How Did Peter Maculthorpe Affect Australia

Musicology Essay: The Australian Spirit

As the years have gone by, Australia has become increasingly multicultural. Music in Australia has grown to reflect this change and the stereotyped “Australian Sound” – developed primarily from early folk music, patriotic instrumental composition and 1980’s pub rock – has expanded vastly. As a result of this, the “Australian Perspective” too has grown, and now incorporates a vaster range of views and issues as perceived and expressed by different Australian musicians. Peter Sculthorpe was a multi-instrumental composer whose many works often reflected the different social and physical characteristics of Australia.

Peter Sculthorpe was born in 1929 in Launceston, Tasmania. Throughout his childhood, Sculthorpe learned and played the piano. At the age of seven, he began to compose his own music; however, his piano teacher disapproved greatly of such actions and reinforced her own intentions for him to practice music traditionally. Despite this, Sculthorpe remained optimistic and for years, secretly created his own music in spite of everyone else. In the later parts of his childhood, Sculthorpe attended the Launceston Grammar

School and it was here – during these years – that he was able to freely experience and experiment with the different forms of music, art and literature. At the age of sixteen, Sculthorpe moved to Melbourne and studied at the Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne. Shortly following this, he moved to England where he studied at the Wadham College in Oxford. He stayed in England for a number of years, but eventually returned to Australia to take care of his ill father. The physical surroundings and political issues relevant in Australia at the time of his arrival inspired Sculthorpe; reigniting his early passions for music and prompting the formal creation and publishing of his work. Simultaneously to his developing music career, Sculthorpe worked as a university professor. Throughout the mid-twentieth century, he gave multiple lectures at the University of Sydney in Australia, Yale University in America and Sussex University in England. He retired from this job in the early seventies, but continued to compose musical pieces up until his death in 2014. Throughout his life, Sculthorpe received much national and international acclaim. He was awarded with dozens of awards and received honorary doctorates from five separate universities around the world. Even today, Sculthorpe continues to gain recognition for his immense body of work – featuring approximately 400 different musical pieces – and for his prominence and importance as a modern Australian composer.

The timbre within Apocalypse Dreams gives evidence as to the growing inclusivity and diversity of the “Australian Sound”. Apocalypse Dreams utilises ten different instruments that each work to effectively convey this message and to appeal to its audiences.

The manipulation of the instruments within Apocalypse Dreams may also seem reminiscent of older, more-Americanised music.

The repetitive piano chords, light maraca rhythms and counter melodic backing vocals are comparable to 1960’s pop music (particularly that of The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The Ronettes). Furthermore; the fluctuating drum beats, rhythmic bass and electric guitar melodies and falsetto lead vocals may seem similar to psychedelic rock music of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s (particularly that of Led Zeppelin and The Jimi Hendrix Experience). Although Tame Impala are easily distinguishable from these musicians, the comparability between Apocalypse Dreams and the previously-mentioned international bands makes audiences aware of the expansion and nonconformity of modern Australian

music.