Studio News

April, 2007 -- 

The Piano, an Ensemble Instrument     Sculthorpe

Welcome to Studio News for April.  Term 1 seems to have passed very quickly.  However, many students have made excellent progress and deserve to be proud.

This month we are looking briefly at the versatility of the piano as a solo and ensemble instrument.  Mr Cullen has written about our composer of the month, our very own Peter Sculthorpe.  Sculthorpe now lives in Sydney and writes about Australian images and issues.  

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The Piano as an Ensemble Instrument 

The piano is often thought of as a primarily solo instrument.  It is unique in this way. The piano has the largest pitch range of any instrument and the expressive capabilities of the human voice.  It is very versatile – one of the few instruments that can provide harmony and melody at once.  It is only surpassed in potential by a full symphony orchestra.

      However, the harpsichord and clavichord, which preceded the piano, were originally used almost exclusively as accompaniments - usually for voice, strings or woodwinds.  They had thin tones that provided rhythmic and harmonic constancy, basso continuo. Johann Bach (1685-1750) helped bring these instruments into independence by writing interesting counter-point works (e.g. the Inventions and Prelude and Fugues).  These works were intended for teaching keyboard players harmonic and technical skills for improvisation of the continuo lines, which were written as letter and number symbols rather than notes.

      As the piano evolved, and with its increasing capabilities, composers began to write music that showed off or stretched the new technology.  Chopin (1810-1849) is an example of a composer who wrote during this period almost entirely for solo piano.  Piano music headed in two contrasting directions – continuo chamber-music parts and dynamic solos.

      Chamber music is written for small groups of instruments, such as four strings.  Piano parts evolved from simple harmonic support into balanced, melodious voices at the hands of Franz Schubert.  Among his many works, Schubert wrote two beautiful and interesting trios for piano, violin and clarinet (Opus 99 and Opus 100).  In these Sonatas, each instrument plays an equal role.

    Although the piano cannot be easily transported, there are now many interesting compositions that combine the piano with other instruments.  The piano can successfully stand alone, accompany or play ensemble, with four hands or other instruments.

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Peter Sculthorpe  

    By Shannon Cullen  

Peter Sculthorpe was born in Launceston, Tasmania on April 29, 1929.  Sculthorpe is an Australian composer who has a wonderful, unique way of writing musical images of this great land.

As a young child of 7 years, he was severely reprimanded by his first piano teacher for returning to her, not with well-practiced pieces, but with a handful of original compositions.  Consequently, he took to writing music under the bedclothes at night, by torchlight.  When his parents discovered this, they were supportive - they transferred him to a teacher who encouraged his writing. 

He also pursued an interest in poems and drawings.  However, at the age of 16, he decided to become a composer.  He graduated with a Bachelor of Music in piano from Melbourne University in 1950.  Returning to Launceston, he was unable to find a sustaining music job and so agreed to start a sports shop with his brother. 

A breakthrough came in 1955 when his Piano Sonatina (1954), based on an Aboriginal legend, was the first work of an Australian chosen for performance at the prestigious International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in Baden-Baden, Germany.  In 1958, he was awarded a scholarship by the University of Melbourne to undertake postdoctoral studies at Oxford.  Here, Sculthorpe came under the influence of English and European composers such as Benjamin Britten.  These experiences raised his awareness of his unique Australian perspective.  Since then, he has always placed Australia firmly within Asia and has been strongly influenced by Japanese and Indonesian music.  Sun Music III (1967) was his first piece exploring his Asian interest.

Sculthorpe returned to Australia in 1960 and in 1963 accepted the first appointment in composition at the University of Sydney’s Music Department.  Here he was mentor and friend to the next generation of composers, including Ross Edwards.

As a composer, Sculthorpe has a very strong sense of his Australian identity.  Works such as Earth Cry (1986) and Kakadu (1988) reflect the breadth, vastness and loneliness of the Australian landscape and the sounds of its wildlife.  Other works such as Port Essington (1977) deal with the history of European Settlement.

One of Sculthorpe’s best-known works, Port Essington tells of the attempted British settlement in 1838 of Port Essington in Northern Australia.  The settlers showed tenacity in withstanding a devastating cyclone in 1839, but ultimately failed to adapt to the conditions of the land.  After 11 years, the settlement was abandoned.  In his music, a string orchestra represents the bush and a string trio the settlement.  The two groups are pitted against each other with the trio making several statements in a style imitating nineteenth-century drawing-room music.  Gradually, the string orchestra dominates, until at the end, only the music of the bush remains.  But just as the trio bids farewell, the two groups play briefly in unison, suggesting that coexistence may have been possible.

In his opera Quiros (1980), Sculthorpe details the ill-fated voyage of the Spanish explorer Quiros and his second in command Torres as they attempted to claim the Great South Land for Spain, mistaking Vanuatu for Australia. Claiming it as a Spanish possession, the two men got separated in a storm and Torres, sailing west, actually glimpsed the tip of Cape York.  Thinking it was a small island; he charted it and sailed by.

His most recent works include his Requiem (2005) and his String Quartet No. 16 (2006).  The former grew from his concern about women and children being killed in the war in Iraq, the latter from the plight of people in detention.

Sculthorpe has been honoured with many awards and prizes, including an MBE (1970), OBE (1977), and Order of Australia (1990).  His contribution to Australian society was acknowledged in 1998 when, by popular vote, he was elected one of Australia’s 100 Living National Treasures.  Then, in 1999, he was made one of Australia’s 45 Icons- “a visionary, opinion maker, who is making statements about something the nation needs to think about at this time.”  In April 2002, he became the only Australian to be made a life member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In 1999, he published his autobi9ography, Sun Music.1

Enjoy your holidays J

Annah-Valerie Hyrst (teacher)

Individual Dynamics

Rouse Hill, NSW  

Last modified: January 16, 2008