Peter Sculthorpe
Peter Sculthorpe (1929–2014) was a Tasmanian-born composer whose orchestral and chamber music drew the Australian landscape, neighbouring Asian traditions and Indigenous materials into a clear, personal language. He wrote extensively for strings, piano and voice.
Peter Sculthorpe was educated at Launceston Church Grammar School, the University of Melbourne and Wadham College, Oxford. He was composer-in-residence at Yale University as a Harkness Fellow in 1966–67, and Visiting Professor at the University of Sussex in 1972–73. Appointed Reader in Music at the University of Sydney in the late sixties, he held a Personal Chair as Professor in Musical Composition there for many years.
He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1977 and received a Silver Jubilee Medal the same year. Honorary doctorates followed from the University of Tasmania (1980), the University of Sussex (1989) and the University of Melbourne (1989). He became an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1990 and was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1991. In 1994 he received the Sir Bernard Heinze Award for outstanding services to Australian music.
His many prizes included an Australian Film Industry Award for best original film score (Manganinnie, 1980) and the 1985 APRA Award for most performed Australian serious work (his Piano Concerto). Recordings of his orchestral works and music for strings won Australian Record Industry Awards for best classical recording in 1991 and 1996.
He died in 2014, aged 85.
Peter Sculthorpe is featured on the following titles
Peter Sculthorpe
A retrospective compilation of favourite chamber works by the late Peter Sculthorpe, drawn from Move’s own catalogue. Torres Strait song, Kakadu landscapes and intimate string writing are heard in performances by leading Australian musicians.
Midsummer's Night
Jonathan Paget’s solo guitar recital traces an enchanted night-world of magic, mischief and romance, from Walton’s sparkling Five Bagatelles through Barrios’s Paraguayan dreamscapes to Sculthorpe’s Aboriginal dreaming.
20th Century Piano Trios
Highly acclaimed Trio Melbourne presents 20th Century Piano Trios, a collection of rarely heard and newly recorded works that includes first recordings of pieces by Australian composers Peter Sculthorpe and Julian Yu.
Peter Sculthorpe: Piano Music
Thirty years of piano music by Peter Sculthorpe, one of Australia's finest composers, in exemplary performances by the Team of Pianists, Michael Hannan and the composer himself.
Composer
Pianists of Excellence
The Team of Pianists is acclaimed in Europe and Australia for vitality and freshness of technique. This recital presents solo piano works by Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms and Sculthorpe, played by four of its members.
Compositions by Peter Sculthorpe also appear on
Flute Perspectives, Vol. 1
Flautist Derek Jones and pianist Leigh Harrold present this anthology of contemporary Australian flute music, from Sculthorpe’s Torres Strait cycle to solo and duo works by leading local composers.
Cosmosis
The album explores the many combinations throat singing can take. Dean Frenkel pairs overtone singing with a children’s choir, guitar and mandolin, Australian birds, contemporary piano, vibraphone duet, and a female vocal duo in song form.
Composer
Dreamtracks
Music for clarinet by Australian composers. Celebrating Australia’s landscape, spirit and composers, Dreamtracks gathers some of the finest contemporary Australian writing for solo clarinet, clarinet and piano, and unusual chamber combinations.
Torquing Points
An exciting juxtaposition of 20th-century Australian and 19th-century European styles. Gordon Kerry's Torquing Points for String Quartet and Mark Pollard's The Quick or the Dead sit approachably beside the classical works on this programme.
Night Thoughts
During the long still nights of Melbourne’s Covid lockdowns, pianist Len Vorster listened widely and thought hard about what he heard. Those evening ruminations became this programme of fifteen nocturnes and night pieces, from Schumann’s circle to Copland.
Ringing the Strings
Melbourne’s Concordia Mandolin and Guitar Orchestra present a programme of original works and arrangements for plucked strings, including music by Sculthorpe and Fauré alongside pieces by the ensemble’s own Michelle Nelson.
Brolga Dances
The Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra presents contemporary Australian works written or arranged for mandolin and guitar, from landscape pieces and dances to chamber textures across the ensemble’s distinctive plucked sound.
Second door on the left
What happens when you mix four dynamic performers with imaginative and unique compositional voices? Second Door on the Left explores the clarinet’s range, from fragments of ancient melody to twenty-first-century fusion.
Jewel
Australian gems for violin and piano. Jewel gathers works by some of Australia’s finest composers, among them Peter Sculthorpe, Margaret Sutherland, Don Banks and Vincent Plush.