Longstanding Peter Sculthorpe champion William Barton joined the Queensland Symphony and Katharina Wincor for a performance of Kakadu on 16 and 18 August. The work takes its name from the Kakadu National Park in northern Australia - an enormous wilderness that stretches from coastal tidal plains to rugged mountain plateaux, where Sculthorpe was inspired by the living culture of its Aboriginal inhabitants found there. Their language, now rarely spoken, is kakadu or gagadju.
The 15-minute piece reflects Sculthorpe’s feelings about the place: its landscape, its change of seasons, its wet and dry seasons, and its cycle of life and death. Cast in three parts, the outer sections are dance-like and energetic, sharing similar musical ideas. The central section turns more introspective and spotlights a cor anglais solo representing the voice of Emanuel Papper, who commissioned the work. Apart from this solo, the work’s melodic material, as is frequently the case in Sculthorpe’s music, was suggested by the contours and rhythms of Aboriginal chant.
In 1994 the Queensland Symphony gave the Chinese premiere of the piece, as well as recording the new version of the work with a part for William Barton’s didjeridu in 2003, conducted by Michael Christie. It has also been recorded by the Sydney Symphony with Stuart Challender and the New Zealand Symphony conducted by James Judd. Since its premiere at the Aspen Festival in 1988, it has been performed over 300 times, including by all the major orchestra of Australia; it has been taken up internationally by ensembles including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Janacek Philharmonic Ostrava, and Het Noord Nederlands Orkest.
Kakadu National Park inspired Sculthorpe on numerous occasions, leading to works such as the guitar concerto Nourlangie (written for John Williams) and Little Nourlangie (for organ, strings, and percussion), which take their names from a pair of rocky outcroppings. In March 2024 Barton and the Brodsky Quartet toured Sculthorpe’s String Quartet No.11 – Jabiru Dreaming, also inspired by a rock formation in the National Park.