John Antill's Symphony on a City (1959) and its place within the Australian symphonic repertory of the 1950s

John Antill is often perceived as being a 'one work' composer owing to the prominence and success of Corroboree. The remainder of his large output is largely neglected. Symphony on a City, commissioned by and dedicated to the City of Newcastle in 1959, is described by James Murdoch (1972) as a major work that has been performed only once. Roger Covell (1967) wrote that the symphony 'should be heard again, because in it Antill does find, even if only momentarily, other ways of representing energy at high voltage'. Perhaps this is the work that could provide a counter-balance to the predominance of Corroboree in Antill's work. This paper describes the formal and stylistic aspects of the symphony, relates it to Corroboree and Antill's overall orchestral output and then places the work against the backdrop of Australian symphonies of the 1950s and the wider international context. The symphony emerges as one of the more important Australian symphonic works of its period and worthy of preservation and revival

A musical response to Buna, December 1942 - Horace Perkins' Elegiac symphony (1952)

Horace Perkins (1901-1986) served the A.I.F as an intelligence sergeant in the Middle East and New Guinea from 1940 to 1944. The war was an interlude in his career as a secondary music teacher (1927-1940) and Supervisor of Music in South Australia for the ABC from 1945 to 1966. A composer of several large-scale works, including three symphonies, Perkins completed his 'Elegiac Symphony' during 1951, and the work was premiered in November the following year. In his program note he wrote: it was on the Buna airstrip on Christmas Day that the ideas came to the composer to write a tribute to those who had died on the battlefield, and to the homes from whence they came. This is the only large-scale concert work by an Australian to present a musical response to either the First or Second World War. This is remarkable given the importance of the Anzac 'myth' in Australian cultural life. The work portrays vivid recollections of the combat, includes a portrait of the 'laconic' digger, an extensive funeral dirge section, quotations of military tattoos including 'Last Post' and 'Reveille' and popular tunes and finally, an apotheosis of the fallen. The tone of the final section has a similar sense of exaltation that one senses in the Chapel of Remembrance at the National War Memorial in Canberra. Perkins's tribute to his battalion has remained silent since its second performance at an ABC Adelaide Youth concert in 1958

Clive Douglas and the search for the Australian symphony

Clive Douglas (1903-1977) was one of Australia's most 'high-profile' composers active during the period 1945-1965. Through his conducting appointments by the Australian Broadcasting Commission in first Hobart, then Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, Douglas had more opportunities than most composers of his generation to have his music heard. Since his death in 1977 his contribution to Australian music is remembered more for the controversies associated with his appropriation of Aboriginal titles and melodies in his search for an unmistakeable Australian idiom than for the strength of his music. He has been branded by some as a musical 'Jindyworobak'. Sadly, none of his music survives in commercial recordings available today. In this paper, Douglas’s three large-scale symphonic works of the 1950s, Symphony No.1 ‘Jubilee’ (1951), the symphonic suite Wongadilla (1954) and Symphony No.2 ‘Namatjira’ (1956) will be surveyed, and evaluated as to how they succeed as examples of Australian nationalist music. Douglas’s descriptions of the intent behind these works will be shown to be symptomatic of the then current views of what it meant to be Australian. These pieces will also be placed within their context within Australian symphonies of the period and the larger European/American trends within symphonic composition

Messiaen's Turangalila symphonie and its place within the symphonic genre of the first half of the twentieth century

Messiaen's Turangalila Symphonie of 1946-48 coincides with the last phase of interest in the symphony as a genre during the decade following the Second World War - at precisely the same time as the second major wave of modernism was occurring. In terms of its size, its concertante elements, its 'unsymphonic' sections containing rotations of repeated ideas and ostinatos rather than dynamic continuity, and its wide range of stylistic language, the work could be seen as being atypical of symphonic practice of the 1930s and 1940s. The author examines Turangalila's context within the development of the twentieth century symphony and makes many links between the work and the symphony tradition, including that of the post-Franck French symphony. In so doing, we find that the work has many features which are representative of its time and its immediate forbears. Turangalila also presages the more recent revival of symphony composition that has occurred in the wake of post-modernism since about 1980. Rather than being part of the last phases of an old tradition, the work is prophetic of the new approach to the symphony which is not so tied to sonata form procedures. The work's popularity today can be linked to the status that the symphonic genre has recaptured in recent decades within orchestral concert music, its community of composers and its audience

Symphonies of the bush: indigenous encounters in Australian symphonies

This chapter describes the search for a national musical language by Australian symphonists during the 1950 and the subsequent appropriation of Aboriginal motifs and themes in their music. Works by Clive Douglas, John Antill, Lindley Evans, Alfred Hill, Mirrie Hill and James Penberthy are discussed

Edgar Bainton’s Australian symphonies

Dr Edgar Bainton (1880-1956) was an established British composer at the time of his appointment as Head of the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music in 1934. He then spent 22 years in Sydney, retaining the post of Head of the Con until his retirement in 1945 and then composing, conducting and examining during his last years. Bainton made a significant contribution to Australian musical life and, amongst other works, composed two symphonies which were given their world premieres in 1941 and 1957 respectively. Both works demonstrate Bainton’s skill in handling a musical idiom not dissimilar to that of Bax, but with a more convincing sense of musical continuity than his more famous contemporary. This paper will place Bainton’s 2nd and 3rd symphonies into its larger British and Australian symphonic context. The Third Symphony emerges as the last substantial Romantic/Impressionist symphony of the British composers from his generation

Raphael D. Thoene: Malcolm Arnold - a composer of real music: symphonic writing, style and aesthetics [Book review]

Malcolm Arnold is one of a number of mid to late 20th century composers who have been reassessed and rehabilitated in the 'pantheon' of important composers following the demise of a modernist aesthetic in musicology. Thone's book reflects Arnold's growing status but is marked by poor editing and inelegant prose. The book traces Arnold's musical technique and compositional rigour and argues that it is as worthy of detailed musical analysis as are 'more highly esteemed' modernist works. The review includes my own assessment of Arnold's ouvre

Migrant symphonies: the symphonic contribution of resident British composers to Australian musical life

During the period from Federation to 1960 a significant number of British-born composers worked in Australia, some for many decades. Of them, the following composers wrote symphonies which received their first performances in Australia: Joshua Ives, George Marshall-Hall, Fritz Hart and Edgar Bainton. Should these symphonies and their composers be considered British or Australian, or both? Which country should ‗own‘ them, and who has the responsibility for archiving and preserving their heritage? This paper will survey and evaluate these works, with particular focus on the symphonies of Ives, Marshall-Hall, Hart and Bainton

The Australian symphony of the 1950s: a preliminary survey

Many symphonies were composed in Australia during the 1950s but these works are either neglected or unknown today. The Commonwealth Jubilee Symphony Competition of 1950-51 and the development of orchestras in each state of Australia sparked what could be termed Australia's 'Symphonic Decade'. Some of these symphonies attempted to project Australian nationalism. This paper examines significant examples of this repertoire – including works by Hill, Douglas, Antill, Le Gallienne Hanson and Hughes – and its subsequent neglect. The writer urges a new look at these symphonies of the 1950s in light of the current revival of the symphony amongst present day Australian composers

Sejarah Musik Jilid 2: Musik 1760 Sampai Dengan Akhir Abad ke-20

History and criticism of music and musician