A trip to the UK beckoned when Sculthorpe’s latest String Quartet No 18 from his extensive anthology was performed by the Toyko Quartet at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival. The composer, now a lively 81, travelled across the globe to be present for the performance. The Australian-based Flinders Quartet who co-commissioned the work with the Edinburgh Festival, gave the world premiere in Australia in June 2010.
PRESS COMMENTS
‘…an enthralling piece that tackled some meaty issues, unfolding landscapes of solitude and desolation while at the same time revealing its fearless composer as a full-blooded Romantic in his open-hearted lyricism and conjuring of soaring melodies.’
The Herald (Michael Tumelty), 3 September 2010
'This explored the topical issue of climate change in musical language which combined the best of western traditions with the haunting indigenous chants and songs of the South Pacific… the distinctive quality of Sculthorpe’s individual voice made for a compelling and refreshing work.'
The Scotsman (Susan Nickalls), 3 September 2010
Also at the festival was a performance of Sculthorpe’s orchestral piece Memento Mori, given by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy.
PRESS COMMENTS
‘…then there was Memento Mori by the grand old man of Australian music, Peter Sculthorpe, who was present to hear his massive, fantastic rock of a piece, a slow, elegiac structure through which the Dies Irae floats like a spectre, wonder-fully-played, with huge intensity and a well-gauged rise and fall.’
The Herald (Michael Tumelty), 3 September 2010
‘Peter Sculthorpe… was there to acknowledge the warm applause for his 1993 Memento Mori, a sombre eco-fantasy on the Dies irae, written as a tribute to the doomed 17th-century residents of Easter Island.’
The Times (Hilary Finch), 3 September 2010
'This explored the topical issue of climate change in musical language which combined the best of western traditions with the haunting indigenous chants and songs of the South Pacific… the distinctive quality of Sculthorpe’s individual voice made for a compelling and refreshing work.'
The Scotsman (Susan Nickalls), 3 September 2010
Also at the festival was a performance of Sculthorpe’s orchestral piece Memento Mori, given by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy.
PRESS COMMENTS
‘…then there was Memento Mori by the grand old man of Australian music, Peter Sculthorpe, who was present to hear his massive, fantastic rock of a piece, a slow, elegiac structure through which the Dies Irae floats like a spectre, wonder-fully-played, with huge intensity and a well-gauged rise and fall.’
The Herald (Michael Tumelty), 3 September 2010
‘Peter Sculthorpe… was there to acknowledge the warm applause for his 1993 Memento Mori, a sombre eco-fantasy on the Dies irae, written as a tribute to the doomed 17th-century residents of Easter Island.’
The Times (Hilary Finch), 3 September 2010