# Vale Richard Meale (1932-2009)



## Sid James

One of Australia's most significant composers, *Richard Meale *died recently. He was instrumental in opening up the country to outside musical influences, especially from Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. He initially started composing in an avant-garde, atonal style, but (like Penderecki) turned to tonality in his later works. His most famous work is the opera _Voss_, a dramatisation of Australian writer Patrick White's novel about a fictional C19th attempt to explore the interior of the country which goes horribly wrong.

An obituary in the Melbourne Age:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/enter...d-east-and-west/2009/11/23/1258824669025.html

A piece composed by Meale (youtube):


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Andre said:


> A piece composed by Meale (youtube):


Thanks for posting. But it's a very sh!tty piece of music, in my humble opinion.


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## Sid James

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Thanks for posting. But it's a very sh!tty piece of music, in my humble opinion.


Do you have to be so negative? Maybe you should stick to Baroque music, which was composed before Australia was "discovered," and others will stick to commenting on music of the C20th if that's their area/repertoire...


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Well, I apologise if my comment was too negative for your reception. But at least you got a response since 2nd December 2009.


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## Sid James

Well that the thread passed by unnoticed shows perhaps that Meale has less of an international reputation than other composers like Sculthorpe or Dean. I'm not the hugest fan of Meale, I've heard his opera _Voss_ which is tonal (maybe too tonal, perhaps he could have pushed the boundaries a bit more?). You might actually like some of his later works, I heard a suite from his second opera_ Mer de Glace_ & it sounded too similar to Debussy for my tastes. Similarly, his final string quartet sounded too neoclassical for me. Just shows that he was a composer of many stylistic facets which is perhaps hard to pin down, he experimented with the whole spectrum from neo-classicism to impressionism & atonality/serialism...


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## starry

His first symphony from the 90s isn't too bad, lively enough anyway and some decent ideas.


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## Sid James

starry said:


> His first symphony from the 90s isn't too bad, lively enough anyway and some decent ideas.


I haven't heard that. Where did you come across it? I mean, the only longer work that I have heard in full was his opera _Voss._ It's hard to judge just from the first listen, but I think he told the story well; It is a fictional account of an early Australian explorer (he's really German, but anyway) who gets lost in the outback. I've read Patrick White's novel (not the easiest read, at the time I thought it was too long & dense), and Meale conveys the "surreal" element of the work quite well in the opera (eg. parts where Voss and his love interest, Laura, are telepathically communicating across time/space boundaries is conveyed quite well in the opera). The downside for me was that it seemed to "safe" and "tonal," perhaps Meale could have pushed the boundaries a bit more. But then again, that's coming from someone like me whose favourite opera is Berg's _Wozzeck_ (& I don't mind Schoenberg's _Moses und Aron _as well)...


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