Onshore, Offshore, Unsure: Expo ’70 and Peter Sculthorpe’s Journey with Music for Japan

Abstract

Peter Sculthorpe’s Music for Japan was commissioned by the Australian Youth Orchestra for performance at Expo ’70 (1970) in Osaka, Japan, the first World Exposition to be held in Asia. A number of studies have been published that examine the composition’s experimental content but none to date have explored the question of how the work reinforced or otherwise the ethos of Expo ’70, or the rationale for Sculthorpe’s revision of the work around a quarter of a century later. Originally positioned as reflecting Sculthorpe’s interest in the music of Japan and an example of his Euro-Asian aesthetic, the composer felt the need to rework the score in 1996 to allow him to re-affirm his Australianness. The didjeridu became a symbol of that aspiration. Music for Japan is an offshore gift that was revised to make it onshore acceptable (at least to the composer), but the result leaves one unsure about the process.

Notes

¹ Anon., ‘Talented Composer is Inspired by Asia’, QV: Journal for World Travellers 3 (August − September 1970), 11.

² For example, Diana Blom, ‘An Analysis of Music for Japan by Peter Sculthorpe’ (MMus thesis, University of Sydney, 1972); Michael Hannan, Peter Sculthorpe: His Music and Ideas, 1929 − 1979 (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1982); and John Peterson, The Music of Peter Sculthorpe ([Sydney]: Wildbird, 2014).

³ Maurice Roche, ‘Mega-events, Culture and Modernity: Expos and the Origins of Public Culture’, International Journal of Cultural Policy 5/1 (1998), 14.

⁴ See Pieter van Wesemael, Architecture of Instruction and Delight: A Socio-historial Analysis of World Exhibitions as a Didactic Phenomenon (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2001), 24 and 49.

⁵ Japan Association for the 1970 World Exposition, Japan World Exposition Osaka 1970 (Osaka, Japan: Association for the 1970 World Exposition, 1966), [summary page].

⁶ van Wesemael, Architecture of Instruction and Delight, 566ff. and 618.

⁷ Anon., Expo ’70: Official Guide (Kobe, Harold S. Williams, [1970]), 13.

⁸ See van Wesemael, Architecture of Instruction and Delight, 591.

⁹ Peter Blake, ‘Expo 70’, The Architectural Forum 132/3 (April 1970), 41.

¹⁰ Anon., Expo 70 Official Guide, 63.

¹¹ Ibid., 65.

¹² See Carolyn Barnes and Simon Jackson, ‘Creature of Circumstance: Australia’s Pavilion at Expo ’70 and Changing International Relations’, in Proceedings of the XXIVth International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australian and New Zealand, Adelaide, 21 − 23 September 2007 (Accessed July 14, 2015), http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carolyn_Barnes3/publications

¹³ Anon., Expo ’70 Official Guide, 70.

¹⁴ T.K. Morrison, Australia at Expo 70 (Canberra: Commissioner General’s Office, 1970), 4.

¹⁵ John Hinde, ‘Film that Becomes an Environment’, Hemisphere 14/8 (August 1970), 9.

¹⁶ Robin Himbury, The Evolution of the Royal Australian Navy Band: A Chromatic Chronicle (Woollahra: Pacific Books, 2011), 77 − 8.

¹⁷ For a Japanese perspective on the music programmed for Expo ’70, see Amane Kasai, ‘Sound of Post-war Japan: Representation of “Japaneseness” through Music in Osaka Expo ’70’ (conference paper, 3rd IAPMS Conference, 2012) (Accessed 14 July 2105), http://interasiapop.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Sound-of-Post-War-Japan-8B.pdf. Regrettably there is no mention of the Sculthorpe piece or the AYO tour.

¹⁸ Australian Government, ‘For Press: Pm. No. 62/1969’, PM Transcripts (Accessed 2 July 2015), https://pmtranscripts.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/original/00002091.pdf

¹⁹ See Christopher Symons, John Bishop: A life for Music (South Yarra, Vic.: Hyland House, 1989); June Epstein, Concert Pitch: The Story of the National Music Camp Association and the Australian Youth Orchestra (Melbourne: Hyland House, 1984); and Australian Youth Orchestra (Accessed 15 December 2014), www.ayo.com.au/content/through-the-ages/gjhqhl and http://www.ayo.com.au/content/ayo-tour-history/gjsa49

²⁰ Anon., ‘The Australian Youth Orchestra Visit to Osaka Expo ’70’, The Australian Journal of Music Education 6 (April 1970), 51.

²¹ Paul Tanner, ‘Music at Expo ’70’, Music Journal 28/10 (December 1970), 28.

²² Morrison, Australia at Expo 70, 19.

²³ Williams, ‘On being exposed to Expo ’70: the AYO at Osaka’, The Australian Journal of Music Education 7 (October, 1970), 37. Sculthorpe’s piece also required two amplifiers, ‘which took nearly around hour of set up time’. Epstein, Concert Pitch, 89.

²⁴ See Epstein, Concert Pitch, 89; and Morrison, Australia at Expo 70, 20.

²⁵ Morrison, Australia at Expo 70, 20.

²⁶ Peter Sculthorpe, Sun Music: Journeys and Reflections from a Composer’s Life (Sydney: ABC Books, 2000), 140.

²⁷ Morrison, Australia at Expo 70, 20. He also adds (ibid., 23) that ‘some 1,500 Japanese newspaper reports and 141 verified appearances of our staff on national TV’ on Australian Expo activities were referenced by the Australian Expo delegation. I was only able to locate a couple of short preview articles in The Japan Times with only a passing reference to Sculthorpe’s new work. See photo caption, The Japan Times (2 July 1970), 6; and Anon, ‘Australian Youth Orchestra Begins Week-Long Tour Here’, The Japan Times (18 July 1970), 4.

²⁸ See Agnieska Sobocinska, Visiting the Neighbours: Australians in Asia (Sydney: NewSouth, 2014), 11 and 91.

²⁹ Richard White, Inventing Australia (North Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1981), viii.

³⁰Ibid.

³¹ See, for example, Hannan, Peter Sculthorpe; Peterson, Music of Peter Sculthorpe; Robina Rathbone, ‘Asia’s Influence on Australia’s Music’, Hemisphere 14/12 (December 1970), 27 − 30; and Roger Covell, Australia’s Music: Themes for a New Society (Melbourne: Sun Books, 1967), 287 − 90.

³² Anthropologist Mary Louise Pratt coined the term ‘contact zone’ to indicate spaces where understanding between peoples could develop. Pratt uses travel writing as an example. This idea could easily be mediated to include Asian-influenced music from composers such as Sculthorpe, Meale, Conyngham and later Anne Boyd. See Sobocinska, Visiting the Neighbours, 7.

³³ Sculthorpe papers, Series 13, Box 55, Folder 3, National Library of Australia (NLA), MS9676.

³⁴ See Sculthorpe, Sun Music, 128.

³⁵ Sculthorpe papers, Series 13, Box 58, Folder 62, NLA, MS9676.

³⁶ Japanese National Commission for Unesco, Proceedings of the International Round Table on the Relations Between Japanese and Western Arts (Tokyo: Japanese National Commission for Unesco, 1969), [Foreword].

³⁷Ibid., 160.

³⁸ Sculthorpe, Sun Music, 131.

³⁹ Sculthorpe papers, Series 13, Box 58, Folder 62, NLA, MS9676.

⁴⁰ Sculthorpe, Sun Music, 138. For a thumbnail sketch of Sculthorpe and his relationship with Japan, see James Barratt, ‘Down Under Music with Asian Flair’, The Japan Times (5 December 1999) (Accessed 14 July 2015), http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/1999/12/05/music/down-under-music-with-asian-flair/#.VaRVVvmqpBc

⁴¹ Sculthorpe Papers, Series 1, Box 1, Folder 9, NLA, MS9676.

⁴² Graeme Skinner, Peter Sculthorpe: The Making of an Australian Composer (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007), 552.

⁴³ Sculthorpe Papers, Series 12, Box 53, Folder 17, NLA, MS9676.

⁴⁴ Sculthorpe, Sun Music, 140.

⁴⁵ Peterson, Music of Peter Sculthorpe, 140

⁴⁶ See ibid.

⁴⁷ Reginald Smith Brindle, Serial Composition (London: Oxford University Press, 1966/1969), 15 − 16. For brief introductions to Nono’s Canto sospeso, amongst many others, see Smith Brindle, ‘Current Chronicle: Italy’, Musical Quarterly, XLVII/2 (1961), 247 − 55; and Christopher Fox, ‘Luigi Nono and the Darmstadt School: Form and Meaning in the Early Works (1950 − 1959)’, Contemporary Music Review 18/2 (1999), 111 − 30.

⁴⁸ Sculthorpe’s row is only slightly adjusted from Nono’s by octave displacement of the seventh and ninth pitches. It first appears in the second violins as E, F, Eb, F#, D, G, Db, Ab, C, A natural, Cb, Bb. Blom, ‘Analysis of Music for Japan’, 56; and Hannan, Peter Sculthorpe, 93.

⁴⁹ Hannan, Peter Sculthorpe, 68; and Jonathan Paget, ‘Has Sculthorpe Misappropriated Indigenous Melodies?’, Musicology Australia 35/1 (2013), 90.

⁵⁰ Paget, ‘Has Sculthorpe Misappropriated Indigenous Melodies’, 90 and 109.

⁵¹ See Blom, ‘Analysis of Music for Japan’, 57 − 69.

⁵² Sculthorpe, Sun Music, 147.

⁵³ Skinner, Peter Sculthorpe, 554.

⁵⁴ Peterson, Music of Peter Sculthorpe, 140

⁵⁵ See Skinner, Peter Sculthorpe, 554; and Hannan, Peter Sculthorpe, 92.

⁵⁶ I have had to rely here on English-language reviews. There was nothing of consequence in Sculthorpe’s papers in the NLA that revealed any Japanese perspective.

⁵⁷ Maria Prerauer, ‘Composers Allsorts’, Nation (6 March 1971), 17.

⁵⁸ See Felix Werder, ‘They’re a Credit to Australia’, The Age (26 May 1970), 2; and Linda Phillips, ‘A Triumph for Youth’, Sun (26 May 1970), 38.

⁵⁹ John Sinclair, ‘His Dream a Success’, The Herald (26 May 1970), 13; and David Ahern, ‘Orchestra, Conductor “Brilliant”’, Daily Telegraph (12 February 1971), 30 (bold title in the review).

⁶⁰ See Peterson, Music of Peter Sculthorpe, 146.

⁶¹ A summary of Sculthorpe’s Australian aesthetic up to the 1990s can be found in Deborah Hayes, Peter Sculthorpe: A Bio-bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993), 4 − 34.

⁶² Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Edo de Waart, ABC Classics 4545132, 1996; and HMV (EMI Australia) SOELP9721, 1970. See Sculthorpe Papers, Series 10, Folio Box 16, Folder 173, NLA, MS9676.

⁶³ Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Edo de Waart, ABC Classics 4811293, 2014.

⁶⁴ Sculthorpe, Sun Music, 139.

⁶⁵ Roger Covell, Sydney Morning Herald (TV supplement) (18 November 1996), 10; Laurie Strachan, The Weekend Australian (review supplement) (21 December 1996), 13; and Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone (Accessed July 06, 2105), www.gramophone.co.uk/review/sculthorpe-orchestral-works

⁶⁶ Chris Dench, ‘Orchestral CD Reviews’, Soundscapes (February–March 1997), 56.

⁶⁷ For a more detailed discussion of this work, see Joel Crotty, ‘Sextet for Didjeridu and Wind Instruments: Sonic Journeys through Black and White Soundscapes’, in Being George and Liking it!, Reflections on the Life and Work of George Dreyfus on his 70th Birthday (Richmond: Allans Publishing, 1998), 27 − 41.

⁶⁸ Sculthorpe, Music for Japan, programme note, Australian Music Centre, Sculthorpe files (bold in the original). How this note was distributed at the Expo concerts is not clear.

⁶⁹ Philip Hayward and Karl Neuenfeldt, ‘One Instrument, Many Voices’, in The Didjeridu: from Arnhem Land to Internet, ed. Karl Neuenfeldt (Sydney, Perfect Beat Publications, 1997), 4.

⁷⁰ Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Edo de Waart, ABC Classics 4811293, 2014 (italics in original).

⁷¹ Hannan, Peter Sculthorpe, 70.

⁷² See Del Sol Quartet with Stephen Kent (didjeridu), Sculthorpe: The Complete String Quartets with Didjeridu, Sono Luminus, DSL − 92181, 2014. See also Anon., ‘Solo for Didgeridoo’, The Age (8 May 2005) (Accessed 17 September 2014), http://www.theage.com.au/news/Arts/Solo-for-Didgeridoo/2005/05/05/1115092620980.html

⁷³ Jonathan Paget, ‘Has Sculthorpe Misappropriated Indigenous Melodies?’, 89.

⁷⁴ See, for example, Sounds Australian 22 (Winter 1989), 4–6.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joel Crotty

Joel Crotty is a member of the academic staff of the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University.