elevamini Symphony, No.3
The Icy Mirror for soloists, chorus and orch., No.5 Aquero);
dance symphony The Display; Organ Symphony; Symphony
for Voices; sinfonietta
-
Concerto Grosso for orch.; 3 piano concertos; concerto
for two pianos and strings; concerto for two pianos, 8 hands
and wind quintet; violin concerto; Sinfonia Concertante
for piano, 3 trumpets and string orch.
-
overture Santiago de Espada, Symphonic Variations
-
various 'cessations' for audience and orch.
-
piano trio; piano quintet; Serenade for flute, piano,
violin, viola and cello
-
5 Preludes for piano; two piano sonatas; organ music
including Little Carols of the Saints and Peace Pieces
(2 vols.)
-
song cycles From a Child's Garden, Hammarskjold Portrait,
In Place of Belief and other vocal works
-
choral-operatic sequence The Brilliant and the Dark; Death
of Cuchulain for 5 male voices and percussion; Mass of
Christ the King; Little Mass of St. Bernadette; Mass of the
People of God; Mass of St. Margaret of Scotland; other choral
music
-
ballets The Display, Perisynthyon, Spectrum and Sun
Into Darkness
-
operas Dunstan and the Devils, The Growing Castle, The Happy
Prince, Julius Caesar Jones, Our Man in Havana, The Red Sea
and The Violins of St. Jacques
───────────────────────────────────────
recommended
works:
Organ
Concerto (1961)
Symphony
No.1 Elevamini (1957)
Violin
Concerto (1965)
───────────────────────────────────────
