Places and memories, Part 2

Roger SMALLEY (b 1943): New commissioned work (2008)

Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828): Piano Quintet in A, D667 (The Trout) (1819)

+ Peter SCULTHORPE (b 1929): Small Town (1963), version arranged for string quartet

+ Aaron COPLAND (1900-1990): Appalachian Spring: original scoring for flute, clarinet, bassoon, piano, four violins, two violas, two cellos, double bass (1944)


Roger Smalley is a greatly gifted composer who has transferred himself from his English origins into an Australian identity and whose music has already impressed Australia Ensemble and University of NSW Opera performers and listeners. Now resident in Sydney, after a long sojourn at the University of Western Australia in Perth, he is writing a new piece for Ensemble members. Schubert’s ever-welcome Piano Quintet in A minor, universally known as The Trout from the fact that its slow movement is a set of variations on music Schubert wrote for a song with that title, communicates musically buoyant feelings and whistleable tunes suitable to a program with an air of end-of-year light-heartedness to it. Those feelings will be sustained in Part 2 of our series of pieces prompted by places and memories. Peter Sculthorpe supports an instantly memorable melody on a nostalgically loping accompaniment in his Small Town, originally assigned to D.H. Lawrence’s description of the war memorial in Thirroul. Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring is his finest interpretation in music of pioneering America in its coolly beautiful impression of the awakening of a mountain settlement, its tender episodes of love and resolute music of faith and work, and the rousing clatter and lively dance measures of its community celebration.