01. Speed (1997) [17'16]
02. LiteSpeed (1997) [6'30]
Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Porcelijn
ABC Classics 4654322 [recorded July 1997; digital download released 2000]
[digital download; flacs. cover scan - no booklet]
Recording venue: Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music, Hobart
01. Lament, for cello and orchestra (1996) [10'50]
Sue-Ellen Paulsen- cello, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Northey
ABC Classics 4816542 [recorded 2016; digital download released 2017]
[digital download; flac, cover scan, no booklet]
Recording venue: unknown
01. - 05. Matthew Hindson & William Barton - Kalkadungu for voice, didjeridu, electric guitar and orchestra (2007) [24'02]
William Barton-voice, didjeridu and electric guitar, Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Gill
From ABC Classics 4764834 [recorded April 2008; digital download released 2012]
[digital download; flacs, cover and inlay scans, no booklet]
Recording venue: Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House
08. - 10. Matthew Hindson - technologic 135 (1997) [13'24]
Elektra String Quartet (Chris Latham and Romano Crivici- violins, Rudi Crivici- viola, Sally Maer- cello)
From ABC Classics 4765039 [recorded April 2003; digital download released 2012]
[digital download; flacs, cover scan - no booklet]
Recording venue: Bondi Pavilion Recording Studios, Sydney
I first came across Australian composer Matthew Hindson's music when putting together a post featuring a work by his older contemporary, Carl Vine. Hindson was born in 1968 in Wollongong, New South Wales and was a student of Peter Sculthorpe and Ross Edwards. In addition to composing, he is a professor and Chair of Composition at Sydney University's Conservatorium of Music and has been composer-in-residence with the Sydney Symphony.
His music often displays influences of popular music styles, including techno, house and dance, within a classical music context and musical elements such as driving repeated rhythms and high dynamic levels are typically found in many of his works - often with little benefit in my opinion.
Hindson's two works (along with the Vine Piano Trio) on the Benaud Trio disc - Rush and 1915 - and his witty fantasy The Rave and the Nightingale based on the first movement of Schubert's String Quartet D.887 - for string quartet and string orchestra (also included in the Benaud Trio post) are easier listens than most of the works in this collection.
The first two downloads in this post Speed and Lament are complete issues and the second two are Hindson's contributions to two other discs.
The most accessible work here is the Lament for cello and orchestra given a beautiful performance by the Tasmanian Symphony's principal cello, Sue-Ellen Paulsen. The work was written in the shadow of the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.
The two orchestral works on the Speed album are typical of his driving rythmical style and LiteSpeed is a reduction of Speed with even more emphasis on the pop elements. I have to say that I find the insistent drum kit difficult to listen to. Others may well find it more attractive.
Hindson's Kalkadungu, written together with William Barton, uses Barton's voice in the first three movements rather more than his usual didjeridu highlighting and, fortunately, the electric guitar is quite low key. Kalkadungu is based on a song which Barton wrote in his language when he was 15. The song was inspired by his Kalkadungu country in north-western Queensland. Barton says the song itself is about the passing of Kalkadungu culture from one generation to the next.
The work for string quartet, techno logic, was written for the Sydney-based Elektra Quartet and, as the title suggests, a good deal of the music was written using techniques found in techno music, including repetition, parallel triadic harmony, block-line structures and predominantly fast tempos. Hmm. The work is in five movements and the first, third and fifth movements are performed as technologic 135.
As far as I can tell, performances appear to be universally fine and ABC's recordings are up to their usual high standard.