Search - John Williams :: From Australia

Australian Classical Music

Drs. V.F. van Dijk | Hilversum Netherlands | 02/22/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"How Australian can Australian get? Mix an australian world-leading guitarplayer with an all-Australian (chamber) orchestra and all-Australian classical composers (!!!) and get an all-Australian sound!!! Love it!!!I'm very fond of the sound of the Australian Chamber Orchestra - I heard and saw them perform live in Amsterdam with John Williams - and here they play an unimitable, gorgeous sound by Peter Sculthorpe called 'Nourlangie'. I wrote 'sound' for though it is music indeed, it portrays the soundscape of Nourlangie, as heard and translated into music by Peter. And it is so beautiful!!! Nothing I ever heard before in my life compares to that sound. It takes you along like in a dream by means of hypnotic, exciting, staggering sounds and rhythms.Antartica is music to a japanese IMAX-movie and was rescored for orchestra and guitar by Nigel Westlake - the guitar-version never made it to the IMAX-theatre, though. I've never seen the movie.From Kakadu and Into the Dreaming are two works for solo guitar by Peter Sculthorpe. Again, they're extraordinary gems in their frasings, expressions and rhythms, very difficult to perform! But then, John Williams plays it... giving you a sense of low-selfesteem... Into the Dreaming is an elegy to the remembrance of Maggie Hemingway. In the last bars she rises up to the Australian Heavens by means of a slow and almost fading ascending line.I recommend this CD to anyone who loves Australia(ns) and to persons who definitely would like to hear 'something else' than Mozart - or even Crowded House for that sake!"