Peter Sculthorpe | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | Peter Joshua Sculthorpe (1929-04-29)29 April 1929 Launceston, Tasmania, Australia |
| Died | 8 August 2014(2014-08-08) (aged 85) Sydney,New South Wales, Australia |
| Genres | Opera, classical |
| Occupation | Composer |
Peter Joshua SculthorpeAO OBEFAHA (29 April 1929 – 8 August 2014) was a distinguished Australian composer and music educator. Much of his music resulted from an interest in the music of countries neighbouring Australia, as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects ofAboriginal Australian music with that of the heritage of the West. He was known primarily for his orchestral andchamber music, such asKakadu (1988) andEarth Cry (1986), which evoke the sounds and feeling of the Australian bushland andoutback. He also wrote 18string quartets, using unusualtimbral effects, works for piano, and two operas. He stated that he wanted his music to make people feel better and happier for having listened to it. He typically avoided the dense,atonal techniques of many of his contemporary composers. His work was often characterised by its distinctive use of percussion. As one of the compositional pioneers of a distinctively Australian sound, Sculthorpe and his music have been likened to the role played byAaron Copland in America's musical coming of age.
Sculthorpe was born and raised inLaunceston, Tasmania. His mother, Edna, was passionate about English literature and was the first woman to hold a driver's licence in Tasmania;[1] his father, Joshua, loved fishing and nature. He was educated at theLaunceston Church Grammar School.[2][3][4]
He began writing music at the age of seven or eight, after having his first piano lesson, continuing in secret when his piano teacher punished him for this activity. By the age of 14, he had decided to make a career of music, despite many (especially his father) encouraging him to enter different fields, because young Sculthorpe felt the music he wrote was the only thing that was his own.[5] In his early teens he attempted to learn composition through studyingErnst Krenek'sStudies in Counterpoint – "a pretty dreadful book" as he later described it.[6] He studied at theMelbourne Conservatorium of Music from 1946 to 1950, then returned to Tasmania.
HisPiano Sonatina was performed at theISCM Festival inBaden-Baden in 1955[7] (the piece had been rejected for anABC competition because it was "too modern").
He won a scholarship to study atWadham College,Oxford, studying underEgon Wellesz. Through Wellesz he metWilfrid Mellers, whose wide literary interests included many Australian writers, and who recommended Sculthorpe readD. H. Lawrence'sKangaroo. This led directly to the composition ofIrkanda II (String Quartet No. 5). His song-cycleSun, based on three Lawrence poems, was dedicated to Mellers. These works were later withdrawn, but Lawrence's words returned in a revised version ofIrkanda IV and inThe Fifth Continent.[1] He left Wadham before completing his doctorate because his father was gravely ill. He wrote his first mature composition,Irkanda IV,[8] in his father's memory.[7]
Shortly afterwards, he made the acquaintance of the painterRussell Drysdale, who had recently lost his son to suicide, and the pair shared a working holiday in a house on theTamar River. Not long after this, Drysdale's wife Bonnie, who had introduced him to Sculthorpe, also took her own life. His String Quartet No. 6 was dedicated to Bonnie Drysdale's memory. His Piano Sonata (later withdrawn and re-released under the titleCallabonna) was dedicated to Russell Drysdale, who usedLake Callabonna inSouth Australia as the backdrop to some of his paintings.[1]
In 1963 he became a lecturer at theUniversity of Sydney, and remained there more or less ever after, where he was anemeritus professor. In the mid-1960s he was composer in residence atYale University.[7] In 1965 he wroteSun Music I for theSydney Symphony Orchestra's first overseas tour, on a commission from SirBernard Heinze, who asked for "something without rhythm, harmony or melody".Neville Cardus, after the premiere ofSun Music I, wrote that Sculthorpe was set to "lay the foundations of an original and characteristic Australian music".[9] In 1968 theSun Music series was used for the balletSun Music, choreographed by SirRobert Helpmann, which gained wide international attention. In the late 1960s, Sculthorpe worked withPatrick White on an opera aboutEliza Fraser, but White chose to terminate the artistic relationship.[7] Sculthorpe subsequently wrote an opera (music theatre),Rites of Passage (1972–73), to his own libretto, using texts in Latin and the Australian indigenous languageArrernte. Another operaQuiros followed in 1982.
In 2003, theSBS Radio and Television Youth Orchestra gave the premiere ofSydney Singing, a composition by Sculthorpe for clarinet solo (Joanne Sharp), harp solo (Tamara Spigelman), percussion solo (Peter Hayward) and string orchestra.
Sculthorpe was a represented composer of theAustralian Music Centre and was published byFaber Music Ltd. He was only the second composer to be contracted by Faber, afterBenjamin Britten.[7]
Much of Sculthorpe's early work demonstrates the influence ofAsian music, but he said that these influences dwindled through the 1970s asIndigenous Australian music became more important. He said that he had been interested in indigenous cultures since his teens, mainly because of his father "who told me many stories of past wrongs in Tasmania. I think he was quite extraordinary for that time, as was my mother".[7] However, it was only with the advent of recordings and books on the subject around the 1970s that he started to incorporate indigenous motifs in his work.[7]
Sculthorpe said he was political in his work – and that his work had also always been about "the preservation of the environment and more recently, climate change".[7] His 16th String Quartet was inspired by extracts from letters written by asylum seekers in Australian detention centres.
Sculthorpe came to regardRussell "Tass" Drysdale as a role model, admiring the way he reworked familiar material in new ways. He said "In later years he was often accused of painting the same picture over and over again. But his answer was that he was no different from a Renaissance artist, striving again and again to paint the perfect Madonna-and-Child. Since then, I've never had a problem about the idea of reusing and reworking my material. Like Tass, I've come to look on my whole output as one slowly emerging work".[1]
In the early 1970s Sculthorpe was engaged to the Australian composer and music educatorAnne Boyd.[7]
He is distantly related toFanny Cochrane Smith, aTasmanian Aboriginal woman whose wax cylinder recordings of songs are the only audio recordings of any of Tasmania'sIndigenous languages. Her daughter Gladys married Sculthorpe's great-grandfather's nephew.[10]
TheSir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award is given to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to music in Australia.
| Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Peter Sculthorpe | Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award | awarded | [12] |
TheDon Banks Music Award was established in 1984 to publicly honour a senior artist of high distinction who has made an outstanding and sustained contribution to music in Australia.[13] It was founded by theAustralia Council in honour ofDon Banks, Australian composer, performer and the first chair of its music board.
| Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Peter Sculthorpe | Don Banks Music Award | awarded |
Sculthorpe was elected a Fellow of theAustralian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA) in 1991.[14]
Sculthorpe died in Sydney on 8 August 2014 at the age of 85.[15] His home in Holdsworth St,Woollahra was sold in May 2015 to the fashion identity and philanthropist Peter Weiss.[16]
In 2014, theGovernment of New South Wales and theSydney Conservatorium announced a new award worthA$30,000 to honour Sculthorpe's life. The Peter Sculthorpe Fellowship would be offered biennially to support the career of an emerging composer or instrumentalist based in New South Wales who performs and produces new Australian music.[17][18]
Sculthorpe Complete String Quartets with didgeridoo (Del Sol String Quartet withStephen Kent, didgeridoo) (released bySono Luminus on 30 September 2014)
Tamara Anna Cislowska released the albumPeter Sculthorpe – Complete Works for Solo Piano in September 2014.[31]
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