This looks like a cross-section
of contemporary Australian composers,
but with the two works by Derek Strahan
lasting 16:30 and 19:50 respectively
it is best considered as a disc dedicated
to him with a few shorter fillers.
Strahan spent his first
five years in colonial Malaya, was evacuated
to Perth (Australia), completed his
education in Northern Ireland and subsequently
returned to Australia. He began to write
film scores in 1962 but has increased
his production of concert works since
1980. We are told that "he does
not subscribe to any particular school,
style or set of musical dogmas. He is
concerned to retain melodic lyricism,
and to achieve harmonic liberation through
a synthesis of melodic and rhythmic
polyphony."
"Voodoo Fire"
is written for clarinet, percussion
(marimba, xylophone, vibraphone, tam
tams, bongos, crotales, wood blocks,
slit drums, bass drums, cymbals, gong
and timpani) and keyboards (piano and
a synthesiser with eleven presets, including
steel drums). Strahan tells us that
"This work was written to advance
my interest in creating a fusion of
Western melodic counterpoint and African
rhythmic counterpoint. In researching
source material I found that Caribbean
Voodoo music was highly involved in
such a synthesis. … this work pays hommage
[sic!] to a powerful Voodoo deity called
Shango, who is a God of Fire. … The
3-part structure of this piece follows
the protocol of a Voodoo ceremony".
The melody used in the last section
is based on an actual Voodoo prayer
to Shango.
"Atlantis"
is for flute/alto flute and piano and
"was the first of a series of smaller-scale
works (there have been two more since)
preparatory to composing a cycle of
operas on the topic of ‘Atlantis’, as
suggested by the writings of Plato (4
B.C.)." This piece is also in three
parts.
The first of these
pieces is the more ear-catching in the
sense that if you write in a gritty-grotty,
ragged-jagged, middle-of-the-road, post-war
sort of style for the caboodle described
above it obviously will sound more unusual
than if you do it for flute and piano,
a medium which was worked to death from
the Fifties through to the Eighties
and maybe still is. But does the composer
write like this out of inner necessity
or because he thinks that you have to
write like that today? In other words,
is he being honest? (I don’t mean I
think he’s conning the public but I
think he may be unwittingly conning
himself). I say this because the music
sounds most natural when conventional
rhythmic or melodic features are allowed
to come to the fore. The last section
of "Voodoo Fire", in which
rhythmic discontinuity is finally abandoned
and tensions are allowed to build up
with a powerful impetus, is rather stirring.
And about eleven minutes into "Atlantis"
there is an agreeable, rather nocturnal
lyrical section (I suppose this is the
part that "portrays a lovers’ idyll
on the balcony of an Arcadian villa,
on a moonlit night", but what is
the point of all these detailed descriptions
if we don’t have separate tracks to
identify them?) which, as it lasts about
three minutes, would be worth performing
separately. I’m not saying that the
rest of the music is bad; it just doesn’t
seem particularly good either.
Eric Gross’s "Mandigar
III" contains plenty of twangy
warming-up-style gestures, quite promising
until you realise that it’s not going
to do anything else. Similarly Caroline
Szeto’s "Mandolin Dance" leads
off with some lively "till-ready"
formulae, and just goes on repeating
them ad nauseam. The composer
herself describes the piece as "quasi-minimal",
which I suppose is a fair euphemism
for gormless pattern-making.
Shameless traditionalist
that I am, I enjoyed the post-Ravelian
harmonies of Dulcie Holland’s "The
Lonely Valley" far more. The piece
may not break new ground but it provides
the quiet enjoyment proper to music
which aims to evoke "any remote
and quiet valley, enclosed by wooden
slopes and rarely visited by noisy towns
folk". However, as I am in a bitchy
mood I shall be bitchy to the end and
query whether such a detailed description
has any real value when applied to a
piece of music. Indeed, I should like
to challenge the composer to write another
piece of a similar title, in which her
"remote and quiet valley"
is enclosed by grassy slopes instead
of wooden ones, so that I can hear what
the difference would be in musical terms.
Still, I shall hear
this one again, as I probably shall
Colin Bumbry’s "Dance of the Shepherds",
"an evocation of Shepherds dancing
in the night celebrating a successful
day at work, tending their flocks".
I won’t go so far as to suggest that
the composer’s music is any more original
than his prose (it’s that "tending"
which smacks of the elderly vicar’s
Christmas sermon) but it’s agreeably
folksy and suggests that if the Aussies
are looking for a national style, "back
to Grainger" might not be a bad
way to do it. Mind you, if this had
been "dished up" by Grainger
himself there would have been some surprises
along the way but all the same, it is
very pleasant.
And so to the organ
for the last track. The great thing
about the organ, compared with any other
instrument, is that its sounds can be
sustained for all infinity. They don’t
die away and have to be replenished
as with a piano, guitar, mandolin etc.
They are not limited by the length of
a bow or by the capacity of the human
lungs. You just put the note down and
hold it for as long as you like. This
means that you can build up a reasonable-length
(in this case, 3:36) organ piece out
of incredibly little music. Just think
of it! If you make each chord last forty
seconds, then with just three of them
you’ve already knocked off two minutes
of music with only 1:36 to go. This
elementary consideration has not escaped
Robert Allworth and he makes quite impressive
use of it. But he should be warned that
a long-held dissonance which can sound
mightily imposing up to about 20 seconds,
can get to seem frightfully nauseating
as the forty-second mark looms up.
There are some things
worth having on this disc, but as there
is such a lot of dross too, I can only
leave you to decide if it’s worth it.
Christopher Howell
BROAD MUSIC JAD CD 1063 [62:05] 
