Peter Constant, A Sympathetic Resonance
Published: 2007 Author: Peter Constant
MAY I begin by apologising to those good people on ‘the continent’ charged with the task of translating my (ab)use of the English language, here gracing your pages for the first time.[ *] Actually, my current struggle to master the guttural utterances of the Dutch tongue might have been avoided if those early explorers from The Netherlands had determined that my homeland was suitable for growing coffee. As it was, Australia was settled by the English from 1788, with transportation mainly reserved for their most unsavoury types. Some of us have escaped. Actually, being here in the low countries has shed some new light on this whole coffee thing, and also on what it is we guitarists do differently downunder. Due to its unique place in the world, Australia is at this time a natural breeding ground for artistic innovation. In a wave of enthusiasm for the instrument, the guitar has played a prominent role in this. I’ve borrowed the title of Mark Pollard’s guitar solo, A Sympathetic Resonance, to allude to the stunning music and instruments as well as to the spirit of working together which has helped propagate this wealth of activity.
…But first, since EGTA’s brief is primarily educational, a glimpse at the guitar scene in Australia seems wanting: There are a handful of dedicated guitar societies whose fortunes wax and wane but good communication and combining resources have made it increasingly possible for a plethora of home-grown and international artists to tour the enormous land. The wonderful Darwin International Guitar Festival has had a major impact and is also a biennial opportunity for everyone to spend many a pleasant tropical evening catching up over a few ‘lotions’. Tuition delivery has commonalities with both the UK and mainland Europe: ‘Regional Conservatoriums’ in smaller centres compare to Europe’s city-run music schools; however, private tuition and music programmes in schools, both state and private, take care of the lion’s share. The Australian Music Examinations Board offers graded exams and diplomas similar to the Associated Board, Trinity, or the Guildhall in the UK. AMEB exams provide a useful role in national benchmarking and are a valuable goal for students. The syllabus includes many Australian works. In the tertiary sector, one recently accredited private institution, The Australian Institute of Music (which incidentally began life as the Sydney School of Guitar), is an exception to the norm of government-funded conservatories and university faculties of music. In my student days, these main performance institutions employed the mainstay performer/teachers. This culture, though, is changing, with funding cuts making it ever more difficult for staff to sustain extensive performing activities alongside the increasing demands of academic life. At the same time, Australia’s rapidly growing population and its sharp move towards commercialisation in all things is creating new possibilities for performers to eke out a living without an academic salary. Extraordinary examples of this are Slava Grygorian and Karin Schaupp, two outstanding young talents, picked up from left-field by multinational recording companies and made, overnight, into virtual household names. Yes, this dream does actually come true from time to time! This built immeasurably on decades of high public profile for the guitar in Australia, perpetuated largely by the country’s own talents, including (of course) John Williams, Timothy Kain, Guitar Trek and others, constantly active in major and smaller venues alike.
While fearful of leaving friends and colleagues off the list, a few special mentions seem unavoidable. The Canberra School of Music commands enormous respect for its programme of first rate, well-rounded guitar education from early childhood to final graduation. Demands are high, in line with the realities of the profession. In the state of Western Australia the extensive guitar orchestra programme in high schools peaks in a combined ensemble Guitarstrophy, the equal of any of its type in the world. The mixed contemporary ensemble Elision (its driving force, guitarist Daryl Buckley) has a solid international reputation for its work in New Complexity music; its championing of composer Liza Lim bridges Asian and European traditions. One last thing here: inseparable from the colour and resonance of recent Australian guitar music are developments in guitar-making. A true ‘bush genius’, it is widely considered that Greg Smallman has made the most significant advance in classical guitar construction for a century and a half. Armed with an open mind, a love of music and knowledge of model aeroplane design, Smallman abandoned the fan-braced structure of the classical guitar top, replacing it with a balsa/carbon fibre lattice whose strength makes it possible for the soundboard to be a fraction of the thickness of the traditional design. This allows for far greater responsiveness, richness of tone and volume. Many of the world’s leading players are succumbing to the advantages of this new design and many luthiers, particularly in Australia, are now adopting Smallman principles either whole-heartedly or in part.
Marion Schaap and I (Z.o.o. guitar duo) live in Almere, a polder city just twenty minutes from Amsterdam (and a few metres the wrong side of sea level), but trying to get hardened Amsterdammers to visit us ‘way out here’ is rather like trying to prise chewing gum off your shoe. Obviously, distances are a matter of perception. However, real distance dominates Australia—big country, long way from anywhere, not many people. As an ozzie who’s travelled a bit, I can report that one ceases to notice this after a while. In the jet-age, distances become measured not in actual terms but by hours spent sitting in a chair. To get to Australia from here (Europe) you just sit for a day. Further, technology, especially the Internet, makes it possible to connect with Australia as easily as with someone in your own street. Still, these are recent aids, so I try not to be too surprised when people seem to know so little about us antipodeans. For instance, with due respect to the brave exploits of Steve Irwin, ‘crocodile hunter’, the majority of Australians do not face being eaten by large reptiles in daily life. Australia is in fact amongst a butcher’s left-handful of the world’s most urbanised, not to mention multicultural societies. Allaying myths aside, the reassessment of links to our European, especially English, heritage is a burning issue for Australia these days. And where political change sometimes lags behind, artists are frequently the first to pose questions regarding the country’s identity, and this naturally includes looking more closely at its indigenous roots and at our relationship with geographical neighbours in Asia.
So to the crux of this blurb (and if you disagree with me, just remember I’ve been upside-down most of my life!). The idea that ‘composer is God’, manifested in a divergence of roles between performer and composer, is merely a temporary aberration in the history of western music. It sprung in part from an emerging ‘museum culture’ as well as from the rise of the virtuoso who was too busy meeting ever-increasing performance standards to learn how to compose. It ain’t necessarily so in music of other cultures, nor was it so in Europe’s musical culture until recently. But this being the case, the role of player as collaborator is today as crucial as it is rewarding. For our art to develop, composers and performers must continually reinform each other. Australians, coming from a ‘moderate’ society with a relatively open future, seem to excel in this role. Invariably, composers particularly welcome input on the idiosyncrasies of our peculiar instrument. In offering this, I personally try to maintain no strong opinion about musical style. If a composer whom I respect writes complex music then I’ll give it my best shot. However if recording new-age melodies to a click track is what’s required then, well…it’s my job. Two hundred years ago it would likely also have been my job to compose, arrange, write studies for my students, improvise, play a couple of other instruments, etc, etc. A colleague of some standing in the European new music scene recently commented that they would never refuse to play a piece: they owe it to the composer to at least give the first performance. Hmm, I myself would say that we owe it in the first instance to our audiences to present to the best of our ability music which has something to say. I’m not personally in the business of learning several hours of music every year for reasons to do with ego or politics. I have refused to play many pieces. Once I take a piece on, it’s likely to receive dozens of performances—if it’s not working, it gets dropped. Music professionals all want the same thing—to get their art across effectively to a good number of people. All composers, no matter how idealistic, want at the end of the day nothing more than for their music to be heard.
I remember Leo Kottke once saying in concert, after a piece of his own making was not having one of its better days, ‘Just ’cos it’s atonal doesn’t mean it’s good.’ In my short time in Holland I seem to have encountered more than a few pasty-skinned ‘composer types’ (usually dressed in black) who would disagree with him. I shan’t for a second propose that all Australian music should be about kangaroos and sunny horizons, only that in a country so keenly re-assessing its culture, everything should be, and is being, explored. In the nineties it became more ‘acceptable’ for the classical guitar to express its eclectic roots. As a snooty student in the late eighties I remember being critical that John Williams had spent so much energy mucking around with rock bands, folk groups, playing Latin American ‘ditties’, etc, whilst Julian Bream had done the important work of commissioning ‘serious’ composers. But it becomes ever clearer that Williams’ work is a microcosm of a gradual de-Europeanisation of ‘concert music’, and in this way his commitment to fostering new Australian music seems increasingly relevant and valuable. My own work has ranged from collaborations with Mark Pollard (whose ambient minimalism is derived from the world of the Indonesian gamelan and a belief in the universal consciousness) to John Plankenhorn (whose stringent post-Boulez modernism moves ever more in the direction of Frank Zappa). Poles apart—quite a juggling act at times! Most of Australia’s ‘name’ composers have written major works for the guitar. Peter Sculthorpe, the ‘big daddy’ of Australian music, was among the first to genuinely explore Australian sentiments in his compositions—vastness, stillness, flatness, a predilection for colour and resonance over ‘Western’ tonal/harmonic tensions. The guitar has been central to Sculthorpe’s recent output. Nigel Westlake, Ross Edwards, Gerard Brophy, Larry Sitsky, Phillip Brachanin, Colin Brumby, Donald Hollier, Mark Pollard, are among well-established composers to have written excellent guitar concertos. Of guitar specialists, Richard Charlton, is quite prolific and possesses great skill in orchestrating for multiple pluckers. Phillip Houghton is a particularly popular ‘niche’ guitar composer whose unique musical voice draws on the Australian landscape, art, mythology and the aboriginal didgeridu plays a central role. An exhaustive list would take up too much space here but the depth of quality within a range of styles in Australian guitar music both solo and ensemble is now most impressive.
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A few relevant recordings
John Williams. From Australia · The Mantis and the Moon · The Guitarist (Sony)
Timothy Kain..The Mantis and the Moon · Anthology of Australian Music, vol. 11 (CSM)
Guitar Trek. Guitar Trek · Guitar Trek 2 · Guitar Trek 3 (ABC Classics/Polygram)
Guitarstrophy. Birds of Paradise (independent)
Raffaelle Agostino. Whispering (independent)
Byzantine/Mallon duo. Music of the New Worlds (Walsingham)
Karin Schaupp. Soliloquy (Sony)
Matthew Marshall. Legends of Fire (Waiata – New Zealand)
Ken Murray. Between Earth and Air (CRC – UK)
Mark Viggiani. The Rainmaker (Move)
Elision (numerous)
Libra Ensemble. Redror (Move)
Sydney Mandolins (numerous)
Nigel Westlake. Onomatopoeia (Tall Poppies)
Z.o.o. guitar duo. Light on the Edge (Move) · Dusting Off Roses (Move)
Peter Constant. A Sympathetic Resonance (Move)