# RIP Peter Sculthorpe



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

The Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe died today at age 85. It is a strange feeling for me as I am currently learning to play one of his pieces on guitar. He was an incredible composer and I am sure that many Australian members here (and maybe some other members too) will know very well of his music.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Oh no! That's so sad. I love his music. He will be missed.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

One of my favourite living composers - until today that is.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

I'm afraid that I don't know his music  would you guys mind sharing some of his works?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> I'm afraid that I don't know his music  would you guys mind sharing some of his works?


One of his best known orchestral works:


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Sculthorpe was one of my favorite contemporary composers. I loved his piano concerto and have been exploring his quartets lately.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> One of his best known orchestral works:


I love the version on Naxos with the didgeridoo. I don't know if you can find that one on youtube though. That Naxos disc is seriously worth getting for people interested in Sculthorpe's music. It's cheap as hell too.


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## Bruce (Jan 2, 2013)

I've heard so little of Sculthorpe's work, and greatly admired what I have heard. It's sad to hear he will no longer be composing. At least not on earth.


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## satoru (May 29, 2014)

Oh no... I just found him last year.

Sculthorpe stated that he wanted his music to make people feel better and happier for having listened to it. I think he achieved that goal.

RIP

Some other pieces in addition to Earth Cry:

Kakadu
String Quartet No. 8
Memento Mori
Requiem for "cello alone": Lux aeterna


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

That's sad news, he was one of Australia's living national treasures. I have enjoyed his music ever since first hearing it. I learnt so much about not only his music and life, but its relation to the bigger picture of classical music in his time and before, reading his autobiography _Sun Music _(first published around 1999). He was a really good writer on music, and an advocate for it, the public face for music of his generation in Australia.

Early on during the 1960's Sculthorpe was an innovator in sonority, especially with his breakthrough piece Irkanda IV and the four Sun Music pieces. When composing Irkanda IV, Sculthorpe had less knowledge than he would have later of Aboriginal music, but its drones instinctively mirror the flatness of the Australian landscape. He had the view that the look of a score can relate to the environment which the composer is trying to image (or relate to) in music. Sculthorpe was a passionate advocate for Aboriginal rights - he had one Aboriginal ancestor - way before it became trendy to do so, similarly he was an environmentalist.

Later on, from the late 1970's onwards, his music started to incorporate some traditional aspects more, such as less fragmented melody, counterpoint and more lush scoring. Pieces of the time such as Mangrove and Kakadu exhibit this aspect. There is also the superb Piano Concerto, which someone at the time said was like using the Western orchestra like a big gamelan. More recent works included the quite pared down Requiem, and there is also his 18 string quartets, one of the most significant bodies of work in the genre of its time (its 18 in total the last time I heard a few years ago, I'm not sure if he did more since).

He was also among the first to make a serious attempt to understand Australian Aboriginal music as well as music of the Asia Pacific region. He visited Bali and Japan a number of times to study and experience the music of those places. He formed many links with musicians and composers across the region, including Japan's Toru Takemitsu. They where friends for decades until Takemitsu's death in the 1990's. This all informed his own style, and European influences included Bartok, Messiaen and Varese, while Schoenberg and Mahler where two the composers which really got him excited about music early on during his teenage years.

On one of the visits Sculthorpe made during that time with his mother to Melbourne, which inevitably included buying scores as they where hard to come by down in Tasmania, he remembered meeting Percy Grainger. The older composer told him to "look to the North." Later on Sculthorpe realised Grainger meant Asia.

A favourite composer of Sculthorpe's from America was Ives. Sculthorpe was surprised to find that Ives' old alma mater, Yale, had his scores gathering dust hidden away underneath a staircase when he asked to see them in the 1960's. Now of course, Ives holds pride of place amongst the most significant composers of the 20th century. Sculthorpe also made parallels between himself and Philip Glass, in terms of Akhnaten being the sun god. Aaron Copland was an admirer of Sculthorpe's music.

His legacy lives on in many other ways, including Australian composers who he taught - Ross Edwards, Ann Boyd and Barry Conyngham amongst them.

I can go on, but I am also kind of stuck for words. I just played his Requiem a couple of weeks ago. At the time when he composed it a decade ago, Sculthorpe had global events like wars and the plight of refugees, especially children, on his mind. Well, with the news having these issues prominent again in recent weeks, his music is as relevant now as it was then.


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## Allan Hall (May 15, 2019)

Hi Satoru
I studied the cello music of Peter Sculthorpe in the 1990s and lately have begun a series of blogs about this music. Particularly as it relates to themes of loss. The blog is here https://awhmusic.wixsite.com/website/about. This is the first of 4 blogs dealing with melody, melodic structure, harmony and rhythm. Check it out if interested.
Thanks
Allan Hall


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