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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 48| December 2000


Musical interludes at the Library

Larry Sitsky

Larry Sitskycomposer, pianist and researcher

The Library holds a veritable treasure-trove of materials that preserve and bring to life the world of music and music-making in Australia and beyond. In October the National Library highlighted these music collections through a featured month of public music events. The events featured different aspects of the Library’s role in collecting and preserving Australian and overseas music, and were presented in association with the Canberra School of Music, Australian National University.

The Curator of Music, Robyn Holmes, established the theme for the month, in her Spotlight Talk Why Collect Music? She argued that music has significance both for the intrinsic value of music to people and for the way music documents Australia’s social and creative history. She demonstrated this with numerous historical examples from the 19th century to the present, with sound, scores and images drawn from the printed music, folklore, manuscript, pictorial and ephemera collections.

The extraordinary research collections of early editions of music held by the Library were brought to life with consummate wit and elegance in a twilight lecture recital Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven at the Fortepiano by one of Australia’s leading scholar-performers Geoffrey Lancaster, with associate artist Colleen Rae-Gerrard. The acoustic and aesthetic ideals of the late 18th century were recreated in the marble foyer, as Geoffrey and Colleen delighted an overflowing audience with four hand sonatas performed in an historically informed manner.

Larry Sitsky, one of Australia’s most distinguished composers, pianists and researchers, explored the importance of the published and unpublished Australian piano music scores held in the Music Collection and of composers’ autograph scores held in the Manuscript Section. His research for his ARC-funded project (with Ruth Lee Martin) on the history of Australian piano music, so well documented by the National Library’s holdings, revealed the significance of the work of Australia’s older as well as contemporary composers. In addition, his witty playing of piano sheet music that was popularised in the homes of many Australians for generations revived aurally the era of an earlier Australia, as he accompanied images from silent films and newsreels, newly edited by film-maker Gary Kildea.

The first of many planned ‘musical dialogues’ at the National Library was initiated at a Sunday afternoon event. This ‘dialogue’ took place between Peter Sculthorpe, arguably Australia’s most internationally recognised composer, and John Metcalf, a visiting Welsh composer who, as the artistic director of the Vale of Glamorgan Festival in Wales, is devoting the 2001 Festival to the work of living Australian composers. Both composers discussed and compared notes about their search for musical inspiration in the places, mythology and history of their respective nations. Their ideas were given musical expression through the performance of two works by each composer by the cellist David Pereira and pianist Susanne Powell, both of whom have given many first performances of new Australian works. The audience willingly participated in the open forum that followed, raising interesting questions and ideas about the extent to which music is able to express the spirit, identity or culture of a nation.
—Robyn Holmes

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