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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 50| April 2001
Wholl Come a Waltzing Matilda With Me?
Dave de Hugard playing an original 1890s button accordion outside the National Library. Photograph: Greg Pook
Netherlands national television visits the National Library of Australia
Waltzing Matilda is not only recognised widely by Australians, but has international iconic status and interest. As the unofficial anthem of Australia, it has been used historically in a range of cultural events and contexts linked to concepts of nationhood, most recently demonstrated through its performance by Slim Dusty at the Sydney Olympic Games. Its ubiquitous performance and status raises a multiplicity of issues about national identity. Its international curiosity value was highlighted by the visit of a Netherlands film crew to the National Library in February to film our unique Waltzing Matilda holdings. They also visited the other national cultural institutions in Canberra to further explore aspects of Australias culture and heritage.
This Netherlands documentary program, researched and produced by the Dutch writer, columnist and television presenter Boudewijn Büch for his national VARA Television program Boudewijn Büchs World, traces the cultural and physical landscapes of internationally known songs from around the world. Büchs inquisitiveness about Waltzing Matilda led him and his crew to visit the Queensland sites in Winton and Dagworth where Banjo Paterson and Christina MacPherson are thought to have created the song, musically based on a transplanted Scottish marching tune. By further investigating the Librarys Manuscript, Music, Map, Pictorial and Oral History Collections, the team sought to throw light on the oddities of a bush song about a swagman that has come to represent something of the psyche of a nation. They were keen to explore, too, the controversies about the songs creation, publication and intellectual ownership and the numerous artistic works and performances that Waltzing Matilda has spawned in music, visual culture and literature.
The core of the Librarys Waltzing Matilda collection
is a valuable, though tiny, collection of manuscript materials
representing the original transcription of the tune by Christina
MacPherson (1897) and associated photographs and correspondence, as well
as the first published versions of the song (when the song was published
with slightly changed words as an advertising tool for Billy Tea
in 1903) and squatters maps from the region in which it was
composed. The many unique performances of the song, held in the Oral
History Collection of field recordings, were brought to life for the
camera by Dave de Hugard, well-known folk music performer and field
collector of Australias traditional music heritage. Dave performed
the song under a coolibah tree in the National Librarys
grounds on an original 1890s button accordion, in the musical and textual
version as first transcribed by Christina MacPherson in the manuscript.
Robyn Holmes
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: dthomas@nla.gov.au