Horseshoe Bend Booklet

476 2266 andrew schultz ❘ gordon kalton williams Journey to Horseshoe Bend John Stanton Rodney Macann Aaron Pedersen David Bruce a cantata based on the novel by TGH Strehlow The Ntaria Ladies Choir Sydney Philharmonia Motet Choir Sydney Symphony David Porcelijn ANDREW SCHULTZ b. 1960 / GORDON KALTON WILLIAMS b. 1956 Journey to Horseshoe Bend – cantata for actors, singers, choruses and orchestra (based on the novel by T.G.H. Strehlow) Hermannsburg 1 Scene 1 10’51 2 Scene 2 6’27 Journey to Horseshoe Bend 3 Scene 3 5’02 Idracowra 4 Scene 4 8’52 5 Scene 5 4’22 Horseshoe Bend The musical symbolism, 6 Scene 6 7’44 7 Scene 7 2’23 like the words of an 8 Scene 8 9’24 Total Playing Time 55’10 Aboriginal language, David Porcelijn conductor is polysemous – Sydney Symphony John Stanton speaking part Aaron Pedersen speaking part many-meaning. Rodney Macann bass-baritone David Bruce boy soprano (Sydney Children’s Choir, Artistic Director: Lyn Williams) Ntaria Ladies Choir (Chorusmaster: David Roennfeldt) Sydney Philharmonia Motet Choir (Musical Director: Brett Weymark) 2 3 T.G.H. Strehlow’s autobiographical novel Journey urumbalak’ ingkata (headman of ceremonial European classical repertoire, allowing the music Constable Wurmbrand off the mission property. to Horseshoe Bend tells of the mortally-ill Carl festivals). He had written his massive study of to portray a once-forbidding landscape as ‘home’. You don’t need to be told how Njitiaka upbraided Strehlow’s desperate 12-day journey down the Central Australian chant Songs of Central And Journey to Horseshoe Bend ends, Theo for using the ‘wrong’ word for moon. You dry bed of the Finke River, Central Australia, to Australia, at the same time translating the New as cantatas did, with a hymn expressing see and hear him do it. reach the Adelaide-bound train at Oodnadatta in Testament into Aranda in collaboration with understanding of the day’s message. (‘This land is The libretto, novelly, makes use of the three 1922. It tells of Strehlow’s death at the hotel at Nathanael Rauwiraka, Moses Tjalkabota, Conrad from Altjira’ marries English and Aranda, and is languages of the Hermannsburg region – Bible Horseshoe Bend; of Theo (T.G.H. Strehlow), Raberaba and others. Journey to Horseshoe one of two original chorale melodies in the piece.) passages in Luther’s German, Strehlow’s own Carl’s newly confirmed 14-year-old son travelling Bend, the novel, dating from 1969, has been We were tempted to make this piece a full- words at nodal points. The Aranda acknowledges behind his parents through pastoral properties seen as an attempt by T.G.H. Strehlow to centre blown opera. There is an element of theatre in the dialectical differences of the region reflected and totemic landscapes with their Aboriginal himself in Aranda culture and provide authority Andrew’s orchestral layout. Winds and brass in their different spellings – Western Arrarnta friends; and of Theo’s awakening to the storied for his life’s work, as a newly politicised form parallel ridges on either side of a lower (at Hermannsburg) and Southern Arrernte (as landscape as his father struggles with the Christian generation of indigenous Australians rose to plain of strings, marimba and organ, rather like spoken by Njitiaka). It is a matter of some pride faith which has sustained him for 28 years as prominence in their own affairs. This journey, the cliff walls of the Finke Gorge abutting its that we seem to have got the unique mix of superintendent at Hermannsburg Mission. though, begins and ends in 1922. It is a story of the promise of two cultures intermixing – watercourse. Percussion at four points denotes, Hermannsburg beliefs right. Andrew’s use of Early in the novel, Pastor Strehlow is brought Strehlow interweaves Bible stories and pastoral amongst other things, distant sites in the percussion reflects a response to the landscape from his house for the last time. As he is lifted history with the traditional Aboriginal mythology ranges. There is clearly a nod to Baroque as well as the emotional course of the piece: into the buggy that will take him down the behind the country through which he and influence in the antiphonal layout of facing corrugated iron (hail and rain), small bells Finke, the mission people burst into song: the Njitiaka travelled. The promise is not entirely ridges, but more so in the presence of a sort of (donkeys), sizzle cymbals with brushes (wind- great Lutheran hymn ‘Wachet auf’ (Sleepers, unfulfilled. Aranda people at Hermannsburg concertino group amongst the strings in the carried desert sounds, or crunching through wake!) or ‘Kaarrerrai worlamparinyai’, as it is practise a unique blend of European and Aranda middle. The ridge-based music often rises up as gravel), and Peking opera gongs (the overland known in Strehlow’s translation. This chorale culture; they call it Two Ways. if in prayer, and the layout of the orchestra is telegraph). There are no didjeridus. They’re not was harmonised by J.S. Bach, and used by him somewhat like a chancel. The solo trumpet traditional to Central Australia. Our work therefore tells this story as a cantata, in Cantata No. 140. This was the scene I used to almost becomes Carl’s doppelgänger. Like the that form of unstaged mini-opera that the Journey to Horseshoe Bend, the novel, ends in a hook Symphony Australia and the Sydney words of an Aboriginal language, the musical Lutheran Bach wrote to illustrate the scriptural knot of symbolic events. Pastor Strehlow dies, Symphony into this project in 1999. What more symbolism is polysemous – many-meaning. theme of Sunday church services mostly in the but storm clouds open over the land of fire and appropriate vignette could there be linking 1720s during his time at St Thomas’ Church the country is drenched in a downpour of European repertoire with Australia? Here in the I have turned the straightforward prose of Leipzig. Andrew Schultz threads ‘Wachet auf’ rejuvenating rain. The thinning of the book bears heart of Australia, Aranda people (to use Strehlow’s novel into scenes and dialogue. through the score, using it as source for an fruit in the ability of the libretto to make clearer Strehlow’s orthography) were singing Bach. Characters step off the page. Carl Strehlow is a almost-symphonic development of music. bass-baritone, a Wotan or a Boris. The audience symbolic correspondences in the text. Academic Towards the end of his career, T.G.H., by then ‘Wachet auf’ contains melodic figures and does not need to be told how he stood up to a John Morton once commented on the novel’s Professor, Strehlow described himself as an cadential formulas familiar from other Western Kukatja revenge party or kicked Mounted paradoxical portrayal of life-through- 4 5 extinguishment. Our intention is, like Strehlow’s, retrace the 1922 route of the Strehlows in a Characters T.G.H. unequivocally life-affirming. At first glance it may helicopter in 2001 and to the Sydney Symphony T.G.H. (T.G.H. Strehlow): John Stanton It was 28 years since that October day when my father seem strange that Andrew sets the joyous for the extra logistical work involved in bringing Carl (the Rev. Carl Strehlow): Rodney Macann had arrived to rebuild the derelict Hermannsburg expression of Strehlow’s translation of the Song down performers from the remote Northern Njitiaka: Aaron Pedersen mission community. Now he was leaving. Theo (the young T.G.H., son of Carl): David Bruce of Mborawatna to a chorale fugue, but it is an Territory. NTARIA LADIES CHOIR expression of the thoroughness with which we …tell us all about God, ‘bout Jesus… Australian practitioners of classical music are The Ntaria Ladies Choir see European-derived musical language telling a often dealing with a culture rooted far from our Sydney Philharmonia Motet Choir, covering the characters T.G.H. story of these figures in this landscape. of Frieda, Pastoralists, Mrs Elliott, Men at The Bend life and experiences here, but here is a work He had to seek medical aid in Adelaide. and Gus Elliott In T.G.H. Strehlow’s (and our) hands, Journey to which speaks not only to this country but to its ‘We can’t send you a car,’ said Reverend Stolz. ‘Place Horseshoe Bend is an artistic retelling. But reachable history. In October 1922, Pastor Carl HERMANNSBURG your trust in God.’ (Carl’s chair is brought out.) And both the buggy and the van would have to be got aspects of it are a matter of reminiscence and Strehlow had wanted to go back to the country Scene 1: DAY. T.G.H., 60, speaks from his hospital bed. ready for the 380 mile journey south to Oodnadatta. family lore up north. Doug Abbott still chuckles of his birth, to Germany, but how much more over the way his great-grandfather Njitiaka told appropriate, said his son, T.G.H., that his body T.G.H. NTARIA LADIES CHOIR 1 It was only after I had suffered my own life- Theo off for using the Western Arrarnta word should lie at Horseshoe Bend ‘in open country That Strehlow…was important bloke…came threatening illness that I felt I could tell my father’s story for moon in Southern Arrernte country unconfined by cemetery walls yet sheltered by here…long time ago…long time ago…we been sit and of his last journey down the Finke. (a scrupulousness about language still evident in the windbreak ridge of the ntjira sisters of down here…longa his church… Doug’s corrections of Njitiaka’s dialogue, most of Pot’Arugutja’.

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