476 3221

cantilena pacifica

TASMANIAN SYMPHONY Richard Meale b. 1932

1 Concert Monologue from Mer de Glace 18’52 Merlyn Quaife soprano

2 Cantilena pacifica 7’42 Erica Kennedy

3 Variations 13’51

4 Lumen 7’00

5 Clouds now and then 7’50

6 Homage to García Lorca 19’45

Total Playing Time 74’59

Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conductor Dobbs Franks conductor 6

2 3 Richard Meale’s importance to the burgeoning of collected and arranged folk-music and The work’s five movements nevertheless Lorca appeared in 1964 when it was performed Australian art music in the 1960s was composed some original music as well. His left- represent a tour de force of string sonority: by Joseph Post and the Little Symphony established by two works: Orenda for , leaning politics, and probably his homosexuality, gleaming bands of sound contrast with Orchestra; it was also performed the following composed in 1959 and the Sonata for and led to his murder by Falangist supporters of percussive gestures and the diaphanous quality year in Europe. This initiated some years of Piano of the following year. Orenda was an General Franco in 1936. of harmonics. The second movement, in Meale’s extraordinary fertility for Meale during which attempt to capture ‘the indwelling energy with words, ‘exploits various dynamic implications he composed large-scale orchestral works such which all things are charged’ through the Scored for two string , arranged and the sonorous possibilities arising from the as Images (Nagauta) in 1966 and Nocturnes a dramatic use of repetition; the Flute Sonata was, antiphonally, the Homage to García Lorca is spacing of the two orchestras.’ The material year later, the overture to a projected series quite simply, the work that launched his career, freely atonal. has described it as crackles back and forth like an electrical current. of works about Christopher Columbus, Very being perhaps the first Australian work to ‘not merely a piece of music; it is a kind of The third movement, by contrast, might be the High Kings in 1968, and in 1969 Clouds now engage directly with the principles of the cataclysm.’ The extremes of emotion dramatised ‘nocturnal murmurings’ of Lorca’s imagery, and then. European post-war avant garde. The Sonata won by the music are hinted at by the epigraph from punctuated by occasional glints of light, and Very High Kings belongs to Meale’s Spanish- Meale a Ford Foundation grant which he used to Lorca that heads the opening prelude: ‘Ah what containing a short but beautiful melody for . influenced work; in Images (Nagauta) and in study Japanese and Indonesian music at the fury of love, what stabbing edge, what nocturnal The fourth – in mood and technique if not in Clouds now and then, Meale explores the other Institute of Ethnomusicology of the University of murmuring, what white death.’ In his own note scale – balances the second. Indeed, the major preoccupation of his early music: Asian, California in Los Angeles; he also visited Spain for the work, Meale points out that the prelude antiphonal effects of the second movement are and specifically, Japanese culture. Images at this time. In 1963 the Sonata was chosen for contains the piece’s thematic material in extended to a complete dislocation of the two reflects the formal dramatic structure, rather an ISCM festival in Amsterdam, establishing embryo. ‘All the rhythmic, harmonic and melodic orchestras for a small but substantial section. The postlude is headed by another epigraph, than the sound-world, of a certain kind of kabuki Meale on the world stage. structures are here.’ Meale draws attention ‘And I remember a sad breeze among the olive play, while Clouds now and then takes its title especially to the first seven bars where a limited After Meale’s return to , and a short trees’ from Lorca’s Lament for Ignacio Sánchez from a haiku by Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694). set of intervals creates the harmonic basis of the period of silent consolidation, he produced Las Mejías (and according to Covell, the In the translation of Geoffrey Bownas and work. Covell notes that as the piece proceeds, Alboradas (Morning Songs) for mixed ensemble was also thinking of the previous line, ‘I sing his Anthony Thwaite the poem reads: this ‘basic aggregation of intervals may declare in 1963. This demonstrated both the aesthetic elegance in words that moan’). Here the music itself as a slow accumulation of registers, as a Clouds now and then inspiration (rather than the use of specific builds into what Meale calls ‘five plateaux’ of Giving men relief sounds) provided by Spain and Meale’s confident series of whipcracks or as a toppling ruin; it may sounds derived from the material laid out in the From moon-viewing handling of ‘advanced’ compositional technique. disintegrate like thick shattered glass in a hail of first movement. Each is strongly characterised Both of these were amplified in his first major particles or it may settle into a close, thick, and powerfully realised; they ‘accumulate and ‘Moon-viewing’ is a refined meditative work, the Homage to García Lorca. One of the opaque neutrality.’ But the work is no theoretical decay’, with the last being the disturbing sound technique, where one concentrates on the most important poets of the 20th century, Lorca exercise. As critic C.M. Prerauer wrote after the of a twelve-note aggregation played with image of the moon reflected in a pool of water; (1898-1936) was associated with major figures first performance: ‘The experiment here is not an ‘scratch’ bowing. It is as if the erotic dream that Bashō’s ‘clouds’ break the spell, as it were, and such as surrealist painter Salvador Dalí and aim in itself, but the means to one end: the lies behind this complex and powerful music remind the viewer of the transient nature of all film-maker Luis Buñuel in the 1920s; he also expression of deepest feeling.’ has turned to dust and ashes. things. Meale’s response is a short, subtle and

4 5 beautiful orchestral score. It was composed regarded the piece’s interest as lying principally cancer. It now became a matter of personal ’s novel, Frankenstein, which is intuitively – that is, without a predetermined in its treatment of rhythm, both on the local necessity to write a piece that would be a partly dramatised in the with Shelley as structure or arrangement of pitches – and is best scale of elements articulated by attack on a memorial to him. So it became clear that the Frankenstein, Byron as the monster and Claire listened to, according to Meale, ‘as one might bar-by-bar basis, and in the larger-scale blocs or, work could not be based on any artifice; its as Frankenstein’s bride, whom the monster will watch clouds’. Stable woodwind chords, for as Meale calls them, ‘rhythmic plateaux’ which existence had to lie in its emotional truth.’ abduct; this in turn reflects the ‘real events’ instance, dissolve without warning into a articulate the work’s overall structure. where Claire, having become pregnant shimmer of strings; piano and tuned percussion That memorial would be the last movement of (ostensibly by Byron), realises that the doctrine provide subtle and ephemeral reflections. A hint The 1970s would see yet more major works the Quartet, the Cantilena pacifica, or ‘peaceful of free love preached by Shelley evaporates in of diatonic harmony emerges and is gone; the from Meale, especially Interiors/Exteriors of song’, which like Samuel Barber’s Adagio has the face of actual events. solo flute has the most extended – but it is 1970, the masterly piano work Coruscations taken on a life independent of the quartet from hardly that – melody. The work emerges out of (1971), Incredible Floridas (1971) for Peter which it derives, and which exists in this version The ‘Monologue’ extracted from the score silence, and ends with retreating chimes and Maxwell Davies and The Fires of , for violin and strings. Here Meale gives his lyric contains some of Meale’s most beautiful writing. high woodwind chords. Evocations (1973) for Paul Sacher and the impulse free rein in a long melody for solo violin It begins with Claire, now an old woman, Collegium Musicum of Zurich, and his first which stretches, as he puts it, over three haunted by the ghosts of her friends. There Clouds now and then was first performed at the String Quartet. stanzas. The solo part is in 4/4; a gentle tension follows a section, sung by Shelley in the opera, 1969 Festival of . Variations was featured is imparted by the accompaniment’s being in a which quotes lines from his poem Mont Blanc By decade’s end Meale’s style was noticeably at a composer workshop organised in that city flowing 12/8 metre. (the mountain seen ‘still, snowy and serene’ changing, with the lush post-impressionism of by Professor a year later. The above the Mer de Glace glacier) that deal with Viridian (1979) and the outright lyricism of the Meale’s lyricism stood him in good stead when work was however commissioned by the the nature of dream and reality; a musical Second String Quartet (1980). The Quartet composing his opera , to a by David Australian Society for Music Education for a quotation from Trist an tells us where this is represents a decisive break with the past: Malouf after ’s novel. Voss performance in Brisbane by a national youth really heading. There are further extracts from despite Prerauer’s assertion that Lorca’s appeared in 1986, and Malouf and Meale orchestra at the Society’s 1970 conference. ‘difficulty’ nonetheless expressed ‘deepest collaborated a second time on the opera Mer de Act I Scene 2, where Claire rails against the rain Variations was composed in a mere two weeks, feeling’, Meale felt the need for the radical Glace which premiered in 1991. that keeps them inside, a reminiscence of the and, being intended for young performers, the simplicity foreshadowed in the Variations. music from the wedding at which the monster work is much more straightforward than much Mer de Glace is a fictionalised account of an Meale has explained that he began to steals Frankenstein’s bride, and finally Claire’s of Meale’s other music from this time. The event involving the English Romantic poets experience ‘some misgivings’ about the limited desolation that Shelley and Byron have done a material of the 15 variations is the sequence of Shelley and Byron, Mary Shelley and her expressive power of high modernism in the deal whereby she will secretly yield up her child chords at the opening, themselves borrowed stepsister Claire Claremont (who are involved in second half of the 70s: to its putative father. Despite her disillusion, from Very High Kings. The harmonic structure a ménage à trois with Shelley) and Byron’s Claire concludes the Monologue with remains fairly constant throughout, mirrored by ‘The problem that I was encountering was physician, Dr Polidori. The party, staying on the determination ‘to live in the light’. the piece’s largely unchanging triple metre; brought to a head in 1979 when I began my shore of Lake Geneva, was forced indoors by thematically there is fairly simple use of Second String Quartet. Sadly, my best friend, bad weather and to amuse themselves started Light is, naturally, the image behind Lumen. inversion and transposition. Thus, Meale rightly Stephen Wilson, died after a sudden onset of telling ‘Gothic’ stories. The lasting result was Composed originally for the Lights Ensemble

6 7 (which was founded by composer Grahame Concert Monologue from Mer de Glace I am sleepwalking, far, far out on the I have changed, Shelley! I have changed. Dudley at Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium), Mer de Glace. I feel old already. Seventeen, but old. Claire: Lumen was performed at the Conservatorium’s An ecstatic wonderment not unallied Hold me, Shelley, hold me. 1 Oh, I am listening. centenary celebrations in 1998. In 2007 Meale to madness. By the law of nature this child is mine. I can hear you all, in here, out there. made this orchestral version. The piece begins in I hold it, I carry it, here under my heart. I know you are ghosts. [Shelley:] I thought we lived, Shelley, by the laws mysterious darkness, with solo wind motifs I am almost a ghost myself. Some say that gleams of a remoter world of nature. gradually making their way into the light, through I am so old. Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber But when it comes to it, textures which sometimes evoke, indeed come My flesh is as thin as paper. And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber you too live by the laws of men. close to quoting, Debussy. Gently repeated No trouble at my age to draw breath a Of those that wake and live. I look on high. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. figures create the type of colourful sounds also moment in sleep Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, What can Ophelia do but love and be silent? heard in Mer de Glace, and the work reaches a and listen to the bones. Mont Blanc appears – still, snowy and serene. I wanted to be free. kind of climax in a brief shining solo. I am living Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal What power did I have? unlike the rest of you. Large codes of fraud and woe. Not understood What power does any of us have? From white death to glowing serenity this Live for the future. By all, but which the wise, the great, the good Sleepwalkers, sleepwalkers, that’s what collection charts the course of one of Australia’s You said that, Shelley… one of us said that. Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel. you want, you men. most important musical minds. Well, this is the future. And what wert thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, Shelley, am I to have no life of my own? I am living in it. If to the human mind’s imaginings, Ever? Ever? Alone with my ghosts, alone with my voices. Silence and solitude were vacancy? Will it always be someone else’s story? You, Shelley, drowned. No, no, it’s time now to wake up. Byron lost in Greece. Claire: I thought that I was one of beauty’s daughters. Polidori with a bullet in his brain. Rain. Rain. This rain, this endless rain. Well I know now I am just a woman. And you, Mary, for thirty years with a skeleton I’m suffocating here. No charmed bark, my dear. in the cupboard. Shelley! Shelley! All that leads to is a watery grave. You, Shelley – and a ghost in her bed, Why is he taking so long? And I am not for drowning. you, Shelley, you pure spirit. Well, what does he say? No forests. No regions dim. I knew you in the flesh. What does milord our great man say? I want to live, I want to live in the light. I could call you up in a soiled shirt, all sweat, Oh tell me, Shelley, quickly, I can’t bear it, my head will burst. you pure spirit. Shelley, where are you, Shelley? Will he take me with him? Call me. Call me. Will he have me in his household? Ah, the Mer de Glace. Oh my God, Shelley; So this is where I have got to. and you agreed to this? So this is where we are. What is to become of me? It is like a dream. Claire. Claire Claremont. I knew her once.

8 9 Merlyn Quaife is now in demand nationally and internationally as As first violinist with the Flinders Quartet, she Recordings include the Ravel and Bartók String performer, adjudicator and Artist in Residence. performs regularly throughout Australia and Quartets with the Flinders Quartet, and the Soprano Merlyn Quaife, a performer of great overseas, including residencies at the Banff album Reinventions with the Flinders Quartet versatility, is a champion of new music and has In 2006, Merlyn Quaife launched Lest We Centre for the Arts in Canada and the and Genevieve Lacey, featuring works by Bach, had many works composed for her. She has Forget, a classical protest CD with Andrea Katz International Musicians Seminar in Prussia Cove Mozart, Kats-Chernin and Bowman. appeared with each of the state opera at the piano, profits from which are donated to in the UK, and tours to the UK, Switzerland, companies, as well as all the major Australian the Fitzroy Learning Network. She also sang for Richard Mills Sweden and Singapore. symphony orchestras, the Hong Kong and the second time under the baton of Vladimir Richard Mills is Artistic Director of West Australian Auckland Philharmonic Orchestras, Singapore Ashkenazy, with the Sydney Symphony. In the As a chamber musician, Erica Kennedy has Opera and Director of the Tasmanian Symphony Symphony Orchestra, Voronezh Philharmonic same year she walked 800km of the Camino de performed in most of the major Australian Orchestra’s Australian Music Program, and was (Russia) and the Berliner Cappella. She has Santiago (Spain). festivals with groups and artists such as Artistic Consultant with from premiered many operatic roles, including Merlyn Quaife is featured on CDs on the ABC Duo Sol, the Goldner and Tang Quartets, 2001 to 2007. He was made a Member of the creating the title role in Gordon Kerry’s Medea Classics, Naxos, Tall Poppies and Move labels. members of the Melba Quartet and the Order of Australia (AM) in 1999 and received an (1993) and subsequently premiering the role in Southern Cross Soloists, David Thomas, Keith Australian Centenary Medal in 2001. Australia, Germany and the USA. www.merlynquaife.com Crellin, Janis Laurs and Dutch duo Grace Kim Richard Mills has conducted all the major and Teije Hylkema. She also performs in a duo Highlights of her busy performance schedule Erica Kennedy orchestras in Australia, and made his US have included Britten’s War Requiem in the with pianist Kristian Chong. Erica Kennedy is a Masters graduate of the debut in 1989 with the Albany Berlin Philharmonie with the Berliner Cappella, Symphony Orchestra. For the Tasmanian University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Music, Having studied in the USA, Switzerland, London Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine, Schoenberg’s Pierrot Symphony Orchestra’s Australian Music where she studied with William Hennessy. She and at the Australian National Academy of Music Lunaire, and his String Quartet No. 2 with both Program, he has recorded discs featuring music has appeared as soloist with the Melbourne with masters such as Gabor Takács-Nagy and the Arditti and Goldner String Quartets. by (Quamby), Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, the David Takeno, Erica Kennedy is now active as (White Ghost Dancing), Don Kay (There is an Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, the Soirées a chamber music mentor, teaching throughout Her love of horses and singing merged when Island), Peggy Glanville-Hicks (Etruscan Musicales Orchestra and the Melbourne Australia. She has also given masterclasses she had the privilege of performing with the Concerto) and (Epitaphs), Musicians. Performance highlights have included in Singapore. touring horse show Lipizzaners with the Stars, as well as a CD of his own string concertos. the Sibelius, Stravinsky and Korngold violin which included singing the Queen of the Night’s Also available on the ABC Classics label are concertos with the Tasmanian Symphony Erica Kennedy has worked as Concertmaster aria while riding a magnificent steed. recordings with the Adelaide, Queensland and Orchestra, the Beethoven violin concerto and with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and West Australian Symphony Orchestras and the From 1995 to 2007 Merlyn Quaife headed the the Brahms double concerto for violin and Orchestra Victoria. A core player with the Australian Youth Orchestra. vocal department at the University of Melbourne with the Stonnington Symphony Orchestra, and Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, she also where she initiated a long-range program of the Bach double violin concerto with Nigel performs with the Australian Chamber Orchestra Recent concert engagements have included the composition and production of new . She Kennedy and the Sydney Chamber Strings. and teaches at the University of Melbourne. world premiere performance of Peter

10 11 Sculthorpe’s Requiem with the Adelaide Richard Mills has twice received APRA awards West Australian Ballet and Head of Music of the Symphony Orchestra at the , for Most Performed Contemporary Classical Australian Opera Studio. He has also been a the world premiere of his own double concerto Composition (Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and regular guest conductor with all the Australian for and violin with the Taipei Symphony Overture with Fantasias) and in 1995 he was symphony orchestras, , the Orchestra, and a concert performance of awarded the Music Fellowship by Australian Ballet and the state opera and Wagner’s with the Australian the Australia Council. In 2008 he was the ballet companies. He continues to appear Youth Orchestra for the Queensland Music Featured Composer in the national internationally, most recently as guest conductor Festival, a project which won a Helpmann Award concert season. of the Scottish Ballet and conducting a for Best Classical Concert in 2005. He has production of Verdi’s Falstaff in Tokyo. appeared with Opera Australia (La Cenerentola), Dobbs Franks In addition to having conducted in 49 of the Opera Queensland (The Magic Flute) and West Dobbs Franks is equally at home conducting 50 states of the USA, he has appeared in Australian Opera (Norma, Aida), as well as opera, ballet, music theatre or a symphony , Mexico, Scotland, Ireland, Korea, conducting his own operas (, Summer of orchestra concert, or playing the piano in Thailand, Japan, China, Indonesia, Canada, the Seventeenth Doll and The Love of the chamber music ensembles. Israel and Greece. Nightingale, for which he received a Helpmann Award for Best Music Direction). He first came to Australia in 1960 when he was brought here, on the recommendation of His opera Batavia received a number of Green Leonard Bernstein, to conduct the Australian Room and Helpmann Awards including Best premiere season of West Side Story. After Opera at both ceremonies and Best New repeatedly leaving Australia for other parts of the Australian Work, as well as the APRA–Australian world, he eventually decided to call Australia Music Centre award for Vocal/Choral Work of the home in 1979. Year. Orchestral works include a Flute Concerto for ; Soundscapes for percussion Dobbs Franks has always championed new music. He has conducted over 50 first and orchestra, recorded on film in a performance performances of Australian music; he conducted by Evelyn Glennie; Fantastic Pantomimes for the the premiere season of Richard Meale’s Mer de Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Tenebrae and Glace and the revival of Voss for Opera Australia. Emblems for the Sydney Symphony; Requiem Diptych for the Chicago Chamber Musicians He has been Music Director of the Australian Brass; and Totemic Journeys, celebrating Ballet, Principal Conductor of the Tasmanian Australia’s Centenary of Federation. Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the

12 13 Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Executive Producers Martin Buzacott, For Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Robert Patterson Managing Director Nicholas Heyward Established in 1948, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra is acclaimed as one of the world’s finest Recording Producers Brooke Green 1, 2, 5, Manager, Artistic Planning Simon Rogers small orchestras. Resident in the purpose-built Federation Concert Hall, Hobart, the TSO presents Thomas Grubb 3, 4, Peter Taplin 6 Australian Music Program Director Lyndon Terracini more than 60 diverse concerts across Tasmania and mainland Australia each year. German-born Recording Engineers Veronika Vincze 1, 3, 4, Australian Music Program Director Emeritus Sebastian Lang-Lessing has been the orchestra’s Chief Conductor and Artistic Director since 2004. Andrew Dixon 2, 5, Wes Grubb 6 Richard Mills Editing Brooke Green and Veronika Vincze 1, Concertmaster Jun Yi Ma With a full-time complement of 47 musicians, the TSO’s core repertoire is the music of the Classical www.tso.com.au Brooke Green and Andrew Dixon 2, 5, Thomas and early Romantic periods. It is, however, a versatile orchestra, equally at home in jazz, popular music Grubb and Veronika Vincze 3, 4, Peter Taplin and and light classics, and recognised internationally as a champion of Australian music. Wes Grubb 6 The TSO presents annual subscription seasons in Hobart and Launceston, and since its inception has Mastering Veronika Vincze regularly toured regional Tasmania and mainland Australia. The orchestra appears at major Australian Editorial and Production Manager Katherine Kemp arts festivals and in 2005 initiated an annual Sydney Season. International touring has seen the TSO in Publications Editor Natalie Shea North and South America, Greece, Israel, South Korea, China, Japan and Indonesia. Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd 2007 2, 2009 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Cover Photo Tasman National Park, Tasmania. 2009 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Distributed The TSO regularly records for radio, CD, film and television. Its recordings on international and © Ted Mead / Photolibrary.com in Australia and New Zealand by Universal Music Group, under exclusive licence. Made in Australia. All rights of Australian CD labels have garnered critical praise, and the TSO is the only Australian orchestra to have Recorded 15 July 2004 5, 8-9 August 2005 3, 4 the owner of copyright reserved. Any copying, renting, released a complete set of the Beethoven symphonies, conducted by , and a complete lending, diffusion, public performance or broadcast of and 7 December 2005 1 in Federation Concert Hall, cycle of Schumann symphonies, conducted by Sebastian Lang-Lessing. this record without the authority of the copyright owner Hobart; 20 April 2004 2 in the Tasmanian is prohibited. Symphony Orchestra Rehearsal Studio, Hobart; and 17-19 February 1987 6 in the Odeon, Hobart.

Variations and Clouds now and then are published by Universal Edition. Homage to García Lorca is published by Boosey & Sponsor of the TSO Australian Music Program Hawkes, London. Powering Australian music into the future Lumen, Cantilena pacifica and Concert Monologue from Mer de Glace are published by ABC Music Publishing.

ABC Classics thanks Alexandra Alewood and Melissa Kennedy.

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