Peter Sculthorpe. Photo by Peter Hislop
The music of Peter Sculthorpe (born Launceston 29 April 1929 – died Sydney 8 August 2014) has influenced three generations of Australians more deeply than we perhaps realise. His compositions elicit strong responses from listeners and this is perhaps his greatest achievement: his bold claim – that he was a composer whose music articulated the Australian voice – made people listen, question, feel and respond powerfully to his music and that of his peers. Sculthorpe became, in his own lifetime, a revered and well-loved national figure and cultural ambassador, Australia’s best known classical composer on the world stage.
Sculthorpe maintained an active relationship with the NFSA, established and fostered by the then NFSA Head of National Cultural Programs, Vincent Plush. A distinguished composer in his own right, Plush acknowledges his debt to Sculthorpe’s creative influence.
In later years Sculthorpe became the Patron of Sounds of Australia, the NFSA’s selection of sound recordings with curatorial, historical and aesthetic significance which inform and reflect life in Australia. In 2007 he nominated for the Registry a recording made by Aboriginal tenor Harold Blair of the Maranoa Lullaby, a traditional Aboriginal song.
The melody from the Maranoa Lullaby was reinterpreted in several of his own works including one for solo cello, which was especially composed to launch the Sounds of Australia project at Parliament House in 2007.
