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- Ivan Moody, Gramophone (July 2007)
"The most original sound to emerge from
Australia since
Nellie Melba and the first to show
awareness of
regional contexts; it established Sculthorpe
as
musical figurehead for the entire Pacific basin."
- Norman Lebrecht
Sculthorpe's birth notice
The Examiner (Launceston, 4 May 1929)
Score of Port Essington, cover
specially painted by
Russell Drysdale
THE internationally renowned Australian composer PETER SCULTHORPE celebrated his 80th birthday in 2009.
He was born in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia, on 29 April 1929, and began composing at the start of 1938, after his first piano lesson, aged 9.
Sculthorpe first came to international attention with his Sonatina for Piano, composed 55 years ago in 1954, premiered at the 1955 ISCM Festival in Baden-Baden. The following year saw the first of his Irkanda series of evocations of the great Australian outback.
Since then, each decade of Sculthorpe's composing life has been distinguished by a succession of notable works published exclusively by Faber Music.
In his Thirties (1959-1969)
His early masterworks, the strongly Australian identified
Irkanda
IV
and the orchestral
Sun Music
series and in chamber music the
String Quartet No 6.
Forties (1969-1979)
The cross-culturally path-breaking
String Quartet No 8
and
Port Essington
and the celebratory
Love 200.
Fifties (1979-1989)
Sculthorpe's composing fifties focused on our environmental future
bounded by the orchestral masterworks
Mangrove
and
Kakadu,
framing
Earth Cry,
the
Piano Concerto
and the visionary opera
Quiros.
Sixties (1989-1999)
From the decade of his 60s came the guitar concerto
Nourlangie,
the
String Quartet No 11 (Jabiru
Dreaming),
the admonitory orchestral
Memento Mori
and
Great Sandy Island.
Seventies (1999-2009)
In
his 70s Sculthorpe composed his
String Quartets Nos 15, 16 & 17
and the moving choral-and-orchestral
Requiem.
And now into his
Eighties . . .
Song of the Yarra (2008)
for soprano solo, violin
obligato, SATB chorus and chamber ensemble
Song of the Yarra was commissioned by the Melbourne
Recital Centre with generous support from the Harold Mitchell
Foundation. It was written especially for first performance at the
opening of the centre in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall on 8 February 2009,
celebrating Dame Elisabeth Murdoch’s one-hundredth birthday. The work
was performed by Gidon Kremer, solo violin, members of the Victorian
Opera Chorus and a percussion group organized by Guy de Bręt. It was
conducted by Roland Peelman.
Typesetting by Peggy Polias
http://www.peggypolias.com/
Sun in Me (1960/2009)
song cycle
for high voice and
piano
The work is a setting of poems by D H Lawrence. It consists of three motivically-related songs: Into the Sea, Tropic and Sun in Me. At the time of writing it, I was very much influenced by Lawrence’s ideas concerning the sun as both life-giver and destroyer. I related these to my own experience as an Australian and the song cycle is a precursor of my orchestral series, Sun Music.
After I returned to Australia at the end of 1960, I withdrew the work. I felt that the final song, Sun in Me
(originally the first song) failed to mirror the emotions contained in the poem. In the following year I was inspired to rewrite the song. I used a wordless setting of it at the end of Irkanda IV, for solo violin, strings and percussion, a work written in memory of my father. I have now incorporated this into the song cycle itself, which I revised in 2009.- P.S.
Typesetting by Peggy Polias
http://www.peggypolias.com/
Patrick White Fragments (2009)
for soprano, speaker and piano
Early in 1964, Patrick White sent Scuthorpe two lyrics toward the opera that they were then working on. Though and Sculthorpe soon parted ways, the author went on to rework the scenario as his novel A Fringe of Leaves, while the composer slowly advanced toward the completion of an opera on his own libretto, Rites of Passage. After forty-five years, Sculthorpe has returned to adapt White's 1964 lyrics as the basis of this new setting for soprano, speaker and piano.
Typesetting by Peggy Polias
http://www.peggypolias.com/
Chaconne (2009)
for solo violin and strings
For many years, I have used chaconne-like
ground-basses in my music but I have never actually written a chaconne.
I use ground basses, and also long-held pedal-notes, to suggest the
contours of the outback Australian landscape and its uninterrupted
continuity. Because of this, it seemed fitting to write a chaconne to
mark Richard Tognetti’s 20th anniversary as leader and artistic director
of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. The music is influenced by Bach.
This, too, is fitting: Bach is a favourite composer of Richard’s and
mine.
- P.S.
Typesetting by Peggy Polias
http://www.peggypolias.com/
A Little Song of Love (2009)
for clarinet and string quartet
In celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Australia Ensemble, I decided to write a piece about my loving and enduring friendship with members of the group. A Little Song of Love is in the style of a popular ballad. I prefaced it with the Italian terms, Teneramente: come canto popolare. Throughout, the melody-line is played by the first violin and an entwining counter-melody is added by the clarinet. The work ends with a quiet coda.
- P.S.
Typesetting by Peggy Polias
http://www.peggypolias.com/
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FROM A UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY PRESS RELEASE: A new work by pre-eminent composer and National Living Treasure Peter Sculthorpe will be a highlight of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s 2010 concert program – and a jewel in the crown of The Con’s 101 Compositions for 100 Years project.
The Con’s Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Imre Palló will premiere the work as part of the Conductors’ Series – a performance that will help round-out Emeritus Professor Sculthorpe’s commitment to the 101 Compositions project as a Marquee Composer and contributing lecturer.
The newly commissioned work is for string orchestra and narrator. “We are so chuffed that Peter will be helping us lead the charge of both our concert series and 101 project next year,” commented Dean and Principal, Professor Kim Walker. “There will be many highpoints in the 2010 program, but this work and its performance will add a special lustre, and surely be a concert that will generate great admiration.”
Sculthorpe's String Quartet No 18 for the Flinders Quartet and the Tokyo String Quartet will be premiered in Australia in June and the UK in September 2010. The work has been jointly commissioned by the Flinders Quartet and the Edinburgh Festival. See Performances page for details.
Sculthorpe joint
winner of the 2009 Casa Asia Award
EFE News Service:
MADRID,
15 JULY (EFE)
SPAIN'S
international news agency EFE and Australian composer Peter
Sculthorpe were announced Wednesday as recipients of the 2009
Casa Asia Award for their contributions to the fostering of
dialogue, harmony and understanding between Spanish society and those of
the Asia-Pacific region.
The judging panel decided to present the award to EFE for its news
coverage of the Asia-Pacific region since 1963," Madrid-based Casa Asia
(Asia House) said in a statement.
Regarding Sculthorpe, the composer of the 1982 opera Quiros,
based on the subject of Spanish explorer Pedro Fernandez Quiros, Casa
Asia bestowed the award
"for
integrating into his brilliant musical career the rapprochement between
cultures and emphasizing the historical links between Spain and the
Pacific."
The panel of judges met on Wednesday in Madrid and is comprised of
representatives from the Spanish Foreign Ministry, the Cities of
Barcelona and Madrid, the Business Confederation of Madrid, and other
institutions.
www.casaasia.eu
Sculthorpe in BBC's
2009 Australian music first eleven
"Australia may have lost
the ashes, but they still have a musical First 11 to be proud of",
according to Jeremy Pound in the BBC Music Magazine
"As the Ashes trophy
nestles itself back on a previously dusty and forlorn shelf in Lord’s,
Australia finds itself today in a mood of cricketing despondency. Gloom
and doom Down Under, but BBC Music is here to help. In a spirit
of trans-global good-sportsmanship, and with no Schadenfreude
remotely intended, honest, we reckon that now is the time to remind the
world that Australia does have its winners: in the field of music! Normally, we choose six of
the best, but we feel that enough punishment has been inflicted on the
pitch, so we’ve upped the number to a full team.
So, calling all Aussies. Cheer up! Here’s an XI you can rely on…"
Sculthorpe fills the
BBC Australian Eleven's fifth spot, after Melba, Grainger, Mackerras,
and Sutherland (Joan), in a team that also includes Simone Young,
guitarist Craig Ogden and saxophonist Amy Dickson.
Read the full article:
www.bbcmusicmagazine.com/feature/world-music/eleven-best%E2%80%A6-australian-musicians
Australian Music Centre
online journal Resonate
presented a special feature
"SOMETHING ABOUT PETER", a page of tributes from colleagues,
students and friends, including Anne Boyd, Barry Conyngham, Maureen
Cooney, John Davis, Ross Edwards, Michael Hannan, John Hopkins, Chris
Latham, David Pereira, Peggy Polias, Graeme Skinner, Phil Slater,
and Belinda Webster
www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/article/something-about-peter
Resonate also includes Jennifer Gall's review of the Sculthorpe concerts
at Canberra International Music Festival in May 2009:
www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/article/sculthorpe-concerts-at-canberra-international-music-festival
Our national daily newspaper, The Australian (27
April 2009) published a special Sculthorpe 80th feature article "In tune with the nation"
by Graeme Skinner.
Read it before Mr Murdoch starts charging for online viewing at:
www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25388833-16947,00.html
"Notes from a life",
an excellent Good Weekend Sculthorpe 80th special feature by Amanda Hooton, appeared in
The
Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on 12 September 2009.
According to Hooton, Sculthorpe at 80 has now well and truly bucked the
trend for Classical composers dying young and penniless:
"Peter Sculthorpe possesses three great graces in
life: he is old, happy and successful. He has, in other words, entirely
avoided the archetypal composer's fate . . . Just how has he pulled it
off?"
Perhaps her observation that "Sculthorpe seems not to mind too much how
his music is received" is part of the answer. She goes on to quote the
composer: "Of course, you hope people like it, but
you can only write what is true for you. One can't expect everyone to
like everything one does. I never mind the bad reviews. My favourite was
for my piano concerto, when one critic wrote: 'It would be best played
late at night, at a piano bar ... preferably after all the people have
left'."
Sculthorpe and his music are now very well-represented on
YouTube.
These authorised videos included complete performances of
several works
National Portrait Gallery: Interview with
Peter Sculthorpe
(2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysascrWdeGo
The Verdehr Trio with
Peter Sculthorpe
Authorised extract from the MSU DVD including interview with the
composer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9X61DXFZUs
Sydney Singing
- Kings Cross (excerpt)
Authorised extract from the SBS DVD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DJidfNPMRY
Requiem for
Cello Alone Mvt. I-III
(from: cellocorman)
Introit-Kyrie-Qui Mariam (15 April 2006)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLnIBCJEQBo
Requiem for
Cello Alone Mvt. IV-VI
Lacrimosa Libera Mea Lux Aeterna (15
April 2006)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN6PF3jX2CE
Port Arthur in Memoriam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSWBvYQ54F8
Sonata for Viola & Percussion
Michael McCabe (viola), David Pearson
(percussion)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hAhLu8QbG0&f
Into the Dreaming
Lincoln Brady (guitar) with Jan Cocks (poetry reciter) from the Adelaide
Spring Classical Guitar Festival, October 1996.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IdXZ_VTfII
Djilile
Wulfin
Lieske (solo guitar), 8 May 2007, Herz Jesu Kirche, Cologne
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k_Qhn3YSkE
Please
note:
There are several files on YouTube which reproduce recordings by Ian
Munro of Sculthorpe piano pieces, from his Tall Poppies CDs.
Unfortunately, these have been uploaded without the approval of either
the performer or the record company.
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Or go to complete discography page:
SCULTHORPE: A CELEBRATION
The Icon of Australian Music
The art of Peter Sculthorpe, a “living treasure” and one of Australia’s best known composers is the cause for this celebration. He is one of the modern icons of Australian music.
On the DVD: Sydney Singing, Sculthorpe orchestrates his original work at the request of the SBS Youth Orchestra, and takes us on an aural and visual journey through Sydney over the course of a day. Dawn over the harbour, a lazy morning on Bondi Beach, a cultured afternoon at Circular Quay and the Opera House, dusk at the El Alamein Fountain, the neon lights of Kings Cross and through the wee hours of the city’s existence to sunrise over the harbour city once more. Also with interviews, score extracts, and composer's commentary
On the accompanying DVD: A reissue of ABC Classics recordings of 6 Sculthorpe works
Cello Dreaming
Small Town (narrated by Sculthorpe)
Kakadu
Irkanda IV
Earth Cry
www.sbs.com.au/shop
Peter Sculthorpe: The String Quartets Volume 3
String Quartets Nos 14-17
Goldner String Quartet
Tall Poppies CD TP206 www.members.iinet.net.au/~tallpoppies/
"PETER Sculthorpe celebrated his 80th birthday in April, and this recording of his four most recent numbered string quartets was released to mark the occasion. He has been the leading Australian composer of his generation; his works manage to evoke his country's extraordinary landscapes while never shrinking from its social issues. So the 14th Quartet is subtitled Quamby, and evokes not only the Tasmania in which Sculthorpe grew up, but also its brutal colonial past: it identifies a place where Aborigines were massacred. The 15th looks across the Torres Strait to New Guinea, incorporating song sequences and scales from a local tribe; the 16th is designed as an appeal for justice for Australia's asylum seekers; the 17th is more personal, and incorporates the motto from the last of Beethoven's 17 quartets, Op 135. Yet the soundworld of all these works is identifiably Sculthorpe's own, with its highly wrought, often densely chordal string writing lit up by sudden scatters of harmonics, like cascades of birdsong, and all superbly delivered by the Goldner Quartet." -- Andrew Clements, The Guardian UK (26 June 2009)
"GOLDNER String Quartet's project to record all the quartets by Peter Sculthorpe is brought up to date in this third instalment, covering 1998 to the present. There are four works, String Quartets No 14-17, and all are recorded here for the first time. One hears a composer who has found his most natural voice in the string quartet medium. These later quartets have a distilled character: textures are cleanly formed and melodies are tunefully simple, at times impassioned. Big sociopolitical themes sparked these works. Quartet No 14 (Quamby) is Sculthorpe's response to folkloric stories from the 19th century about the massacre of Aborigines in northern Tasmania. It broils with intensified emotion. The more prayerful Quartet No 15 laments the dispersal of the Simori people from their homeland in New Guinea. Haunting and anguished, Quartet No 16 was triggered by the plight of asylum-seekers in Australian detention centres. Composed in 2007, the more abstract Quartet No17 is the most satisfying of the four. Quoting a theme of Beethoven, it has an expansiveness and musical complexity that seems to open the door more on the composer's inner self. Flowing, unforced musicianship from the Goldner players allows them to unlock fully the spirit of this music. Their playing is eloquent, human-faced and expressive." -- Graham Strahle, The Australian (25 July 2009) (* * * * ˝)
"UPDATING the recorded chamber music of Australia's most famous classical composer, the Goldner experts perform four works on this Tall Poppies CD, beginning with the 1998 Quartet No 14, Quamby, written to commemorate the fate of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. The series continues with No 15, which uses material from New Guinea, while the next, commissioned by Julian Burnside and focused on Australia's disastrous treatment of asylum seekers, was premiered in Melbourne by the Tokyo String Quartet. Sculthorpe's latest in the form, No 17, is the most rigorous, based on Beethoven's Muss es sein motto. All four comprise a must-have for any devotee of serious, accessible Australian music." -- Clive O'Connell, The Age (11 July 2009)
The PETER SCULTHORPE COLLECTION
3CDS $39.95 from ABC Classics [AU] featuring the Sydney, Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphonies
ABC Classics CD Set
The Fifth Continent
Sun Music I - IV (complete)
Earth Cry
Irkanda IV
Kakadu
Mangrove
www.shop.abc.net.au
Ema Alexeeva (violin), David Apellániz (cello), Ananda Sukarlan (piano),
on Verso CD VRS 2036 [ES] in
Irkanda I
From Irkanda III
Mountains & Night Pieces
From Saibai
Night Song
Djilile
www.verso.es
William Barton (didjeridu), Tamara Anna Cislowska (piano)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, James Judd (conductor)
Naxos CD 8557382 [71:00] Issued 2004
Earth Cry
Kakadu
Piano Concerto
Memento Mori
From Oceania
www.naxos.com/catalogue
"Peter Sculthorpe is finally receiving the international recognition he deserves, with a plethora of high-profile commissions and excellent recordings … James Judd’s Naxos programme is well-chosen, featuring Earth Cry and the Piano Concerto…The Piano Concerto, dating from 1983, is one of Sculthorpe’s most magnificent creations…Judd includes a work from Sculthorpe’s ‘sun music’ period, From Oceania (1970/2003), more ostentatiously brighter and more ‘foreign’ than later works, and Memento Mori (1993), one of his most affecting and straightforward works.” – Ivan Moody, The Gramophone (February 2005)
“Peter Sculthorpe is Australia’s foremost composer. Earth Cry (1986) evokes the Aboriginals’ intimate relationship with nature, resonating throughout with the magical sounds of the didjeridu. Memento mori (1993), meanwhile, recalls the tragedy of Easter Island, denuded of its natural resources. The 1983 Piano Concerto looks to Japanese and Balinese music. From Oceania (2003) is an exuberant percussive outburst, and Kakadu from 1988 represents an awed reaction to the northern Australia’s wilderness. Here’s a man who has thought hard about his landscape.” - Stephen Pettitt, Evening Standard (17 December 2004)
“The Tasmanian-born Peter Sculthorpe, 75 last year, has for a long time seemed likely to break through to wider international recognition with his strong, simple, yet never superficial orchestral pictures of Australia and the Pacific region. This disc might well do the trick.” – Anthony Burton, BBC Music Magazine (February 2005)
“Many of Peter Sculthorpe’s poetic evocations of landscape are undeniably effective, even though their combination of textural and colouristic effects with rather conventional melodies and diatonic harmony sometimes seems curious. Here, although Kakadu (1988) is an explicit evocation of the wilderness of that name in the Northern Territory, and Earth Cry (1986) has a prominent role for a didjeridu, not all the geographical references in these five works are to Sculthorpe’s native Australia but venture much farther around the Pacific Rim. The Piano Concerto (1983) borrows from Japanese gagaku and Balinese gamelan, while From Oceania melds the orchestra into a single Oriental percussion instrument; Memento Mori (1993) is the most conventional…piece on a disc that provides a useful introduction to Sculthorpe’s highly personal world.” – Andrew Clements, The Guardian (7 January 2005)
Richard Tognetti (violin & director), Emma-Jane Murphy (cello)
Australian Chamber Orchestra; Chandos [UK] CD CHAN10063 [66:10]
Irkanda I (for violin solo)
Irkanda IV
Lament for Cello and Strings
Second Sonata for Strings
Cello Dreaming
Djilile
www.aco.com.au/?url=/shop/peter-sculthorpe-orchestral-music
"(A) superb new disc from the splendid Australian Chamber Orchestra ... focuses on pieces for strings and draws on a range of influences, but omnipresent is the Australian landscape as well as the birds encountered there. A disc well worth exploring for a powerful, haunting musical voice." --Editors Choice, Gramophone (August 2003)
"Peter Sculthorpe is Australia's senior composer, and his works are rooted in the landscape and culture of his country. Irkanda I for solo violin follows the contours of the hills around Canberra - Richard Tognetti's performance brings out the desolation of the music, as it does in Irkanda IV. Lament is a powerful piece for cello and strings, played with enormous intensity by Emma-Jane Murphy, and given a recording to match... this is a life-affirming disc." -- Martin Cotton, BBC Music Magazine
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Arvo Volmer & James Judd (conductors), ABC Classics 2CD 476 5692 (2006)
Requiem for chorus, didjeridu & orchestra
My Country Childhood
Earth Cry (abridged version)
Great Sandy Island
New Norcia
Quamby
www.shop.abc.net.au
"The eagerly awaited Sculthorpe Requiem brings a further jewel to a wide audience ... An essential release from one of the world’s greatest living composers." - Ivan Moody Gramophone (July 2007)
Sculthorpe in interview and performance on DVD
The Verdehr Trio Composers Series; No II: Peter Sculthorpe
Walter Verdehr (violin), Elsa Verdehr (clarinet), Silvia Roederer (piano)
Michigan State University Press DVD (unnumbered) [released 2008]
Includes interview with the composer and performances by the Verdehr Trio
of works specially commissioned by them:
Dreamtracks
Baltimore Songlines
www.msupress.msu.edu/bookTemplate.php?bookID=3612
Age of Consent
The Films of Michael Powell: Disc 2, Age of Consent (Director’s Cut) [recorded 1969; reinstated 1997]
● SONY/Columbia Pictures DVD (25919) (Region 1) [released 2009]
Directed by British film-maker Michael Powell, the film was an adaptation of Norman Lindsay’s autobiographical novel, starring James Mason and the young Helen Mirren, and Australians including Max Meldrum, Frank Thring and Harold Hopkins. Sculthorpe himself joined the cast during filming on Dunk Island, on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef, in April 1968, and he composed the music back in Sydney in June-July 1968. In the score, Sculthorpe reworked with variations music from his own Small Town in scenes associated with the film’s lead role, artist Bradley Monahan/Norman Lindsay, as well as from his recent Balinese-inspired Tabuh-Tabuhan, music associated in particular with the dreamlike underwater scenes in which Helen Mirren’s character, Cora Ryan, swam naked, earning the film an R rating! The newly composed vocal title theme, meanwhile, Sculthorpe later reset for strings as the lovely Little Serenade.
Vincent Plush (Head, Recorded Sound and Cultural Programs, NFSA) wrote introducing Age of Consent:
Age of Consent was the second of two feature films made in Australia in the 1960s by British director Michael Powell (1905-1990). The massive local box-office success of the first, They’re A Weird Mob (1966), proved critical to the revival of feature film production in this country. Although it would not take off appreciably for several more years, 1969 was still a significant year in the re-awakening of the Australian film industry, with the number of locally made features jumping from virtually none to half-a-dozen in the space of only a few years.
Peter Yeldham’s screenplay is adapted from the 1935 semi-autobiographical novel by the iconoclastic Australian artist Norman Lindsay (1879-1969) whose famous nudes are brought to life in John Duigan’s film Sirens (1994).
This was a project much cherished by the late Australian actor-producer Michael Pate who had just returned from a long stint in Hollywood. Initially, Powell himself had dismissed Lindsay’s novel as “one of those girl Friday stories …obviously written for money”. But whilst retaining the ironic humour and the setting on a Great Barrier Reef island, the creative trio of Powell, Yeldham and Pate transformed the fusty Edwardian artist of Lindsay’s novel into a more sophisticated and sensual contemporary figure. Their makeover was inspired by the Australian modernist painters who had risen to prominence in the 1950s and 60s. One of their number, Paul Delprat, supplied the actual paintings used in the film.
A triumvirate of co-producers comprised Pate and Powell and the actor James Mason who starred in the film, along with his future wife Clarissa Kaye. It also starred veteran Irish character actor Jack McGowan and the 22-year-old Helen Mirren, who had previously played supporting roles in three films. Amongst the Australian supporting cast were veteran Neva Carr-Glynn, Michael Boddy and a young Harold Hopkins.
Expatriate Australian artist Bradley Morahan (Mason), jaded by success in New York, feels the need to regain his youthful edge. He returns to Australia, where he sets up his ramshackle studio-house on a lonely island on the Great Barrier Reef. There he meets a wild young woman Cora Ryan (Mirren) who eventually becomes his muse.
After its opening at the Odeon Theatre in Brisbane on 27 March 1969, Age of Consent fared relatively well in Australia but had little success internationally. Initially released in London, the UK branch of Columbia studios, which had largely funded the production, then insisted on making changes to all subsequent prints released internationally. Not only were many early scenes in New York cut from the film, likewise the original score composed by the then-40-year-old Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe. His music was replaced by another by British composer Stanley Myers, today best known for his music to The Deer Hunter. Anthony Buckley, who worked on editing the Powell film, recalled that damage was also done to the original prints by projectionists frequently “souveniring” frames of sequences of Helen Mirren swimming naked underwater!
As a result, prints of the original quickly disappeared from sight, as did the subsequent career of Michael Powell himself. Apart from a few short features, including The Boy who Turned Yellow (1972), this was to be Powell’s last major directing credit before his death in 1990.
In recent years, there has been significant reappraisal of Michael Powell’s work, particularly in the UK where he is now something of a cult figure. As a result, the stocks of Age of Consent have risen markedly. The original Australian release was restored by Sony Pictures in time for Powell’s centennial in 2005. This occurred largely at the insistence of his widow, Thelma Schoonmaker, editor of many of the films of Martin Scorcese for whom Powell had been something of a hero and even a role-model. Sculthorpe’s original score has been reinstated, deploying the original quarter-inch-tape recordings preserved in the NFSA’s collections.
Classical music had always played a fundamental role in Powell’s films, notably in two featuring Australian dancer-actor Robert Helpmann, The Red Shoes (1948) and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951).
Similarly, Powell had always preferred Sculthorpe’s score, with its evocative touches of gamelan music. “The point is,” Sculthorpe asserts in the recent biography by Graeme Skinner, “Age of Consent was a commercial film and most of the people concerned regarded it as an art film.” To an extent, Sculthorpe’s music reflects that disparity, although the composer professes to be “by no means unhappy about that.”
Return to :
PETER SCULTHORPE
The Making of An Australian Composer (1929-1974)
UNSW Press, Sydney, 2007
Hardback, 693 pages, illustrated, AU $59.95, ISBN 978 086840 2
www.unswpress.com.au/isbn/0868409413.htm
"[An] absorbing ... carefully documented chronicle ... providing gracefully vivid descriptions of the music itself ... The author's manner is quiet, clear and unpartisan ... Skinner's mastery of his sources [...] sets high standards for biographical thoroughness and provides, in an attractively readable way, a vivid sense of Sculthorpe's day-to-day discovery of music and people in a significant period of our artistic history." - Roger Covell, The Sydney Morning Herald (1-2 December 2007)
"A significant authorised biography of Australia's best-known composer ... This book has been said to have comparable significance for music as David Marr's biography of Patrick White had for Australian literature." - Blackwell [UK] online (January 2008)
"Graeme Skinner’s superb new biography ... [a] meticulously researched book, drawing on copious archival material such as letters and press notices, as well as interviews both with Sculthorpe and many of his associates, has the feel of a grand symphony, its peculiar music made audible by fact rather than intrusive authorial interpolation." - William Yeoman The West Australian (3 January 2008)
Return to :
Phillip Adams talks to SCULTHORPE on ABC Radio National Late Night Live
A conversation with the celebrated Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe on the night of his 80th birthday, 29 April 2009.
Sculthorpe talks about his first introduction to Eastern music as a child in Tasmania and about his determination to succeed as a composer. He describes his relationships with other cultural figures in Australia (Drysdale, Nolan, White) and the lure of Australia's Aboriginal 'Top End', as well as his attraction to Shintoism. He speaks frankly of his experience of clinical depression followed by a five-year burst of creativity
www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2009/2553788.htm
Faber Music
SCULTHORPE
print music editions Main Page:
www.fabermusic.co.uk/serverside/composers/Details.asp?ID=SCULTHORPE,%20PETER
Download Faber Music
SCULTHORPE
28-page
current colour Brochure (PDF, 217Kb):
http://www.fabermusic.com/resources/pdfs/19-brochure.pdf
Download
Faber Music
SCULTHORPE
current
Worklist by genre (PDF, 284Kb):
http://www.fabermusic.co.uk/resources/pdfs/19-worklist.pdf
The Australian
Music Centre SCULTHORPE main page
This superb site includes short sound bytes and score extracts from
dozens of Sculthorpe’s works
www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/sculthorpe-peter
Iconic Irkanda IV in "Sounds of
Australia" Registry
The original 1967 Melbourne Symphony Orchestra recording of
Sculthorpe’s 1961 classic, Irkanda IV, with violin soloist
Leonard Dommett and conductor John Hopkins (recorded in 1966) was among the 2008
inductees into the SOUNDS OF AUSTRALIA national registry.
It is one of currently 30 historical sound-bites in the National
Film and Sound Archive’s registry of recordings that celebrate
Australia's history and diverse recorded sound culture. Inaugurated in
2007, the registry invites annual nominations for 10 new additions to
its list.
The Sounds of Australia homepage with links to 30-second
out-takes from all the listed recordings:
www.nfsa.gov.au/whats_on/soundsofaustralia
Writing to Hopkins on first hearing
the recording in 1966, Sculthorpe said:
“It’s
exactly the way I wanted it to sound.” Originally on a 1967 World Record Club LP,
the recording has
recently been digitally remastered and rereleased on CD by ABC
CLASSICS (476 6338) as part of its boxed set 100 years: Melbourne
Symphony Orchestra: A Celebration in Music.
Now available as an online resource published by the Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies, University of Tasmania. To access its Sculthorpe page
www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/S/Sculthorpe.htm
Tasmanian Composers Collective
SCULTHORPE
page:
www.tasmanianmusic.com/composer.php?composerid=petersculthorpe
Includes photographs and other visuals covering Sculthorpe’s life.
www.nla.gov.au/epubs/sculthorpe/
scores, recordings and resources in Australian libraries
www.musicaustralia.org
Includes photographs, and descriptions and sound bytes from key works
www.abc.net.au/classic/sculthorpe/
Sculthorpe is represented in the NPG by Eric Smith’s 1982 Archibald Prize winning portrait. The NPG’s website hosts a video clip of Sculthorpe, talking about his childhood and about the painting
www.portrait.gov.au/site/peter_sculthorpe.php
You can also download and read an interview with Eric Smith talking about his 1982 Sculthorpe portrait on pages 26-27 of the Gallery magazine Portrait 14 (PDF)
www.portrait.gov.au/UserFiles/file/Portrait14.pdf
On "Talking Heads" (17 September 2007) (transcript):
www.abc.net.au/talkingheads/txt/s2038458.htm
The complete video and transcripts of the compelling 1998 Film Australia Australian Biography series SCULTHORPE interview by Robyn Hughes is an invaluable resource especially for secondary and tertiary students studying Sculthorpe’s life and music.
To access this resource:
www.australianbiography.gov.au/subjects/sculthorpe/
As a quick reference, students and others can also download a 4-page study guide (PDF)http://media.australianbiography.gov.au/study/8075_ausbiosculthorpe.pdf
SCULTHORPE at NSW HSC online
Dr. Diana Blom, University of Western Sydney writes on
Peter Sculthorpe: “Snow, Moon and Flowers” from Night Pieces for
solo piano
Including a detailed analysis of the work with score examples, at:
www.hsc.csu.edu.au/music/composition/resources/3203/scales6.html
Peter Sculthorpe, Nigel Butterley and Miriam Hyde
Composers talk about inspiration (from a 2MBS interview, c.1999) www.hsc.csu.edu.au/music/composition/tips/inspiration/comp_tips_inspiration.htm
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This website is authorised and published by Peter Sculthorpe, and edited on his behalf by Graeme Skinner, last updated 31 May 2010
To contact the site editor Graeme Skinner, go to contact at http://www.graemeskinner.ne1.net/
Verbal and visual materials and extracts from the composer's writings published here that are not restricted by other copyright may be copied and reproduced for non-commercial and fair commercial use, with due acknowledgement.
Permission to copy and/or reuse copyright materials included here should be sought from the copyright owner as indicated.