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This is a list of printed books, theses and articles (journal, magazines, newspapers) that contain significant references to Peter Sculthorpe and his work.
The list begins at 1993, the point at which Deborah Hayes’s Peter Sculthorpe: A Bio-Bibliography was published. Hayes’s book aimed at a completeness that, for any number or good reasons, is no longer possible in the period covered by this list. There are simply too many print items to list in any one place, and increasingly too many non-print (online) items. Moreover, with the advent of online archives with search engines, the necessity for any single list to be complete had become an obsolete one. Non-print online content itself is both much easier to access, and much harder to list comprehensively. Nevertheless, we hope that the items listed here will cover a wide enough range to serve as a preliminary guide to “the Sculthorpe literature”. By no means all of the material here is serious musical discussion or reviews. Some of it is current affairs, and there are also opinion and lifestyle pieces written for a general audience. The contents will be revised, updated, and added to, when possible, and as necessary.

BOOKS (alphabetical by author/ editor)

1993

Peter Sculthorpe, [interview], in Andrew Ford, Composer to Composer: Conversations about contemporary music (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993).

Andrew Ford is Australia’s leading music affairs broadcaster, and himself a composer; 37-44 [interview with Sculthorpe], including: 37 [photo] of PS, ]; 40-41 [Kakadu]; 40 [Port Essington]; 41 [The Song of Tailitnama]; 43 [String Quartet No 8]; references to PS and his music in Ford’s interviews with other composers: 31; 34;; 104; 164; 165; 198; 200 [Sun Music series]; 201; 202.

1993

Deborah Hayes, Peter Sculthorpe: A Bio-Bibliography
(Bio-Bibliographies in Music 50) (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993).

Deborah Hayes’s invaluable and meticulously detailed source book, contains an illuminating short biography, and an all but complete listing of Sculthorpe sources as they were known to be at the date of completion (early 1993); adding to its anyway already considerable value, Sculthorpe was deeply and personally involved in its production; it remains an indispensible tool for Sculthorpe scholarship.

1993

Michaela Richards,The Best Style:Marion Hall Best & Australian Interior Design 1935-1975, Art and Australia Books, Sydney, Craftsman House,  1993

In 1971, Sydney designer Marion Best designed a “Sculthorpe Room” as part of a charity exhibition of 10 rooms for Australian celebrities (others included Robert Helpmann, Prue Acton, and Harry Miller.

1993

Elliott Schwartz & Daniel Godfrey, Music Since 1945: issues, materials, and literature (Belmont CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning [Simon & Schuster Macmillan], 1993)

A short introduction to and analysis of Sun Music 1; 480 (description), 481 (music example)

1993

Jill Sykes, Sydney Opera House - From the Outside In
(Pymble: Playbill, 1993)

Jill Sykes is the dance reviewer of The Sydney Morning Herald.

ARTICLES (by date of publication)

1993-02-07

John Carmody, “Prolific Pereira” [CD review: David Pereira, cello], The Sun-Herald [Sydney] (7 February 1993), 113.

1993-05-00

Peter Sculthorpe, “The Constant Presence of Duality” [Inaugural Stuart Challender Memorial Lecture], ABC Radio 24 Hours (May 1993), 62-66.

1993-08-00

[CD Review: Sculthorpe Threnody; David Pereira (cello); Tall Poppies], The Strad [USA] 104 (August 1993), 778.

1993-08-26

Fred Blanks, “Flagship's Fifth Voyage”, The Sydney Morning Herald (26 August 1993), 17.

1993-09-00

“News”, Tempo [UK] 186 (September 1993), 64.

1993-10-12

Carmel Dwyer, “Spotlight” [various], The Sydney Morning Herald (12 October 1993), 24.

1993-10-19

Roger Covell, [Concert review] “The Rock inspires variety (Sydney Spring International Festival of New Music)”, The Sydney Morning Herald (19 October 1993), 23

1993-10-24

John Carmody, [Concert review] “On with the festive motley (Roger Woodward's Sydney Spring International Festival of New Music)”, The Sun-Herald (24 October 1993), 116.

1993-12-19

John Carmody, [Concert review] “Christmas is icumen in, loudly sing”, The Sun-Herald (19 December 1993), 118.

BOOKS

1994

Geoffrey Dutton, Out in the Open: An Autobiography (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1994), 298, 380

298 [during 1964 Adelaide Festival, PS among party at GD’s country house Anlaby];

380 [mid 60s, dinner at Patrick White’s house including Tass and Maisie Drysdale: “I could see that Patrick was working himself up to an outburst. He achieved it by a ferocious attack on the composer Peter Sculthorpe. Maisie interrupted him by saying, ‘Stop trampling on my friends’.”]

1994

David Marr (ed.), Patrick White: Letters (Sydney: Random House, 1994).

244 [PW’s views on PS’s music], 245 [PW’s texts for a projected Sculthorpe setting of Six Urban Songs]; 252-257 [PW discusses work on a projected Sculthorpe opera on A Fringe of Leaves]; 270 [PW has doubts about collaboration with PS] 371 [PW avoids PS]; 642 [biographical note by DM].

1994

Nicolas Slonimsky, Music Since 1900, (5^th edition: New York: Schirmer Books, 1994).

An chronicle of 20^th-century music in date order, with idiosyncratic commentary, including the following references to PS works: 627 [19 June 1955, Fp Piano Sonatina]; 763 [30 September 1965, FP Sun Music [I]: “In the course of the Commonwealth Arts Festival in London, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra presents the first performance of Sun Music by the 36-year-old Tasmanian composer Peter Sculthorpe, climaxed by an integrated icositetraphonic sonic aggregate of 59 adjacent quarter-tones for string instruments.”; 819 [22 February 1970, FP of Love 200]832 [5 June 1971, London ISCM perf of Tabuh Tabuhan]; 897 [Mangrove, 28 April 1979, FP Mangrove]; 938 [16 May 1984, Moscow perf of String Quartet No 6]; 974 [19 August 1988, PS attends Composer-to-Composer, Telluride Colorado, along with VP, Brian Eno, Lou Harrison, Terry Riley, Stephen Scott, Sarah Hopkins and Lepo Sumera]

ARTICLES

1994-00-00

Michael Hannan, [Book review: Deborah Hayes, Peter Sculthorpe: a Bio-Bibliography], Musicology Australia 17 (1994), 74-6.

1994-03-00

“News”, Tempo [UK] 188 (March 1994), 60.

1994-05-17

Carmel Dwyer, “Spotlight”, The Sydney Morning Herald (17 May 1994), 28.

1994-08-00

C. Nelson, [CD Review: Sculthorpe Lament; Brodsky Quartet, Susan Monks (cello), Mary Scully (double bass); Silva Classics], The Strad [USA], 105 (August 1994), 795.

1994-09-00

G. Thomas, [CD review: Sculthorpe Lament; Brodsky Quartet &c as above], The Musical Times [UK] 135 (September 1994), 572.

1994-09-00

“News”, Tempo [UK] 190 (September 1994), 70.

1994-11-00

N. Williams, [CD review] “Out of the east”, Classic CD 54 (November 1994), 48.

1994-11-07

Anne Susskind, “Composer paints life’s pictures”, The Sydney Morning Herald (7 November 1994), 14.

1994-12-00

[Book review: Deborah Hayes, Peter Sculthorpe: a bio-bibliography], Tempo [UK] 191 (December 1994), 45-46.

BOOKS

1995

Brenton Broadstock, Sound Ideas:Australian composers born since 1950 (Sydney: Australian Music Centre, 1995)

While PS is not included in this conspectus of composers born after 1950, he is mentioned as a teacher of and influence on several.

1995

Judy Cassab, Judy Cassab Diaries (Sydney: Random House Australia, 1995).

PS sat to a portrait for Cassab.

1995

Donald Mitchell, Cradles of the New: Writings on Music 1951-1991, selected by Christopher Palmer, edited by Mervyn Cooke (London & Boston: Faber & Faber, 1995).

A distinguished writer on 20^th-century music, DM was founding head of Faber Music, and was PS’s publisher from 1965; xxx; 223 [Sun Music I].

1995

Peter Sculthorpe, [on Mahler’s Song of the Earth], in Philip Reed (ed.), Essays in Honour of Donald Mitchell on his Seventieth Birthday (Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1995).

1995

Peter Sculthorpe, [published lecture] Seeking the Great South Land (Hobart: The University of Tasmania, 1995)

1995

Peter Sculthorpe, “Music and the Humanities”, in Deryck M Schreuder (ed.), The Humanities and a Creative Nation: Jubilee Essays (Canberra: The Australian Academy of the Humanities,1995), 29-42.

1995

David Toop. Ocean of Sound (London: Serpents Tail, 1995).

1995

Lee White (ed.), Contemporary Australians 1995/96 (Melbourne: Reed Reference Australia, 1995).

ARTICLES

1995-00-00

J. Schneider, “Just for the record” [CD review: Sculthorpe:Nourlangie (1989), From Kakadu (1992), Into the Dreaming (1994); J. Williams, guitar; Sony CD], Soundboard 22/1 (1995), 67.

1995-00-00

Joseph Toltz, “Peter Sculthorpe”, Siglo 4 (1995), 32.

1995-04-00

Vincent Plush, “From Kakadu to Colorado: Vincent Plush celebrates the work of Peter Sculthorpe”, Abc Radio 24 Hours (April 1995), 42-45.

1995-09-00

[Book review: Deborah Hayes, Peter Sculthorpe: a bio-bibliography], Notes 52/1 (September 1995), 116-17.

1995-05-00

“Viols provide inspiration for new music”, The Strad 106 (May 1995), 465.

On Djilile for viol consort

1995-08-20

Peter Luck, “Luck on Sunday: Fruits of Freedom”, Sun-Herald [Sydney] (20 August 1995), 136.

1995-09-00

J. Tosone, “The guitar on disc; From Australia” [CD Review: John Williams, guitar; as above], Guitar Review 102 (Summer 1995), 38-39.

BOOKS

1996

Alison Broinowski, The Yellow Lady: Australian Impressions of Asia (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996).

Includes discussion of music of Sculthorpe, Grainger and Glanville-Hicks.

1996

Don Featherstone, Creative Spirits (Sydney: Hale & Ironmonger, 1996).

1996-00-00

Gordon Kerry, “Keeping Live Music Alive”, in Michael Shmith (ed.), Musica Viva: The First Fifty Years (Sydney: Musica Viva Australia/Playbill, 1996), 38.

“One stimulus for a program of commissioning was the donation from composer Mirrie Hill for an award to commemorate her colleague and husband, Alfred Hill, who died in 1960. The first two Alfred Hill awards went to Peter Sculthorpe and Larry Sitsky for their Sixth and First String Quartets, works which added considerably to the composers’ stature.”

1996

James McCalla, Twentieth-Century Chamber Music (New York: Schirmer Books, 1996)

255 [Kronos Quartet recording of PS’s String Quartet No 8]

1996

Margaret Mahony Stoljar (ed.), Creative Investigations (Canberra: The Australian Academy of the Humanities,1996).

1996

John Marsden (ed.) This I Believe: Over 100 eminent Australians explore life’s big question (Milsons Point: Random House, 1996).

1996

Peter Sculthorpe, “What is Australian Music?”, in Brenton Broadstock, Naomi Cumming, et al. (eds), Aflame with Music: 100 years of Music at the University of Melbourne (Melbourne: Centre for Studies in Australian Music, 1996), 233-239.

1996

Patricia Shaw, “Peter Sculthorpe and Aaron Copland: Defining the Sound of a Nation’s Music”, in Brenton Broadstock, Naomi Cumming, et al. (eds), Aflame with Music: 100 years of Music at the University of Melbourne (Melbourne: Centre for Studies in Australian Music, 1996), 241-247.

ARTICLES

1996-00-00

Naomi Cumming, “Enountering Mangrove: An Essay in Signification”, Australasian Music Research 1 (1996), 193-229.

1996-03-00

Deborah Hayes, [Music review: Sculthorpe’s Kakadu], Notes [USA] 52/3 (1996), 1029-30.

1996-06-25

[Concert review], “Odd new strains in a strange old place”, The Sydney Morning Herald (25 June 1996), 18.

1996-07-00

[News section: composers], Tempor [UK] 197 (July 1996), 63.

1996-08-05

Vincent Plush, “Atlanta's youth pass the baton”, The Sydney Morning Herald (5 August 1996), 15.

1996-10-15

Gordon Kerry, “Trio's tailor-made variations”, The Sydney Morning Herald (15 October 1996), 13.

1996-11-06

Valerie Lawson, “Between a rock and a soft place”,  The Sydney Morning Herald (6 November 1996), 17.

1996-12-08

John Carmody, [Concert review] “A musical bowerbird: Magic in Mudgee”, Sun-Herald (8 December 1996), Tempo supplement 22.

BOOKS

1997

Jeannell Carrigan, Australian post-1970 solo piano works: an annotated guide (Sydney: Australian Music Centre, 1997)

158-160 [Sculthorpe’s piano works]

1997

Arthur Cohn, The Literature of Chamber Music (Chapel Hill, NC: Hinshaw Music Inc., 1997), 4 volumes, Volume 4.

Volume 4: 2533-34; 2533 [String Quartet No 6 ; quotes Wilfrid Mellers “this is the only music known to me … feel of Australia”; Red Landscape (String Quartet No 7): “A focused (seven-minute) study in string sonorities and colours … There are no themes to mollify the polychrome essences of the work”]; 2534 [String Quartet No 8 : “A tour de force of color actions”; apropos the fast movements: “If there exists impressionistic injection into string percussive content Sculthorpe has mastered it. It is thrilling, exciting and startling in its originality”. “… [a] brilliant work.”

1997

David Dale, The 100 Things Everyone Needs To Know About Australia, (Sydney: Pan Macmillan, 1997)

1997

Elizabeth M Dunlop, Lines and Spaces (Henley Beach: Seaview Press, 1997).

1997

Stephen Fitzgerald, Is Australia an Asian Country? (St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1997).

1997

Andrew Ford, Illegal Harmonies: Music in the 20^th Century (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1997).

170-71 [Sun Musics I-IV], 187.

1997

Bruce Fraser, The Macquarie Encyclopedia of Australian Events (Sydney: The Macquarie Library, 1997).

1997

Robyn Holmes, Patricia Shaw and Peter Campbell, Larry Sitsky: A Biobliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997).

1997

John Jenkins & Rainer Linz, Arias: Recent Australian Music Theatre, (Melbourne: Red House Editions, 1997).

1997

Patricia Shaw, “Sculthorpe, Peter Joshua”, in Warren Bebbington (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Australian Music., (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1997), 507-509.

PS is mentioned in several other entries, including 141-42.

1997

Michael Shmith, Australian Musical Anecdotes (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1997).

1997

David Symons, The Music of Margaret Sutherland (Sydney: Currency Press, 1997).

1997

Peter John Tregear, The Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne: An historical essay to mark its centenary 1895-1995 (Melbourne: Centre for Studies in Australian Music, 1997).

xi [lists PS among famous alumni]; 95 [“Sculthorpe and Dreyfus wrote piano and bassoon pieces for each other’s final year performance exams”]; 96 [PS listed among students of Lambert]; 97 [PS listed among composer student of Heinze’s “golden” period]; 131 [PS awarded Melbourne Doctor of Music in 1989]; 133 [photo of PS at doctoral graduation with dean Ronald Farren-Price]

ARTICLES

1997-02-00

[Concert review]: “Anne Sofie von Otter and the Brodsky at the Wigmore”, Musical Opinion [UK] 23 (February 1997), Supplement 7.

1997-04-08

Gordon Kerry, “Concert left in CD's shadow”, The Sydney Morning Herald (8 April 1997), 14.

1997-04-28

Kelly Burke, “Sculthorpe's painful return to Port Arthur”, The Sydney Morning Herald (28 April 1997), 15.

1997-04-28

Heather Chapman, “On The Air”,  The Sydney Morning Herald (28 April 1997), The Guide 8.

1997-09-29

Jill Sykes, [Review]: “Collaboration marred by compromise. The Festival of the Dreaming”, The Sydney Morning Herald (29 September 1997), 12.

1997-11-18

“A woman before her time: Composer Margaret Sutherland”, The Sydney Morning Herald (18 November 1997), 16.

BOOKS

1998

Nicholas Cook, Music: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press,1998).

126: “And if we use music as a means of insight into other cultures, then equally we can see it as a means of negotiating cultural identity. [A] comprehensive example is postwar Australian music; composers like Peter Sculthorpe have drawn on native Australian and East Asian musics in such a way as to contribute towards the broader cultural and political repositioning of Australia as an integral part of the emerging region of the Pacific Rim, rather than a European culture on the wrong side of the world.”

1998

Lou Klepac, Judy Cassab: Portraits of Artists and Friends (2^nd edition, Sydney: The Beagle Press, 1998).

ARTICLES

1998-00-00

“Landscape has always been a resonant theme in Peter Sculthorpe’s writing. The word occurs often in the composer’s notes, and in critical responses to his work. Sculthorpe describes his latest string quartet as a work ‘concerned with feelings about mountainous landscapes in northern Tasmania’[…].”

1998-00-00

Kathrine Sorley Walker, “Robert Helpmann, Dancer and Choreographer, Part Three”, Dance Chronicle 21/3 (1998), 411-480.

Discussion of Sun Music ballet.

1998-02-02

Roger Covell, [CD review: Sculthorpe: Complete String Quartets Vol. 1; Goldner String Quartet; Tall Poppies], The Sydney Morning Herald (2 February 1998), The Guide 6.

1998-03-06

[Review] “Sculthorpe impact was profound”, The Examiner [Launceston] (6 March 1998), 31; see also “Sculthorpe at work premiere”, The Examiner [Launceston] (28 February 1998), 27.

1998-04-00

[News section], Tempo 204 (April 1998), 55.

1998-04-17

“Box office”, The Sydney Morning Herald (17 April 1998), 12.

1998-05-00

R. Carl, [CD review: Sculthorpe Night Song, From Nourlangie; Crystal], Fanfare [USA] 21 (May-June 1998), 112.

1998-08-11

David Vance, “Sturm and Drang was worth braving storm and rain for”, The Sydney Morning Herald (11 August 1998), 11.

1998-10-10

Leo Schofield, [article], The Sydney Morning Herald (10 October 1998), 32.

1998-11-22

“Dead poet's work unearthed”, Sun-Herald (22 November 1998), 18.

On poems for PS by Michael Dransfield

1998-11-23

Leonie Lamont, “A find to mark cult-hero poet's 50th anniversary”, The Sydney Morning Herald (23 November 1998), 2.

On poems for PS by Michael Dransfield

1998-11-27

Kelly Burke, “Box office”, The Sydney Morning Herald (27 November 1998), 16.

1998-12-00

[News section], Tempo 207 (December 1998 ), 53.

BOOKS

1999

Ian McFarlane, The Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop (St Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 1999).

1999

Wilfrid Mellers, “Mahler and the Great Tradition”, in Donald Mitchell & Andrew Nicholson (eds), The Mahler Companion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

On Sculthorpe: 577-579 [Irkanda series, 577-8; Kakadu, 578-9; Mangrove, 579; Requiem, 578].

1999

Peter Ross, Let’s Face It: The History of the Archibald Prize (Sydney: Art Gallery of NSW, 1999).

1999

Peter Sculthorpe, Sun Music: Journeys and Reflections from a Composer’s Life (Sydney: ABC Books, 1999).

PS’s memoirs

1999

Terry Smith (ed.), First Peoples, Second Chance. Terry Smith (ed.).Canberra, The Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1999

1999

Barry York. Speaking of Us (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1999).

ARTICLES

1999-00-00

“Urauffuehrungen”, Neue Musikzeitung 48/7-8 (1999), 31.

1999-01-27

Kendall Hill, “Stay in Touch”, The Sydney Morning Herald (27 January 1999), 20.

1999-02-04

“If music be the love of foodies”, The Sydney Morning Herald (4 February 1999), 4.

1999-02-11

Roger Covell, “With sax this good, you could be dreaming”, The Sydney Morning Herald (11 February 1999), 13.

1999-03-15

Peter McCallum, “Thoughts of Sculthorpe at Seventy”, The Sydney Morning Herald (15 March 1999), 19.

1999-04-00

C. Nelson, [CD Review: Sculthorpe Sonata for Cello Alone; Cello Dreaming; Alexander Ivashkin (cello), The Strad 110 (April 1999), 432.

1999-04-28

Jill Sykes, “Sculthorpe on his place in the sun”, The Sydney Morning  Herald (28 April 1999), 15.

1999-05-00

J. White, [CD Review: Work by Sculthorpe; Tall Poppies], The Strad [USA] 110 (May 1999), 543.

1999-07-00

[News section], Tempo 209 (July 1999), 62.

1999-07-15

“Six of the best for quartet”, The Sydney Morning Herald (15 July 1999), 15.

1999-07-26

David Vance, “A bit of Zen, some ecstasy and too much love”, The Sydney Morning Herald (26 July 1999), 14.

1999-08-21

 “Premieres”, Classical Music [UK] 639 (21 August 1999), 10.

1999-08-29

Peter Holmes, [CD review]:“Back to the future: Old meets new in two new albums ... Sounds”, Sun-Herald [Sydney] (29 August 1999), 16.

1999-09-01

Peter Lockley, “Tasmanian Roots: Peter Sculthorpe at 70”, Forty degrees south 14 (September 1999), 14.

1999-10-02

“Premieres”, Classical Music [UK] 642 (2 October 1999), 10.

1999-10-11

Heather Chapman, “On The Air”, The Sydney Morning Herald (11 October 1999), The Guide 6.

1999-10-19

“Orchestra adds strings to bow for Sculthorpe”, The Mercury [Hobart] (19 October 1999), 13.

1999-10-22

“Sculthorpe Treasures given gratefully”, The Mercury [Hobart] (22 October 1999), 9.

1999-10-15

Roger Covell, “A happy meeting of new worlds and old”, The Sydney Morning Herald (15 October 1999), 14.

BOOKS

2000

Jeannell Carrigan, Australian Solo Piano Works of the Last Twenty-five Years (Third edition, Sydney: Australian Music Centre, 2000).

Sculthorpe’s piano works, 195-196.

2000

Paul Cliff (ed.), The Endless Playground: Celebrating Australian Childhood (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2000).

2000

Peter Conrad, “Black Unlike Me”, in Ian Jack (ed.), Granta 70 (London: Rea S. Hederman, 2000).

2000

C. A. Cranston. Along These Lines (Launceston: Cornford Press, 2000).

2000

Bruce Johnson, The Inaudible Music (Sydney: Currency Press, 2000).

2000

Ray Proudly (ed.), Australasia Beyond 2000 (Wellington & Melbourne: Sheffield House, 2000).

2000

Mandy Stefanakis, Turn it up! Book Two (Sydney: McGraw-Hill Australia, 2000).

2000

David Tacey, ReEnchantment (Pymble: Harper Collins, 2000).

THESES

2000-00-00

Gwyneth G. Barnes, “Peter Sculthorpe, Teacher and Composer: A Study in Duality”, Ph.D thesis, University of NSW, 2000.

2000-00-00

Christina Tio Ee Ming, “The avant garde and its ‘others’: Orientalism in contemporary music”, Ph.D Thesis, University of Southampton [UK], 2000.

Abstract: “[...] This thesis seeks to devise modes of articulating cross-cultural interaction in contemporary art music [...] through study of four contemporary composers of art music of varied cultural backgrounds: Olivier Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Peter Sculthorpe and Toru Takemitsu [...]” [principle subject is Takemitsu]

ARTICLES

2000-00-00

R. Evans, [Festival review], Musical Opinion 41 (2000), Supp 9-10.

2000-00-00

B. Kilpatrick, [CD review: A Garden of Earthly Delights; Tall Poppies], The Double Reed 23/1 (2000), 65.

2000-01-05

“Sculthorpe portrait on centre-stage”, The Examiner [Launceston] (5 January 2000), 20.

2000-03-18

Debra Adelaide, “Re-enchantment: the new Australian spirituality [Book review including Sun music (Book), by Peter Sculthorpe], The Sydney Morning Herald (18 March 2000), Spectrum 12.

2000-07-22

Peter Conrad, “The last expat”, The Sydney Morning Herald (22 July 2000), Spectrum 1, 4-5.

2000-08-14

David Vance, [Concert review]: “Spring bounty: 4 premieres in a night”, The Sydney Morning Herald (14 August 2000), 18.

2000-10-00

Julian Byzantine, “Australian guitar composers interviewed, part 2: non-guitar playing composers”, Classical Guitar (19 October 2000), 22ff.

2000-11-00

Julian Byzantine, “Australian guitar composers interviewed, part 2: non-guitar playing composers (concluded)”, Classical Guitar (19 November 2000), 30-33.

BOOKS

2001

Peter Burt, The Music of Toru Takemitsu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 132

“By 1970, the perception of Takemistu as member of the international avant-garde .... while in April 1970, Takemitsu produced a four-day festival of contemporary music in the ‘Iron and Steel Pavilion’, whose participants included Lukas Foss, Peter Sculthorpe and Vinko Globokar.”

2001

Susannah Fullerton and Anne Harbers (eds), Jane Austen: Antipodean Views (Sydney: Wellington Lane Press, 2001).

2001

Jennifer Hill and Kerry Murphy (eds), A Franz Holford Miscellany (Melbourne: Centre for Studies in Australian Music, 2001).

Includes a previously unpublished short profile of Sculthorpe by Holford.

2001

Christopher Lawrence, Swooning: A classical music guide to life, love, lust and other follies (Sydney: Random House, 2001).

2001

Wilfred Mellers, Singing in the Wilderness: Music and Ecology in the Twentieth Century (Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001).

46: “Janacek’s creature imitations [in Vixen] … are scarcely less vivid in verisimilitude than are Peter Sculthorpe’s in his Australian new world.”; Chapter 11: “Peter Sculthorpe in the Australian Outback” (145-159).

2001

Tim Winton, Dirt Music (Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2001).

Tim Winton and Lucky Oceans chose the music for the novel’s “soundtrack”; released in CD form in Australia in 2001, the two disc set included both bluegrass and classical music that embodies an idea quoted from the book: “Anything you could play on a verandah. You know, without electricity. Dirt music.”; the Sculthorpe work chosen was Djilile for small orchestra.

ARTICLES

2001-01-00

H. Oesterreich, “Neue Kompositionen für Gitarrenensemble, Teil 2: Musik aus Australien”, Gitarre & Laute 23 (January-February 2001), 46-52.

2001-05-29

“Love in the air as hit maker-maker honoured”, The Sydney Morning Herald (29 May 2001), 14.

2001-06-00

J. Rosenblum, [CD review] “Quartets by Peter Sculthorpe”, Opera News 65 (June 2001), 60-61.

2001-06-30

“Sculthorpe shows his passion for nation”, The Examiner [Launceston] (30 June 2001), 29.

2001-10-22

Roger Covell, “Bringing Sculthorpe to the fore”, The Sydney Morning Herald (22 Oct 2001), 18.

BOOKS

2002

Andrew Ford, Undue Noise (Sydney: ABC Books, 2002).

2002

Alexander Beaumont Hope, Driven by Electricity (Adelaide: Flinders Press, 2002).

2002

Hugh de Ferranti & Yôko Narazaki (eds.), A Way a Lone: Writings on Toru Takemitsu (Tokyo: Academia Music, 2002).

2002

James Murdoch, Peggy Glanville-Hicks, A Transposed Life (Hillsdale: Pendragon Press, 2002).

ARTICLES

2002-01-19

Bernard Zuel, [CD review]: “Sweet dreaming”, The Sydney Morning Herald (19 January 2002), Metropolitan 11.

2002-01-21

Harriet Cunningham, [Concert review]: “Soloists shine in summer lovers' favourite night”, The Sydney Morning Herald (21 January 2002), 13.

2002-03-00

David Symons, “The Jindyworobak connection in Australian music, c.1940-1960”, Context: Journal of Music Research [Univesity of Melbourne] 23 (Autumn 2002), 33-47.

Includes quotes from author’s interview with Sculthorpe

2002-05-27

“Australia calls: is it a bird or a mallgirl?”, The Sydney Morning Herald (27 May 2002), 13.

2002-06-00

Deborah Hayes, “Life-giver, dealer in death” [book review: Sun Music: Journeys and Reflections from a Composer’s Life], Antipodes 16/1 (June 2002), 94-95.

2002-11-23

Steve Meecham, “Music to his peers”, The Sydney Morning Herald (23 November 2002), 31.

2002-11-25

Harriet Cunningham, “Christmas treat for wide-eyed children and a retiring director”, The Sydney Morning Herald (25 November 2002), 13.

BOOKS

2003

Donald Friend (Paul Heatherington, ed.), The Diaries of Donald Friend, Volume 2 (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2003).

2003

Lou Klepac, John Coburn: The spirit of Colour (Roseville: The Beagle Press, 2003).

2003

James McCalla, Twentieth-Century Chamber Music (2nd Edition, New York & London: Routledge, 2003).

259 [Kronos quartet recording of String Quartet No 8]

2003

John Whiteoak & Aline Scott-Maxwell, Currency Companion to Music and Dance in Australia (Sydney: Currency House, 2003).

Many mentions of Sculthorpe: 21, 54, 79, 133, 139, 154, 167-172, 174-175, 265, 269, 283, 309, 345-346, 373, 388, 440, 453, 460, 463, 477, 494, 506, 549, 551, 555, 570, 597, 608, 645.

THESES

2003

Jonathan Paget, “The Guitar Music Of Peter Sculthorpe”, Dissertation Doctorate of Musical Arts (Performance and Literature), Eastman School of Music, Rochester NY [USA], January 2003.

ARTICLES

2003-00-00

Martin Ball, “Pastoral and Gothic in Sculthorpe’s Tasmania”, TriQuarterley [USA] 116 (Summer 2003), 115-124.

2003-01-31

Joyce Morgan, “Classical dilettante's wish comes true”, The Sydney Morning Herald (31 January 2003), 14.

2003-02-10

Peter McCallum, “An awkward clash at a musical crossroad”, The Sydney Morning Herald (10 February 2003), 14.

2003-10-06

Scott Bevan, “These songs are ridgley-didge”, The Sydney Morning Herald (6 October 2003), 14.

2003-10-20

David Vance, “A fun family get-together, complete with home movies”, The Sydney Morning Herald (20 October 2003), 14.

BOOKS

2004

Jeannell Carrigan, Australian solo piano works: of the last twenty-five years (3^rd edition [sic], Sydney: Australian Music Centre, 2004).

Sculthorpe’s piano works, 224-226.

2004

Peter Conrad, Tales of Two Hemispheres (Sydney: ABC Books, 2004).

2004

Nicholas Cook & Anthony Pople (eds), The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Nicholas Cook with Anthony Pople, “Introduction”, 7: “There are, however, [8] references to many encounters […] between Western and non-Western musics. These include, of course, such familiar examples as the influence of traditional Japanese musics […] on Messiaen and Sculthorpe, as well as on the internationally minded composers of the post-war Japanese avant-garde”.

 

Richard Toop, “Expanding Horizon’s: the international avant-garde, 1962-75”, 457: “An intriguing and in some respects paradoxical case history relating to Asian influence is provided by the Australian avant-garde that evolved in the course of the 1960s. Peter Sculthorpe […], while clearly affected by aspects of Polish sonorism, insisted on the importance of Balinese and Japanese music in many works before turning to native Australian traditions; similarly, early works by Richard Meale […] drew on concepts from Japanese culture, while espousing a harmonic language derived from Boulez.”

“Personalia”, 663: “Sculthorpe, Peter (b. 1929). Australian composer who became known during the 1960s, having studied in Melbourne and then Oxford. After working in a serial style early on, he developed a more individual direction which focused on achieving clarity of texture; the series of Sun Music pieces from the 1960s exemplifies these concerns. Sculthorpe’s music became increasingly divorced from European models, exploring non-Western musical influences (particularly Balinese) and subsequently native Australian ones.”

2004

Christopher Latham, The Artist Versus the Corporate World (Sydney: Currency House Platform Papers, 2004).

THESES

2004-09-00

Nicholas Milton, “The string quartets of Peter Sculthorpe: a study in stylistic synthesis”, D.M.A. dissertation, City University of New York, 2004.

ARTICLES

2004-00-00

R. Crawford, “Sounding the Australian landscape: Peter Sculthorpe and John Peterson”, Australian Journal Of Music Education (2004/1), 13-25.

2004-00-00

Carolyn Philpott, “Peter Sculthorpe’s String Quartet No. 14: A Musical Response of Social Injustice”, Context: A Journal of Music Research 27 & 28 (2004), 83-96.

2004-07-00

Martin Ball, “Landscapes and soundscapes: Australia is a hotbed of new string quartet writing”, The Strad [USA], (15 July 2004), 702-4.

2004-08-25

Angela Bennie, “Who are you calling dumb?”, The Sydney Morning Herald (25 August 2004), The Sydney Magazine 50-54.

2004-08-31

Robin Usher, “Sculthorpe signs up for Viva's 60^th“, The Sydney Morning Herald (31 August 2004), 14.

2004-12-04

David Vance, “Heavenly virtuosity hits festive note”, The Sydney Morning Herald (4 December 2004), 24.

BOOKS

2005

Andrew Ford, In Defense of Classical Music. Sydney, ABC Books, 2005.

148: “Whenever I am pressed, really pressed, by people outside Australia (and sometimes even in Australia) to say what Australian music sounds like, I will, of course, mention Peter Sculthorpe, and pieces such as Mangrove and Earth Cry.”

2005

Moffat Oxenbould. Timing is Everything, A Life Backstage at the Opera, Sydney, ABC Books, 2005

2005

Vincent Plush. “Black Unlike Me,” in Griffith Review. (Sydney: Griffith University & ABC Books, 2005).

2005

James Young, The Simple Guide to Growing Camellias (Bonnet Bay: Deborah Clarke and 4C Publishers, 2005).

On PS the gardener!

THESES

2005-09-00

Nathan Cook, “Scordatura literature for unaccompanied violoncello in the 20th century: Historical background, analysis of works, and practical considerations for composers and performers”, Doctor of Musical Arts Dissertation, Rice University [Texas, USA], [September] 2005

Abstract: “[...] analyses of work[s] by Peter Sculthorpe (Requiem for cello alone) [...]”

ARTICLES

2005-00-00

“Assistant-Mentor Relationships: Case 1: Peter Sculthorpe (mentor), Ross Edwards (assistant), John Peterson (assistant)”, Sounds Australian 66 (2005), 34-37. 

2005-01-01

Tony Stephens, “Reason to sing and be proud”, The Sydney Morning Herald (1 January 2005), 30.

2005-03-05

Dino Scatena, “Signs of the Cross: The lowdown”, The Sydney Morning Herald (5 March 2005), Spectrum 2.

BOOKS

2006

J. Peter Burkholder, Donald Jay Grout, Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music (7^th edition; New York: W.W. Norton, 2006).

Burkholder mentions Sculthorpe and his music on the final two pages of this major revision of a standard history.

2006

Rob Burnett (photographs) and Mary Machen (text), Opening Doors (Launceston: Flying Colours, 2006).

2006

Jeannell Carrigan, Australian solo piano works: of the last twenty-five years (Sydney: Australian Music Centre, Fourth Edition, 2006).

235-237

2006

Toby Creswell & Samantha Trenoweth, 1001 Australians You Should Know (Melbourne: Pluto Press, 2006), 203.

203: “ ‘Australia was everything that I was on about and in my music I was trying to find some kind of Australian identity, so it was inevitable that I should want to stay here.’ For much of his internationally successful career Peter Sculthorpe has been able to base himself in the land of his birth [... several paragraphs on career ...] Sculthorpe is one of the most distinguished composers in the world and in Australia has most appropriately been included in the National Trust’s list of ‘living treasures’.”

2006

John Kinsella (ed.), School Days (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2006).

Includes Sculthorpe’s reminiscences of his school days in Launceston in the 1930s and 1940s.

2006

Elaine Lewis. Left Bank Waltz. Milson’s Point, Random House Australia, 2006.

Title of book after one of Peter Sculthorpe’s piano pieces.

ARTICLES

2006-02-23

“Sculthorpe pays tribute to the digeridoo”, The Examiner [Launceston] (23 February 2006), 18.

2006-06-00

Martin Buzacott, “Commission impossible”, ABC Radio Limelight (June 2006), 20.

“Why are two of the grand old men of Australian music not composing any more, asks Martin Buzacott: They were the doyens of the 196os avant-garde. Between them, Peter Sculthorpe (born 1929), Richard Meale (1932) and Nigel Butterley (1935) took Australian music by the throat and wenched it out of its English pastoral stupor into the modern cosmopolitan era.       In his Sun Music series, Sculthorpe reflected the social, anthropological and geographic idiosyncrasies of Australia. In Homage to Garcia Lorca and Very High Kings, Richard Meale tumed out orchestral scores as powerful and sophisticated as anything his European counterparts could produce, while Nigel Butterley’s Meditations of Thomas Traherne and Fire in the Heavens were as radical as John Cage but somehow lyrical, visionary and humane too. For a generation, these three men defined, through music, the emerging new Australian identity. But how are they faring now at the age when composers such as Verdi, Bruckner and Vaughan Williams were composing some of their most significant music? Are the Austalian trio doing as well? Well, one of them is. Sculthorpe just keeps getting bigger. He is being performed so often he can’t even keep track. "They [the performances] just keep getting more and more every year," he says. "I wouldn’t have a clue how many performances there will be this year." Sculthorpe’s orchestral and string quartet repertoire has been boosted in recent years by the inclusion of William Barton as didjeridu soloist. The orchestral works Earth Cry and Kakadu, plus many of the string quartets, are now standard repertoire, and Sculthorpe's 75th birthday in 2004 was celebrated with concerts all over the world.

              But Butterley and Meale remain, if not exactly criminally ignored, then at least underperformed. [... remainder of the article deals with these two composers].

2006-08-09

“Peter Sculthorpe: On a personal note”, The Examiner [Launceston] (9 August 2006), 22-22.

BOOKS

2007

Martin Buzacott, The Rite of Spring: 75 Years of ABC Music-making (Sydney: ABC Books, 2007).

This major work on 20^th-century Australian musical history contains numerous mentions of Sculthorpe plus several direct quotes from interviews with author; provides essential Australian context for anyone researching

2007

Anthony Meredith & Paul Harris, Malcolm Williamson: A Mischievous Muse (London: Omnibus Press, 2007).

44 [“Peter Sculthorpe remembers Malcolm working as a pianist for the Borovansky Ballet (forerunners of Australian Ballet), meeting up with him in Hobart while on a month’s tour of Tasmania.” c.late 40s early 50s]; 189 [PS one of speakers at Canberra Composers’ Seminar, 1967]; 195 [“The other four composers, though also more ‘advanced’ than Malcolm and therefore more attractive to the critics, offered their own distinctive brand of modernity. Peter Sculthorpe, for example, had experimented with serialism as a young man, only to develop his own unique way outside it. By 1967, he had already created a specifically ‘Australian’ style with his Sun Music series, Sun Music I (1965) depicting the power of the sun and the harsh desolation of the Australian landscape, Sun Music III (1967) incorporating for the first time traditional Asian music, from Bali. Although he had rejected serialism in the desire to uplift audiences, much of his work at the time was (wrote Covell) ‘marked by a withdrawn, intensely personal [196] quality’ and he rarely exhibited ‘the glitter of virtuosity so evident in much of Malcolm Williamson’s work’.”; 196 [other passing mentions re Canberra]; 265 [footnote 31 mentions PS’s Rites of Passage]; 402 [MW plays [? piano] works by PS, Roy Agnew and Dorian LeGallienne during a 2-week visit to Yugoslavia in summer 1984]; 503 [Specially composed tribute from PS in MW’s 70th birthday concert in Wigmore Hall, London, on 21 November 2001].

2007

Fiona Richards (ed.), The Soundscapes of Australia (London: Ashgate Press, 2007).

This important collection of articles by invited contributors includes several that discus Sculthorpe’s works in detail, and there are numerous other references.

2007

Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise (New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007).

2007

Graeme Skinner, Peter Sculthorpe: The Making of an Australian Composer (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007).

2007

ARTICLES

2007-02-05

Vivien Schwitzer, [Concert review: Brooklyn Philharmonic, Michael Christie (conductor)] “A Musical Night in Brooklyn, with Dance and Didgeridoo”, The new York Times (5 February 2007), 5.

“[…] Mr. Sculthorpe describes the didgeridoo as ''the quintessential Australian instrument'' and says in the program that he started composing for it before Aborigines were even allowed to vote.  His ''Mangrove'' (1979) and ''Earth Cry'' (1986) seemed appropriate inclusions alongside Stravinsky's ''Rite of Spring.'' The orchestral writing in the propulsive ''Earth Cry'' (a sort of Outback ''Appalachian Spring'') is straightforward and melodic. Instrumental lines are often doubled throughout (violins in unison and lower strings partnered with lower brass) with the didgeridoo, which Mr. Sculthorpe decided to add later, providing welcome texture, color and ritualistic spice. ''Mangrove,'' inspired by gorges in the Northern Territory of Australia, is a canvas of sound clusters, with the violins evoking a swarm of disgruntled flies at one point […].”

2007-04-13

Geoff Brown, [CD Review: Sculthorpe Requiem &c], The Times [UK] (13 April 2007), 18.

“This is an impressive and moving work, decisively coloured by didgeridoo solos, ample drumming and close-knit harmonic writing for chorus […].”

2007-04-26

James Button, “Wartime enemies gather as friends”, The Sydney Morning Herald (26 April 2007), 4.

Report from Herald’s Gallipoli correspondent on ANZAC Day ceremonies; “A piece by the Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe, Thoughts of Home, used the mouth organ as its chief instrument to evoke the only kind of music the 1915 diggers were able to play.”

2007-07-00

Ivan Moody, [CD review: Sculthorpe Requiem &c], Gramophone [UK] (July 2007), 91; see also james Irvine, “Editor’s Choice”, 8: a track from the CD was reissued on the CD accompanying the issue.

“The heartfelt new Requiem is the crowning glory of the set. […] One would know at any given moment that it was Sculthorpe […] An essential release from one of the world’s greatest living composers.”

BOOKS

2008

Michael Atherton & Bruce Crossman (eds.), Music of the Spirit: Asian-Pacific Musical Identity (Sydney: Australian Music Centre, 2008).

2008

David Bennett, Sounding Postmodernism: Sampling Australian Composers, Sound Artists and Music Critics (Sydney: Australian Music Centre, 2008).

2008

Anna Bemrose, Robert Helpmann: A Servant of Art (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2008).

2008

Rosalind Bradley (ed.), Mosaic (Sydney: ABC Books, 2008).

2008

Peter Cochrane (ed.), Australian Greats (North Sydney: William Heinemann, 2008).

ARTICLES

2008

Joyce Morgan, “Maestro’s msuic drawn from a busy life”, Sydney Morning Herald (19 March 2008), 20.

BOOKS

2009

Susannah Fullerton. Brief Encounters: Literary travellers in Australia 1836-1939. Sydney: Picador, 2009.

2009

Gordon Kerry, New Classical Music: Composing Australia (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2009).

2009

Tom & Simon Sykes (eds.), The Hitchers of Oz (Brisbane: Glass House Books, 2009).

ARTICLES

2009-01-21

David Mermelstein, “DVD reviews:  The Films of Michael Powell”, Daily Variety [USA] (21 January 2009).

“[Age of Consent, Powell's last feature is] beautifully, though not imaginatively, shot in vibrant color, with ample underwater shots of the Great Barrier Reef. What's notable about this issue is that the pic's ‘risque’ original title sequence has been restored, as has Peter Sculthorpe's beguiling original score -- both foolishly jettisoned by nervous Col execs prior to the film's debut […] ‘Making Age of Consent’ features the director's son, Kevin Powell, who worked on the film, as well as editor Anthony Buckley and scorer Sculthorpe […].”

2009-02-06

James Portman, “Mirren bares all in 1969 classic, Age of Consent, now on DVD”, Ottawa Citizen [Canada] (6 February 2009), D2.

“Decades before she entered the corridors of royalty and delivered her Oscar-winning performance in the Queen, Helen Mirren bared all in an almost forgotten Australian film called Age of Consent. […] Yet at the time, Age of Consent horrified Columbia Pictures, which bankrolled the film but eviscerated Powell's vision in the film's international release -- taking the scissors to the nudity and scrapping composer Peter Sculthorpe's wonderful score. Now, these and other elements are back in this restored director's cut. Justice has finally been done to the final feature film of a director Mirren reveres. ‘I feared it would never be seen again.’ […]”

2009-02-06

Simon Plant, “Ode man river”, Herald-Sun (6 February 2009), 77.

“A MUSICAL tribute to the Thames and the Tiber makes sense. So does an ode to Sydney Harbour or San Francisco Bay. But Song of the Yarra?  ‘Oh, Melbourne people knock it a bit,’ composer Peter Sculthorpe says in Sydney. ‘But the Yarra has always had a special meaning for me […] Sculthorpe, 79, calls his Melbourne project ‘a work about reconciliation’ -- an elegy to the indigenous custodians of the river that begins at night, greets the dawn and ‘emerges from the darkness of the past into the light of the present. There is something ruminative about it. But it ends in a joyous way,’ he says […].”

2009-02-09

Alison Barclay, “Ode to nature leaves a burning question”, Herald-Sun (9 February 2009), 47.

“LAST night's first concert in the new Melbourne Recital Centre will go down in history for several great acts and one unforgivable omission. The opening work, Song of the Yarra, was a chance to acknowledge events in Marysville and Kinglake this past weekend. But no one said a word. Here was music, newly composed by an Australian, about nature in all its splendour and terror. It began with a strange crackling, like the tinkle of parched gum leaves about to burst into flame. Then came the wind, and perhaps the firestorm, evoked by giant gongs. A lovely young soprano, Chenile Chandler, sang about the land ‘where dreamings never die' while two double basses kept up an ominous undercurrent […].”

2009-02-10

Clive O'Connell, [Concert review], “Broad sweep of sound opens new hall”, The Age (10 February 2009), 26.

“Sculthorpe's new Song of the Yarra holds plenty of familiar strokes, including substantial percussion resources with two long thunder-sheets bracing the stage's rear and a pair of water gongs at the front, a low string trio, solo female voice and violin, and choir. The score's three parts lay on the atmospherics, concluding in a trademark wash of gong and high string glissandi, following a cleverly shaped, off-the-beat song negotiated with unflustered charm by 13-year-old Olivia O'Brien. Probably the most surprising feature of this performance came from the carrying power of the choir, members of the Song Company and the Consort of Melbourne, which maintained an audible presence even at soft moments.”

2009-02-10

Anna McAlister, “Song of the Yarra”, Herald-Sun (10 February 2009), 38.

“Peter Sculthorpe's Song of the Yarra, commissioned for the venue's opening, also celebrated indigenous custodians. Yarra proved a charmingly melodic and accessible work. It made vivid use of percussion: giant thundering wobble boards were suspended from 5m scaffolds and a gong and cymbal semi-submerged in water created a humming carpet of sound […].”

2009-02-24

Heath Gilmore, “Sculthorpe donates $3.5m for new talent”, The Sydney Morning Herald (24 February 2009), 5.

“THE composer Peter Sculthorpe will lavish a $3.5 million gift tonight on the University of Sydney to create the nation's first chair of Australian music. The emeritus professor, named one of Australia's 100 Living National Treasures in 1998, wants the academic position at the university's Conservatorium of Music to nurture a pool of young composers […]. Professor Anne Boyd, the first Australian and first woman to be appointed professor of music at the University of Sydney, said the endowment was an act of extraordinary generosity. ‘This signifies a special coming of age in our nation's musical and cultural life,’ she said.”

2009-03-24

Gordon Kerry, “Dawn of a new world symphony”, The Australian (24 March 2009), 13.

“[…] the rediscovery of tonality was nothing of the sort and certainly not a case of psychological regression peculiar to Australian composers. The Stravinskys and Brittens of the world had continued to make diatonic harmony the basis of their musical language from the '30s; the exploration of non-European traditions by Peter Sculthorpe and his proteges had its parallels in other parts of the world […].”