Landscapes

The word “Landscape” is believed to have emerged from late sixteenth century genre of Dutch art depicting ‘a rural, agricultural, or natural scene’ (Wilson & Groth, 2003, pp. 2-3) with certain typical features. This origin in art gives an insight to the contemporary meaning of the word in cultural literature, which refers not so much to a natural object, for example a scenic vista, itself, but rather the cultural representation or imagining referential to that object; thus Chris Wilson and Paul Groth state: ‘The long and varied careers of the word Landscape in English, and of its cognates in other Northern European languages, have centered on the human shaping of space and also on the dynamic interaction of actual places with mental or visual images of place’ (Wilson & Groth, 2003, p. 2). Curatorially, in this performance of Australian works for piano trio, I use the title Landscapes to encapsulate musical depictions of nature, and music inspired by the sensory experience or cultural imagining of the natural world.

Landscapes was held on the evening of 15 October 2020, once more at the Ian Hanger Recital Hall. I (Maree Kilpatrick) was joined again by Jason Tong (violin) and Kirsten Tong (cello) in performing movements i & iii of Ross Edwards’ Piano trio; From Irkanda III by Peter Sculthorpe; A thousand cranes beat their wings by Duncan Gardiner; Coral Fantasy by Wendy Hiscocks; and The year without a summer by Stuart Greenbaum.

The curation of Landscapes was as follows. To prelude the performance, we ran slideshow of birdsong field recordings and photography that I (Maree Kilpatrick) collected across eastern Australia, while the audience was settling. After the musicians entered, and a brief introduction, we performed the first and third movements of the Edwards, which segued beautifully from the nature sounds/birdsong of the prelude. Instead of speaking, the performance was guided by program notes and a powerpoint presentation featuring more field recordings, photography and artwork together with brief blurbs about the context of each work. For example, to prelude the Sculthorpe work, I had a somewhat eerie night-time recording of mopokes and possums screeching from the Consuello Tablelands near Carnarvon Gorge, central Queensland. To prelude Gardiner’s work, we played a television news report of the unfolding 2011 Japanese Tsunami Disaster. Hiscock’s Coral Fantasy was accompanied by Youtube video footage of a coral reef and Greenbaum’s The year without a summer featured a photo of the crater of Mt Tambora as well as artwork of the eruption from that time. In addition to the powerpoint, we constructed a rockery display featuring mudstone rocks, branches and bark from my mother’s property near Kingaroy, SE Queensland, and potted flowering Australian native plants.

Note: live recordings of the individual works are included on their pages, under featured works; but due to copyright restrictions I am unable to share a recording of the whole event.