Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe (b. 1929) writes in an appealingly approachable, strongly characterful idiom, yet his music always retains its power to challenge and intrigue. Part of the fascination stems from his fruitful, indeed almost spiritual, identification with the Australian landscape. Not only does his inspiration evince a compelling sense of local colour, there is also a refusal to compromise which I like very much – on this evidence Sculthorpe is a composer of undoubted integrity and strong personality.
The earliest of the five works gathered here, Irkanda IV from 1961 (the Aboriginal title means ''a remote and lonely place''), incorporates a strikingly imaginative threnody for solo violin to memorably eloquent effect (Sculthorpe, in fact, conceived the piece as a memorial to his father who had died the previous year). Small Town (1962) also combines a tender solo line (this time a sweetly lyrical, Coplandesque tune for principal oboe) with more obviously elegiac elements, most notably a moving double appearance of The Last Post. The 1979 piece, Mangrove, is a more ambitious essay, its characteristic block-like structure satisfyingly varied in mood, rhythm and texture – listen in particular for the strings' remarkable tropical bird-song evocation beginning at 5'27''.
The impassioned, resonant Earth Cry comprises perhaps the most immediately arresting offering in the present collection. Dating from 1986, its brooding stately outer sections effectively foil a more rhythmic central portion (which itself attains considerable power and momentum). By contrast, Kakadu (completed in 1988 and named after the vast Kakadu National Park in Northern Australia) boasts a reflective, exotic episode at its heart (with unmistakable echoes of the bird-song effects heard earlier in Mangrove), framed by much exhilarating, intoxicatingly colourful faster material. Both Earth Cry and Kakadu strike me as first-rate achievements, vibrantly scored and instantly communicative.
The ripe recordings match the committed, finely disciplined performances. ABC Classics' rewarding anthology should help win many new friends for the music of Peter Sculthorpe.'