Australia’s most celebrated composer, Peter Sculthorpe
has a sizeable body of works in almost every genre to his credit; and
his music has been well represented on discs. His output includes many
highly personal statements as well as a number of shorter, occasional
or lighter pieces composed or arranged to fulfil all sorts of commissions.
These CDs offer a quite comprehensive, though far from complete, survey
of his compositional activities. Several works are repeated on several
of them, albeit sometimes in different versions. Thus Small Town
(1975) which is actually the central movement of the radiophonic work
The Fifth Continent for narrator and orchestra and which
has later achieved an independent life of its own. This delightful piece
is a near-cousin to Copland’s popular Quiet City and is
an ideal concert opener. Thus, too, Irkanda IV of 1961,
which the composer now acknowledges as his first mature work and which
also exists in several different versions, as the one for strings and
percussion which became another movement of The Fifth Continent,
but – curiously or significantly enough – the original version for violin,
strings and percussion remains one of Sculthorpe’s most popular and
most widely performed works. Port Essington (1977) for
string trio and string orchestra originates from a score written for
an ABC-TV film concerning the attempted military settlement in Essington
in far North Australia. This was in 1838. The site was abandoned eleven
years later. The music "exists on two planes: the string orchestra
(the Bush) and the string trio playing some sort of 19th
Century salon music". (Ironically, though, the music played by
the trio is a "bowdlerised" version of the Aboriginal melody
on which most of the ‘orchestral’ music is based.) The string trio progressively
becomes engulfed by the string orchestra, and the work ends with a varied
restatement of the first movement (The Bush). Lament
exists in a version for string orchestra (1976) and in another for cello
and strings (1991), and has been recorded and performed in both versions.
Night Song is yet another example of an early work rescued
and re-arranged by the composer. This was actually a song, to words
by Tony Morphett, from Love 200 (1970) for two voices,
rock band and orchestra, and of which Sculthorpe made a version for
string orchestra in 1996. (There also exists a version for clarinet
trio made for the Verdehr Trio and recorded by them on CRYSTAL CD 746.)
The Little Suite for strings of 1983 is in fact a transcription
of three early piano pieces that are also part of Four Little
Pieces for piano duet (1979). Finally, the orchestral version
of Djilile is based on an Aborginal song also quoted in
Port Essington and in Kakadu, and this too
has been arranged for various forces (e.g. cello and piano, and string
quartet). It is incidentally one of the few Aboriginal songs ever quoted
by Sculthorpe.
Substantial pieces have also been arranged or transcribed.
The most important examples are the three Sonatas for Strings. Thus,
Sonata [No.1] for Strings is an arrangement of the Tenth
String Quartet made in 1983 for the Australian Chamber Orchestra that
recorded it twice, whereas Sonata No.2 for Strings is
an adaptation of the somewhat earlier Ninth String Quartet of 1975 and
Sonata No.3 for Strings is an arrangement of the Eleventh
String Quartet Jabiru Dreaming of 1990. These pieces stand remarkably
well in their "orchestral" guise and compare favourably with,
say, Walton’s arrangement of his String Quartet in A minor
or Fenby’s arrangement of Delius’ String Quartet.
It goes without saying that Sculthorpe is much more
than a gifted arranger of some of his earlier works. This attitude rather
reflects his practical and pragmatic approach to music making; and true
to say that some of these arrangements are more satisfying than their
original versions. Also, Sculthorpe is never one to waste a good idea,
especially if this is rescued from a discarded piece. He composed a
great deal of highly personal and often original music; and his substantial
Sun Music cycle, which has done much for Sculthorpe’s reputation,
belongs to such works and is, to my mind, among his most successful
and impressive achievements. Sculthorpe has often commented about the
Australian sun (a friend and an enemy, as Roger Covell rightly remarks)
and the powerful and lasting impression made by the Australian landscape,
be it wildly luxuriant or cruelly sun-drenched. He also often stressed
the fact that his own world actually stretches from Bali to Japan and
Mexico. Much of his music is thus deeply and lastingly influenced by
different musical cultures, most importantly by Bali and Japan. The
Sun Music cycle presents a fascinating synthesis of all these
often diverging influences that have moulded Sculthorpe’s music. Originally,
though, this orchestral cycle was not planned as such; and its genesis
is worth briefly recalling. Sun Music I (1965), scored
for strings, brass and percussion, was suggested to the composer by
Bernard Heinze who asked whether a work without melody, rhythm and harmony
was possible. Sculthorpe faced the challenge but, in his own words,
approached it in a positive way. The result was Overture,
as the work was blandly titled then, a brilliant orchestral essay in
which the composer’s aural imagination was given full expression. It
also laid the basis of much of Sculthorpe’s later orchestral music.
The original Sun Music II was a work for voices and percussion
not known as Sun Music for Voices and Percussion and independent
from the orchestral cycle. So, the orchestral Sun Music II
was composed last, in 1969 (it then bore the title of Ketjak,
i.e. "Monkey Dance") whereas Sun Music III was
originally known as Anniversary Music (it was commissioned to
mark the occasion of the 20th anniversary of ABC’s Youth
Concerts in Australia). The idea of a cycle only arose in 1968 when
Robert Helpmann made a ballet Sun Music using the existing Sun
Music pieces and including some new material that became the basis
of Sun Music II; and the Sun Music series, when
performed complete, is some kind of symphony of which Sun Music
II is the Scherzo and the Bali-inspired Sun Music III
the slow movement. Sun Music I-IV are wonderful examples
of Sculthorpe’s orchestral mastery and ability to conjure some personal
impressionistic writing through ear-catching sonorities, lively, dance-like
rhythms and a bright orchestral palette. To a certain extent, Sun
Music I-IV might be the musical equivalent of Sidney Nolan’s
paintings.
Other sizeable orchestral works such as Kakadu
(1988), Earth Cry (1986) and Mangrove (1979)
clearly belong to the same individual sound world and evoke wildly varied
landscapes and partake to Sculthorpe’s own brand of Impressionism although
Earth Cry has some unexpected valedictory tone absent
from the other pieces.
Music for Japan, commissioned by the
National Music Camp Association for performance at Expo ’70 in Osaka,
is probably Sculthorpe’s most radical orchestral work. It is a substantial
work for large orchestra with optional didjeridu (on tape) and some
pre-recorded sounds. This is also – and significantly so – a quintessentially
Australian work written about Australia for Japan. The
music is mainly made of massive blocks of sounds and clusters juxtaposed
and often crashing into each other, with much rhythmical variety, and
brilliantly scored. It forcefully suggests the wild variety of the Australian
landscape in a most impressive way. This is undoubtedly one of Sculthorpe’s
greatest achievements, though definitely a hard nut to crack.
In total contrast, the Piano Concerto
of 1983 reflects the composer’s impressions of Bali and the music has
a distinctively Balinese flavour without ever slavishly imitating Balinese
music. This mellifluous and warmly song-like piece is one of the composer’s
most approachable major works, and no wonder too that it has become
one of his most popular.
The Song of Tailitnama for soprano, 6
cellos and percussion, was originally written for an ABC documentary
film. Sculthorpe devised his own material from both Aboriginal and Japanese
sources, but nevertheless succeeded in doing something entirely personal
out of these diverging sources. The piece is beautifully atmospheric,
full of Sculthorpe fingerprints, and may – to some extent – recall Villa
Lobos’s celebrated Bachianas Brasileiras No.5.
Memento mori (1993) has a somewhat misleading
title, though the inclusion of the Dies irae in the outer sections
clearly confirms that this piece is a threnody, not in memory
of any particular victims, but rather in memory of all earlier civilisations,
long-disappeared by now. The work was partly inspired by the past history
of the Eastern Island (Rapanui).
Some of the shorter works may be occasional pieces,
but they are always superbly crafted, colourfully scored and often quite
appealing. So, From Uluru, Port Arthur: In Memoriam
(a short, deeply-felt elegy of quite moving simplicity) and Little
Nourlangie for organ and orchestra.
As already mentioned, these CDs offer a comprehensive
and excellently played survey of Sculthorpe’s varied, colourful, sincere
and often gripping music; and are thus desirable. However, this might
prove too much for some tastes. I would then suggest that the Australian
Chamber Orchestra CD (ABC 454 504-2) with the works for string orchestra
or the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra one (ABC 456 363-2) with some of
the lighter works are the best possible introduction to his music; but
I firmly believe the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra disc (ABC 454 505-2)
with a.o. Sun Music I-IV and/or the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
one (ABC 454 513-2) with Music for Japan and the Piano
Concerto are, no doubt, the ones to have for there are some of Sculthorpe’s
greatest works.
Hubert Culot
AVAILABILITY
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David Bury (organ)a;
Mark Atkins (didjeridu)b; Tamara Anna Cislowska (piano)c;
Kirsti Harms (mezzo-soprano)d; Sydney Symphony Orchestra; Edo
de Waart