Move Records Australian classical & art music, est. 1968
Front cover art for Astra 60

Astra 60

This recording captures a concert of Australian piano music celebrating Astra’s long support of Australian composers and performers. For sixty years the Astra Chamber Music Society has placed new Australian work beside international new-music currents, always with a distinctive cultural frame.

Michael Kieran Harveypiano
  • CatalogueMD 3357
  • Released1 Jun 2012
  • Playing time56 minutes 12 seconds

Listen & tracks

2 of 16 tracks have a preview · 7 works · 56:12

  1. Sonata No. 1 (1959)Keith Humble 2 movements3:49
    1. 1 i. At a fair speed, but not percussively so 1:23
    2. 2 ii. Scherzando – Adagio molto 2:26
  2. Three Pieces (1966)Helen Gifford 3 movements6:08
    1. 3 Cantillation Fluente 2:14
    2. 4 The Spell Con enfasi delicato 2:22
    3. 5 Waltz Capriccioso 1:32
  3. 6 In Memoriam Carl Ruggles Warren Burt Aardvarks II: Mr Natural encounters Flakey Foont! (1971) 5:16
  4. Krebs (1983)Mark Pollard 3 movements6:37
    1. 7 i. 2:02
    2. 8 ii. 2:53
    3. 9 iii. 1:42
  5. Two Miniatures (1994)Marguerite Boland 2 movements4:12
    1. 10 Light and detached 1:28
    2. 11 Espressivo 2:44
  6. Piano Sonata (2006)Tom Henry 3 movements14:09
    1. 12 Theme 1:34
    2. 13 Variations 5:34
    3. 14 Moto perpetuo 7:01
  7. Piano Sonata No. 3 (2011)Lawrence Whiffin 2 movements16:01
    1. 15 i. 6:45
    2. 16 ii. 9:16

Programme notes by John McCaughey, Astra’s Artistic Director, set out the connections behind a piano programme chosen to mirror Astra’s unusual ethos.

The six works span each decade from the 1950s onward, and welcome Lawrence Whiffin’s Piano Sonata No. 3 in its first performance – written for Michael Kieran Harvey in 2010, the composer’s eightieth year. The seven composers are bound by Astra concerts, ties to the performer, and shared links with Whiffin and the former Music Department at La Trobe University, where he taught for many years.

Three sonatas frame other approaches to sound and form: the piano as vehicle for aphoristic utterance, or for continuous, monolithic energy. Live takes from 28 and 29 May 2011 at the Eleventh Hour Theatre, Fitzroy, are joined by studio sessions at Move Records.

Reviews

Melbourne’s Astra Chamber Music Society has for many years provided a cultural enclave for musical modernism, and this recording of Australian piano works is no different. All the compositions on this CD can be described as non-tonal or post-tonal, though some have fleeting moments of traditional Western harmony or even passages of free-tonal writing. Michael Kieran Harvey performs these pieces with his flawless competence and genuine love for Australian composition. The warmth and expressive range of Harvey’s playing make this a very engaging recording, even for listeners who would normally conceive of this type of music as too abstract… This CD covers six decades of Australian piano music and celebrates the significant contribution both Michael Kieran Harvey and the Astra Chamber Music Society have made. As Michael pointed out in his recent Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address, Australian music deserves to be performed, recorded and broadcast much more often, and this Move release is a decisive step in the right direction.

— Thomas Reiner, Music Forum Magazine

Artists

Photograph of Michael Kieran Harvey

Michael Kieran Harvey

piano

Australian pianist and composer Dr Michael Kieran Harvey FAHA is among the foremost interpreters of contemporary piano music of his generation. A champion of Australian music, he regularly commissions new work and has performed with the country’s leading contemporary ensembles and orchestras.

 Photograph of Warren Burt

Warren Burt

composer

Warren Burt has worked in academia, education and radio, and as a composer, filmmaker, video artist, writer and community-arts organiser. He has produced a large body of work for instruments, electronics, voice, video, theatre, prose and poetry, performed and shown in the USA, Australia, Europe and Japan.

 Photograph of Helen Gifford

Helen Gifford

composer

Helen Gifford OAM is an Australian composer whose music often draws on Balinese and Javanese elements. She writes for stage, orchestra, chamber ensemble and solo instruments.

 Photograph of Tom Henry by photographer Terry Lane

Tom Henry

composer

Tom Henry is an Australian composer of works for solo piano, organ, voice, choir, chamber ensemble and orchestra. His music has been performed in Australia, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Canada.

 Photograph of Keith Humble

Keith Humble

composer

Keith Humble won the National Critics Award in 1977 as the most outstanding recitalist working in Australia, and was appointed AM in 1982 for services to music. He was a constant champion of Australian contemporary music and of Percy Grainger.

 Photograph of Mark Pollard by photographer Steve Wyld

Mark Pollard

composer

Australian composer Mark Clement Pollard has an eclectic style that draws on improvisation, jazz, pop, minimalism and the indigenous musics of South-East Asia.

 Photograph of Lawrence Whiffin

Lawrence Whiffin

composer

Lawrence Whiffin (1930–2012) was a Melbourne-born composer, pianist and teacher. After years abroad he returned to Australia as Senior Tutor at La Trobe University, where teaching harmony and analysis also freed him to write more concert music.

 No photograph: Marguerite Boland

Marguerite Boland

composer

Digital booklet

Digital booklet Notes, texts and credits — read online or download the PDF Download the PDF

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$25.00 AUD

Compact disc

Buywell Music Australian Music Centre

Stream now

Apple Music

Also available to download from the iTunes Store.

Performers

Technical credits

  • Recording Engineer Martin Wright
    Vaughan McAlley
  • Editing Engineer Vaughan McAlley
  • Mastering Engineer Martin Wright
  • Venue Eleventh Hour Theatre, Fitzroy, Melbourne
  • Credit Benjamin Thomas
    John McCaughey

Details

List price
$25.00 AUD
Total playing time
56 minutes 12 seconds
Release date
Category
Classical
Genres
Contemporary Classical, Modernist Classical
Musical work copyright
© 2012 Move Records
Sound recording copyright
℗ 2012 Move Records
Catalogue
MD 3357
EAN
9314574335729

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