Has Sculthorpe Misappropriated Indigenous Melodies?

Abstract

The celebrated Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe has sometimes been criticized for his adaptations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island melodies. But what are the underlying political issues, and what are the ethics of such cross-cultural borrowings? The 1980s marked changes in Sculthorpe's music: a new stylistic synthesis, the fascination with Kakadu National Park and the recycling of a small number of Indigenous melodies dubbed the ‘Kakadu songlines’. These melodies can be seen to conform to one of two pre-existing styles within Sculthorpe's works: one Japanese and one Balinese. Whereas Sculthorpe has carefully selected melodies that easily conform to these pre-existing styles, he has also shaped and moulded his idiom around the ‘Kakadu songlines’. Sculthorpe's careful attribution of the ‘Kakadu songlines’ as Indigenous in origin suggests that he is subtly positioning himself in the cultural and political spectrum. Identification with Aboriginality has arguably benefited him in perpetuating his quintessentially Australian image. Nevertheless, Sculthorpe's persistent fascination with these melodies and his persistent identification with Aboriginal attitudes suggest that a sincere homage to Aboriginal culture is being made. Although Sculthorpe's methods may appear to be vestiges of a bygone era, he has consistently acknowledged his Indigenous sources and heralded Indigenous cultures in Australia and abroad.

Notes

¹ For instance, John Carmody's piece for the Australian Literary Review (2008, 22) was entitled ‘The Sound of Other People's Ideas’ (which may have been an editorial decision). However, Carmody paints a picture of Sculthorpe as a great partygoer with a continual inability to meet deadlines (hence the recycling of material), and suggests that Sculthorpe's cultural prominence has more to do with the fact that he was in the right place at the right time.

² The ‘stolen generation’ refers to people of Aboriginal Australia and Torres Strait Island who, while children, were forcibly removed from their Indigenous families for placement in institutions or foster care. This practice was a matter of public policy in Australia in many jurisdictions until the 1970s. With the best of intentions, Indigenous children were removed when it was deemed that their health was at risk, and half-caste children were routinely removed with a view of assimilating them into white society. These practices were widely attacked in Australia in the 1990s, and were brought to international attention through such films as Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) and Australia (2008). Former Prime Minister John Howard came under intense pressure for refusing to issue a formal government apology, which was finally given by Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2007.

³ In the Mabo vs. Queensland case of 1992, the High Court of Australia (its highest judicial authority) upheld the claim of Eddie ‘Koiki’ Mabo that his people held native title to land in the Torres Strait. This established a precedent that the land title of Indigenous peoples is recognized in common law, thereby undoing the perpetuated legal fiction of ‘Terra Nullius’ (whereby the land was considered to have no owner prior to colonization). This landmark decision was followed by clarifying government legislation in the Native Title Act of 1993, and brought about an avalanche of native title claims across the country. It is widely proclaimed as a turning point in the situation of Indigenous people in Australia.

⁴ Pauline Hanson was elected to the House of Representatives as federal member for Oxley (Queensland) in 1996, but was immediately evicted from the Liberal party (the conservative party in Australian politics, oddly enough) due to her perceived racist comments. Hanson argued that a kind of reverse racism existed in Australia, such that Aboriginals received more benefits than non-Aboriginals. She also attacked multiculturalism and immigration (citing fears that Australia would be swamped by Asians), and advocated protectionist economic policies. Her new hard-right political party ‘One Nation’ became a significant minority party in the Queensland parliament in the 1998 elections. However, Hanson lost her federal seat in October 1998 and the party slipped into disrepute and declining popularity. Continuing to be a controversial figure, she was convicted of electoral fraud in 2003, spent time in jail, but was later acquitted.

⁵ An interesting example of this is the criticism of representations of Aboriginality in the Sydney 2000 games (Barney 2005, 146; Hanna 1999, 15; Godwell 2000, 245).

⁶ For instance, the melody first used in Song of Tailitnama is sourced from the work of A.P. Elkin and Trevor Jones (see Jones 1965, recordings 33 and 76A on the accompanying recording by Elkin). Similarly, Djilile was taken from Jones and Elkin (1956, recordings 24A and 12A). The Torres Strait Dance-Song used so effectively in the guitar concerto Nourlangie, the Torres Strait melody first used in Songs of Sea and Sky, and the Estatico melody in Dream Tracks (not to mention Tropic) were sourced from a recording compiled by Jeremy Beckett (1981). Likewise, the melodic material for Simori (for piano, but also for guitar and flute) was taken from Jaapp Kunst (1967). Likewise, Sculthorpe (1999, 100–1) acknowledges that his imitations of Balinese music were particularly guided by the work of Colin McPhee (1976) and a particular recording entitled The Exotic Sounds of Bali (Hood 1963).

⁷ The Jindyworobak movement was essentially a literary movement in the mid-twentieth century, involving poets such as Rex Ingamells and Ian Mudie.

⁸ The score won the Australian Film Institute's Best Score Award and a Sammy Award for the Best Theme Music.

⁹ Certain pitches from the melody are treated as non-chord tones, and the entire in collection is not always present. But the harmonies are centred on subsets of the in collection, such as [0156] and [0157]. The later tetrachord (which I dub the ‘Kakadu’ chord) is particularly prevalent in Sculthorpe's music of the last several decades. It should not be confused with [0145], which has been dubbed the ‘Woollahra’ chord (after the suburb of the composer's residence). See, for instance, Hayes (1993, 15), where she describes how Sculthorpe's students first coined the expression ‘Woollahra’ chord and its most prominent appearance at the beginning of the Sonatina (1954), where it appears with the pitches G–B–F#–A#. Sculthorpe himself has spoken of the chord (1969, 10), describing it as ‘made up of two pairs of major 7ths superimposed at the interval of a [major] third’ (clearly forming [0145]). Note that Covell cites the ‘Woollahra’ chord in his article on Sculthorpe in Grove Music Online (Covell, c.2001), but his description of it as ‘a stack of 3rds intersected by an augmented 4th’ is inconsistent with the previously published explanations. In contrast, the use of the ‘Kakadu’ chord [0157] is entirely an observation of my own.

¹⁰ In these conversations, Sculthorpe credited Nick Milton (a violinist and, more recently, a conductor) with revealing to him this similarity. At the time, Milton was studying Sculthorpe's string quartets for a PhD dissertation at Columbia University (which he left incomplete). The composer is in print saying much the same.

¹¹ See, for instance, footnote 5.

¹² See also Sculthorpe (2007).

¹³ Indeed, in Sun Music III (1967) he quoted a Balinese melody taken from Colin McPhee's book A House in Bali, a work preceding his larger monograph Music in Bali (McPhee 1976). During the filming of a television documentary, Tabuh Tabuhan, Sculthorpe made personal contact with the composer, Lotring, who becomes a feature of the film.

¹⁴ Rhythmic effects such as this are also commonly seen in American minimalist music.

¹⁵ For instance, it occurs between repetitions of the Torres Strait Dance-Song in Nourlangie (such as two bars before rehearsal mark 15), constituting an insertion among sections exhibiting the Balinese idiom.

¹⁶ Substantiation of this claim (with musical examples) is not possible within the limits of this paper. But a few quick examples could be cited here from Sculthorpe's guitar works. [0157] is frequently heard throughout the opening movement of From Kakadu (1993, for solo guitar) (see, for instance, Figure 9). It is deeply embedded in the Piu mosso section of Into the Dreaming (1995, for solo guitar). In Nourlangie (1989, for guitar and orchestra), [0157] is used between repetitions of the Torres Strait Dance-Song (see footnote 13). It appears as a bridge between the Torres Strait Dance-Song and the ‘Risoluto’ theme (octatonic, with many similarities to the Japanese idiom), such as at mm. 263–6 and 287–8. In Tropic (1992, for two guitars, clarinet, violin, percussion and double bass), [0157] is especially prevalent. It appears in the guitars in the ‘Lontano’ music (which recurs and is developed several times throughout the work). It is also used as a harmonic accompaniment to Djilile throughout the ‘Molto sostenuto’ and is particularly prominent in the several inserted interruptions featuring the Elcho Island Lament (as seen in Figure 8).