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476 8041 BRENTON BROADSTOCK

Executive Producers Cover photograph Shoreline of Great Robert Patterson, Lyle Chan Oyster Bay, near Swansea, Tasmania Recording Producer Brooke Green © APL/Paul A. Souders Recording Engineer Andrew Dixon For Tasmanian Symphony Editing Brooke Green, Andrew Dixon, Managing Director Nicholas Heyward Veronika Vincze timeless Recordings Manager Virginia Read Artistic Administrator Anthony Peluso Editorial and Production Manager www.tso.com.au Natalie Shea Cover and Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd

Recorded 13-14 October 2003 and 3 June 2004 in the Federation Concert Hall, Hobart and 15-16 October 2003 in the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Studio All works on this disc published by G. Schirmer (Australia). 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Distributed in Australia by Universal Music Group, under exclusive licence. Made in Australia. All rights of the owner of copyright reserved. Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion, public performance or broadcast of this record without the authority of the copyright owner is prohibited.

TASMANIAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Musical “Rooms of Wonder”: Transition and barracks, where his parents were both Transcendence in Works of Brenton Broadstock Officers, his early life was, he describes, “institutionalised” and his surrounds ranged Composer Brenton Broadstock has a number of from Boys’ Homes to Retirement Villages to “firsts” to his credit. He is the first composer at Brenton Broadstock b. 1952 Youth Training Centres. It was here that the University of to have been Broadstock received his first musical promoted to the position of Professor (he is experiences, playing in the Army’s 1 Festive Overture 11’25 Head of Composition in the University’s Faculty brass bands (but not taking the more traditional of Music, where he has taught since 1982). He AMEB examinations in art music repertoire). 2 Timeless 10’50 was the inaugural Composer-in-Residence with Trombone-playing was joined by a stint as bass 3 The Mountain 10’45 the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 1988-89, guitarist in a rock/pop band, Major Eclipse, in when he wrote his Symphony No. 1 Toward the Broadstock’s late teens while reading for his first 4 Federation Square: Rooms of Wonder 11’19 Shining Light. He was the first Australian degree (in politics and history at Monash composer to be signed up by the prestigious University, 1972-74). It was also during his 5 Symphony No. 4 Born from Good Angel’s Tears 14’46 Schirmer publishing house. Passionate about upbringing with the Salvos, Broadstock believes, furthering the dissemination of art music and that his social conscience was formed as he Total Playing Time 59’05 the cause of his composer colleagues in this witnessed the situation of people living at the country, he compiled the reference book Sound margins of our social structures, placed there by Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Ideas: Australian Composers Born Since 1950 circumstances beyond their own making. Ola Rudner conductor (published in 1995 by the Australian Music Centre, Sydney); he received a large grant from This sociological consciousness has been Victoria’s Department of Education, Employment reflected in the artistic impulse of many other and Training to initiate an Australian Music composers since the turn of the last century, curriculum at the Music Faculty and he also co- such as Hans Werner Henze, Hans Eisler, Luigi instigated the University’s Centre for Studies in Nono, Cornelius Cardew, John Corigliano, Australian Music. Diamanda Galás, Meredith Monk and John Adams, and, more locally, Neil Currie, Martin But the road to the position of one of this Wesley-Smith, Anne Boyd, Andrée Greenwell country’s most well-established, respected and and Colin Bright, to name only a few. For prominent later-mid-generation composers has Broadstock, it was developed still further when a not been the usual trajectory of intense, formal, very short-lived tenure with the Education classical instrumental tuition during childhood Department gave way to working as one of the leading to an undergraduate degree in music country’s first music therapists at Lakeside composition. Brought up in Salvation Army Hospital, Ballarat in 1976-78.

2 3 During his therapist work, the realisation of Pressure from either “the academy” or critics, positive responses from audiences and which the composer won an Australasian where his future must lie hit Broadstock like a even one’s peers, from one side, vying perhaps reviewers alike, there were the odd charges Performing Rights Association award in 1984, is thunder-clap: he must pursue musical with the strong opinions of audiences on the levelled at the composer of “conservatism”, dedicated to . It was composed composition. He was accepted into other, have left countless composers – and “New Simplicity” or “New Romanticism” – one for the 1983 National Orchestral Composers’ postgraduate study with Donald Freund at indeed artists from all disciplines – since at least barb even went so far as to describe the work School and first performed by the ABC Sinfonia Memphis State University, Tennessee, during Beethoven, in an uncomfortable, even perilous, as an example of “New Naivety”. Such conducted by Wilfred Lehmann. The title is 1979-80, and then took up further studies in position. They can feel that if they stray from the modernist squeamishness has not, however, taken from a quote from Sibelius’ own diary: 1981 with Peter Sculthorpe in Sydney, before style or approach which cemented their deterred Broadstock from pursuing his own …I begin already dimly to see the mountain that the music teaching offer in 1982 brought him reputation, they sound their death-knell for future forays into neo-tonality – or using “tonal I shall certainly ascend….God opens His door back to his home town of Melbourne. performances and composer colleagues’ respect, centres”, as he prefers to call it – where there is for a moment and His orchestra plays the Fifth or for continued audience acceptance. And in this a sense of pitch centre without recourse to The works in this collection span 21 years and Symphony. (September 1915) past half-century, often the first two categories traditional functional harmony; rather, in represent early, middle and current periods of Broadstock’s approach, serialised modal and the latter have been mutually exclusive: one A bristly, busy opening gives way to a Brenton Broadstock’s mature composing life. structures are employed. The hallmarks of his needs only to think of the compositional portentous brass pronouncement which in turn Surface differences are perhaps quite strikingly mature style are present in all the works on the trajectory of composers such as Arvo Pärt, is replaced by a spacious passage full of eerie – apparent and seem to reflect a broad movement disc, despite the seeming dissimilarities; these Henryk Górecki or George Rochberg, for example, over this time from a harder-edged spiky stylistic fingerprints include a strong adherence indeed, “icy” – wonderment as the mountain or Australians Richard Meale, Ross Edwards and modernism to a more seductive postmodern to the golden mean principle, where the always comes into view for the observer. From there, even Peter Sculthorpe, and how their stylistic tonal palette. Yet over the two-plus decades, carefully wrought and inevitably intensely busyness alternates with more serene changes have been received on the part of Broadstock has not altered his essential powerful climax occurs around three-fifths of passages, and moments of metrical clarity and audiences compared with (some, not all) approach to compositional principles – the the way through; the use of pitch slides as a regularity are interspersed with ametrical ones – reviewers. Broadstock, however, is one of the overriding one of which might be best described fusing device; local, melodic embellishments; as though the earthbound were in conflict with few who has enjoyed accolades from both as “writing to please oneself”, a maxim that juxtapositions of dramatic textural contrasts; the extra-terrestrial. The climax (at the typical camps: as well as winning just about every Broadstock repeats again and again to his young transformation of the dorian mode, golden-section point of the work, three-fifths of composition award to date in this country and composition students. This might seem an mathematically and systematically, each cycle the way through) includes cascading percussion many international prizes, with a list of obvious – indeed, mandatory – stance for a flattened by a semitone before the original and piano: “God” opens His door and the commissions and cream-of-the-cream performers creator, and certainly by the time of artistic mode re-emerges; and (predictably!) viewer is overwhelmed by the revelation. This that seems to go on for pages, his music has had maturity, it is to be hoped that influences have prominence of brass in the orchestral works. ushers in a very sparse, slow-paced section very warm audience responses (resulting, for been taken on board, assessed, digested and featuring pitch-bends, leading to a siren-like instance, in 24 Hours magazine’s Listeners’ One Romantic composer to whose works transcended. Broadstock’s is assuredly a effect in the . The texture then Choice Award in 1998 for Bright Tracks). Broadstock is avowedly attracted is Finland’s distinctive, recognisable compositional voice. Yet Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) and his (in gradually achieves a state of transcendence one has the sense that, as for many others, the And yet when Brenton Broadstock’s First Broadstock’s words) “icy Romanticism”. The where the orchestra finally comes together attainment of this position was hard-won. Symphony premiered, along with a crop of Mountain (1983), for chamber orchestra, for again, only to dissipate gently over the summit.

4 5 While Broadstock’s one-time teacher, Sculthorpe, does one write a piece about a city square? His approachableness and this, too, is reflected in The Salvation Army and music therapy has made the defining of an Australian “voice” answer was: the unfolding of the music as it becomes experiences have never left the compositional his lifetime’s musical quest, Broadstock only strongly (and more familiarly) consonant, and psyche of Brenton Broadstock. He has made “Obviously, the ‘square’ is not a single entity occasionally seeks to reflect his nationality in his one “tunes” oneself to the building. many of his compositions “answer to” this and consists of many places, spaces and rooms music. Very recent forays into this subject matter social conscience, highlighting mental and are two works for , Federation – museums, restaurants, shops etc. When An optimistic, chiefly extroverted sensibility is physical disabilities in his first two symphonies, Square: Rooms of Wonder (2003), inspired by walking through Federation Square I was struck maintained throughout most of Festive Overture for example, railing against pollution in such part of Melbourne’s cityscape, and Timeless by the angularity of structure, by the use of (1981) for orchestra, with some contrasting more chamber works as Beast from Air (1985) and (2002), “dedicated with love to my daughter glass, the tessellated features, and by the sense subdued moments, the first marked by And No Birds Sing (1986), and expressing the Tar yn”, a reflection both on the land in which of expectation and excitement of moving sumptuous lush high-register strings juxtaposed horror of war and genocide (relating specifically Broadstock has lived his life, and on his own through many different rooms and spaces. I was against repeated-semiquaver bass instruments to the Second World War’s Holocaust and the mortality. The title of the latter piece comes from reminded of the old approach (still current?) of and the second comprising the rare duet appalling attempts at the eradication of an anonymous poem about the Australian treating museums as ‘rooms of wonders’ combination of horn and in semi- Aborigines in colonial Tasmania) in his Third landscape. Part of the poem reads thus: (Wunderkammern, as the Austrians called them) melancholic counterpoint with one another. This Symphony Voices from the Fire (1991). In this where each space or room was filled with some is followed by a section featuring the snare-drum particular selection of works, it is Born from This land of red earth and slashing colour amazing relic, craft work, furniture, paintings, beating a regular, militaristic rhythm behind a Good Angel’s Tears, Broadstock’s Fourth stark yet vibrant sculpture etc. Federation Square evoked a series of more metrically unpredictable stabs Symphony (1995), which most clearly pursues drenched in sun or swirling flood similar response for me.“ from the rest of the orchestra until the the impulse to meld composing with external survives and is timeless. as a whole virtually takes world concerns. Commissioned by the Faculty of And we, too, are timeless. The opening is an emphatic expression of the Music, for its Centenary sense of being visually jolted, experienced by over, revelling in exuberance before being tamed celebrations with the generous assistance of the The opening yearning, mellow sonorities many as they enter this postmodern fractal again by the strings. The final section appropriately blur the barline as the music almost Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council, architecture of clashing angles, unexpected commences sotto voce and pits the original imperceptibly evolves, travelling through changing the Australian Government’s arts funding and colours, structural turns and protuberances – the repeated-semiquaver theme against the return of key areas and through subtly shifting levels of advisory body, it is dedicated to Warren design process described by the architects the shimmering strings: the work as a whole is in intensity almost before the listener realises that Bebbington, Ormond Professor and Dean of the Donald Bates and Peter Davidson as “Tectonic fact marked by simultaneous competing energies the most recent of these has been established. Faculty. The first performance was by the Faculty Aggregation”, where “images of geological in the different instrumental ensembles, of Music Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Federation Square: Rooms of Wonder was structures and contemporary painting and underlining the youthful, “festive” excitement. Simon in the Melbourne Town Hall. commissioned by Jeffrey Crellin with the drawing are used as stimuli. From these, large The work was premiered in Townsville by the generous support of BMW to mark the opening numbers of two-dimensional pattern variants are Queensland Symphony Orchestra conducted by While the first two symphonies are musical of the new Federation Square in Melbourne. automatically generated.” But any sense of Werner Andreas Albert. It received First Prize in essays on suffering from the point of view of When Broadstock was asked to write this work, disquiet as one negotiates the Square, the 1981 Townsville Pacific Festival’s National afflicted individuals – Broadstock’s own first-born the first question he posed to himself was, how Broadstock finds, gives way to an impression of Composition Competition. son, Matthew, severely mentally and physically

6 7 handicapped, in the First Symphony, and the people were waging wars against each other music falls downwards into an almost impossibly Brenton Broadstock eccentric composer Ivor Gurney’s mental with their thoughts, words and deeds. slow section of reflection. The return of the horn Brenton Broadstock was born in Melbourne. He disorder in the Second, Stars in a Dark Night theme transforms itself almost surprisingly, and studied history, politics and music at Monash (1989) – this Fourth Symphony, like the Third, When Good Angel saw all of this, she with re-found vigour, into the final section. The understood why it was necessary to have so University, and later composition and theory steps outside the individual to provide a more same slow melodic intervals are wound ever with Donald Freund at Memphis State University much suffering on the earth. She became generalised commentary on malevolent forces at tighter, over more rhythmic accompaniment of in the USA and with Peter Sculthorpe at the overwhelmed by even heavier sorrow and work in human existence that bring about such ever-increasing tempo, to a final triumphant . The University of deeper pain. She turned her head away from the wide-scale atrocities. Here, in Born from Good statement of the same theme, before finishing Melbourne awarded him the Doctor of Music earth, covered her face with her hands, and Angel’s Tears, the reflections on world suffering in an optimistic blaze. The technique of thematic degree in 1987. Further periods of study in Italy wept. Good Angel wept and wept, and her tears are abstracted still further. The title comes from transformation has been a time-honoured one have been supported by fellowships from the began rolling further and further down. Suddenly the fairy story (written in 1976) by the Finnish since Berlioz and Liszt in producing a listener’s Civitella Ranieri Foundation and the Rockefeller when her tears touched the surface of the earth, art/drama therapist Dr Sirkku Hiltunen: sense of long-term narrative progress, and here, Foundation; in November 2005 he returned to they became small human beings. These little the conclusion seems to assert that from Italy as a fellow at the Ligurian Study Centre. The Good Angel looked down from Heaven and boys and girls stayed children all their lives. suffering can come joyousness; our “inner His music has been performed at the Stroud saw all the trouble on earth. She saw many Because they were born of the tears of Good selves” are reflected in the tears of the Good Festival, the European Brass Band wars…people were destroying each Angel they kept their connection to Heaven Angel, tinged with pain but, finally, exquisite. Championships in Birmingham and the BBC all their lives. other…nature had turned against them…She Proms; the Berlin Biennale, Darmstadt Summer When the composer remarks that Timeless is saw floods and earthquakes…She saw intense School and Munich Musica Nova Festival in When we look into the eyes of these dedicated to his daughter Taryn, he then goes on heat. Severe drought caused thirst and Germany; Tokyo’s Music Today Festival; the Hong children…we will see mirrored not our outer to state in typical self-deprecating and humorous starvation. There was death, incurable diseases, Kong and Oslo World Music Days and Asian beauty but our inner selves… fashion, that she is “the beginning of my and unlimited misery everywhere. Music Festivals in Japan and Korea. There have As is the case for Broadstock’s other ‘immortality’!” – but it is equally likely that the also been performances in New Zealand, Canada, Good Angel felt pity for the people on the earth symphonies, this work is monothematic and works of Brenton Broadstock, consistently Russia, Sweden, Spain and China. In Australia, because of their great suffering… undergoes processes of thematic proving themselves to be musical “rooms of Broadstock’s work has been heard at the Adelaide transformation. It builds from a gentle, wonder”, will ensure this for their creator. Festival, Brisbane’s Musica Nova Festival, the Then Good Angel looked into the depths of transcendental and reflective opening to intense, Summer Music, Moomba and Spoleto Festivals in human depths, for she believed that all suffering Linda Kouvaras exultant climaxes within a relatively and Melbourne and the Townsville Pacific Festival. had opened the eyes and hearts of people. But somewhat deceptively slow pace. The inexorable He has had performances by all of the major Good Angel was overcome by heavy grief when slowness and beauty of the opening embryonic in Australia and by the Sendai she saw that the hearts had become cold. Not theme, haloed in strings and harp, builds to the Philharmonic Orchestra in Japan, BBC even the sight of death could touch their first real, radiant statement of the theme, in the Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, hearts…People did not care about the horns, seemingly optimistic yet tinged with Pacific Ocean Orchestra, the Krasnoyarsk consequences of their deeds…Everywhere sadness. There is no “great reckoning”; the Orchestra in Russia, Philharmonic Orchestra of

8 9 Moldova, the Ulster Orchestra, and the Tampere Philharmonia Wien and Principal Conductor and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Philharmonic Orchestra in Finland. Artistic Adviser of the Tasmanian Symphony Sebastian Lang-Lessing Chief Conductor & Artistic Director Brenton Broadstock has won numerous prizes for Orchestra. In 2004 he took up the position of composition including the Albert Maggs Award, Chief Conductor of the Haydn Orchestra in Italy. The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra is acclaimed as one of the world’s finest small orchestras. two APRA Music Awards (The Mountain and highlights include work with the German-born Sebastian Lang-Lessing is the orchestra’s Chief Conductor and Artistic Director. Toward the Shining Light); First Prize in the Sydney and West Australian Symphony The TSO presents an exciting and diverse annual concert series in Hobart and Launceston as Hambacher Preis International Composers’ Orchestras, The Queensland Orchestra, Bergen, Competition in Germany (Tuba Concerto); the Belgrade and Oslo Philharmonic Orchestras, well as concerts in regional centres. With a full-time playing strength of 47 musicians, its core Jean Bogan Prize for his solo piano work Dying of Scottish and Swedish Chamber Orchestras, repertoire is that of the Classical and early Romantic periods. It is, however, a versatile orchestra, the Light; and Australia’s richest composition Stockholm Sinfonietta, Thüringen Philharmonie, performing repertoire from Baroque to jazz, , opera and ballet, and is recognised for prize, the Paul Lowin Song Cycle Award, for Bright Gothenburg, Aalborg, Trondheim and Erzgebirge championing contemporary music. Tracks. His orchestral work Stars in a Dark Night Symphony Orchestras, Frankfurt and Swedish (Symphony No. 2) received four Sounds Australian Radio Orchestras, NTO Tonkünstler Orchestra, The TSO records regularly for radio broadcasts, compact discs and soundtracks for television and film. National Music Critics’ Awards including Best Vienna Volksoper, Izmir State Symphony, BBC It was the first Australian orchestra to record the complete Beethoven symphonies, and its recent Australian Orchestral Work in 1989, and was the Symphony Orchestra, Haydn Orchestra, recordings on international and Australian labels have been received with critical acclaim. In 2003, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s entry to the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and Latvian orchestra launched its Australian Music Program and in 2004 released the first recordings of orchestral Paris Rostrum of Composers in 1990. In 1999 National Symphony Orchestra. music as part of the TSO Australian Composer Series. Brenton Broadstock was honoured with the His debut in 2001 with Opera Australia at the Australia Council’s Award, for his Sydney Opera House (The Gypsy Princess and Encouragement of young talent is of paramount importance to the TSO. It provides an education contribution to Australian music. His Symphony Così fan tutte) immediately led to new program and collaborates extensively on a range of programs with Symphony Australia, the Australian No. 5 Dark Side received the AMC’s Victorian engagements for 2002: Fidelio in the Sydney Youth Orchestra and the Australian Music Centre. Award for Best Composition in 2001; the summer season and The Marriage of Figaro in following year, Federation Flourish was nominated the Melbourne spring season, and a concert The TSO has performed in most of the major Australian festivals and regularly travels to mainland for an APRA–AMC award as Orchestral Work of with the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra Australia, touring both capital cities and regional centres. It has performed in Greece, Israel, Indonesia, the Year. Some 36 compositions are now available and the Opera Australia Chorus performing South Korea, China, Argentina, Canada, the USA and Japan. on 23 commercial CDs worldwide. Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in G minor and Brahms’ German Requiem. In recent seasons he Ola Rudner has also directed modules of Symphony Swedish-born Ola Rudner began his career as a Australia’s Conductor Development Program. violinist – he is a prize winner of the Paganini Recent engagements have included a European Competition in Genoa and in 1979 was awarded tour with the Philharmonia Wien, concerts with Sponsor of the TSO Australian Music Program the annual prize of the Association of Critics in the Haydn Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, Powering Australian music into the future Copenhagen. After ten years as a soloist he took RAI Orchestra Turin, Tasmanian Symphony up conducting, and has been Kapellmeister at Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony and, for the Vienna Volksoper, Artistic Director of Opera Australia, The Magic in Sydney.

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