Peter Sculthorpe:
01. Little Nourlangie, for orchestra and organ* [4'37]
02. Music for Japan, for orchestra and didjeridu^ [14'48]
05. - 09. Piano Concerto# [22'45]
10. The Song of Tailitnama, for high voice, six cellos and percussion~ [10'15]
David Drury- organ*, Mark Atkins- didjeridu^, Tamara-Anna Cislowska- piano#, Kirsti Harms- mezzo~; Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edo de Waart
ABC Classics 454 513-2 [recorded February 1996; CD issued 1996]
[digital download; flacs, booklet, cover and inlay scans]
Recording venue: Concert Hall of Sydney Opera HouseRecording engineer: Yossi Gabbay; Producer: Tim Handley
Edo de Waart was the chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony from 1993 to 2003 and is now in the same post with the New Zealand Symphony..
Not to be confused with Sculthorpe's Guitar Concerto, Nourlangie - Little Nourlangie is a short work for organ and orchestra - Little Nourlangie being a small rocky outcrop of the big main Nourlangie rock in Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territories of Australia. Appropriately, Little Nourlangie draws on themes from the much larger work.
Music for Japan was written for the 1970 Expo held in Osaka and is one of Sculthorpe's most modernist works. As with many of his works, there is a prominent part for the indiginous musical instrument, the didjeridu.
Japanese melodies and Gamelan-like sonorities infuse the Piano Concerto. Although in one continuous movement, for some reason this recording is split into five tracks. In this performance, Cislowska takes a minute and a half longer than in her 2003 recording with James Judd for Naxos. This is one of Sculthorpe's most recorded works and I will be posting another performance, by Anthony Fogg and Myer Fredman, here soon.
The Song of Tailitnama for high voice, six cellos and percussion (although the vocalise is sung here by a mezzo), was written for a TV documentary and also makes use of Japanese themes and Aboriginal chant. Tailitnama is a sacred site outside Alice Springs in central Australia.
This digital download, as usual with ABC Classics, came without any documentation, but I subsequently discovered a torrent where the documentation at least was still seeded so this is included here, along with Andrew Achenbach's review for the December 1997 issue of Gramophone magazine.