Star Chant

ROSS EDWARDSSYMPHONIES 1 AND 4

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ROSS EDWARDS b. 1943

1 Symphony No. 1 ‘Da pacem Domine’ 27’20

Symphony No. 4 ‘Star Chant’ [32’36]2 I. The Northern Sky – 17’17 3 II. The Southern Sky 15’19

Adelaide Chamber Singers (Carl Crossin director)Adelaide Philharmonia Chorus (Timothy Sexton director)

Total Playing Time 60’00

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

Richard Mills conductor

In 1982 composer Ross Edwards was sitting ona bus trying to think of a way to describe hislatest work, the Piano Concerto. The task wasmore than usually difficult as Edwards hadproduced a work atypical of his own currentstyle and defiantly at odds with modernistorthodoxy. After study with Peter Sculthorpe inSydney, and with Richard Meale, Peter MaxwellDavies and Sandor Veress in Adelaide, Edwardshad beaten the familiar path to the UnitedKingdom where he was forced to confront hisrelationship to the music of the European avant-garde. His deep feeling of alienation from thataesthetic led to a crisis in the early 1970s fromwhich issued what some commentatorsdescribe as Edwards’ ‘sacred style’. Edwardsexplained to composer Andrew Ford that hiswork to that point had been ‘very neurotic. And Iwanted to calm down; I wanted to gradually findanother language.’ Born of an immersion inEastern philosophy, notably Zen Buddhism, andthe contemplation of environmental sounds inbushland near the central New South Walestown of Pearl Beach, Edwards’ ‘sacred’ works, oras he better describes them, ‘objects of musicalcontemplation’, eschew traditional Westernprocesses of melody and harmony, developmentand elaboration, make intense use of silence andthe hypnotic power of repetition, and create asense of existing outside time.

But later in the 1970s Edwards had had anotherdefining moment, this time a powerful

experience of the joy of physical existence. Therealisation that he had the ‘privilege of living in aparadise of sun-blessed ocean and joyouslyshrieking parrots gyrating in the warm air’ ledEdwards to a new manner, known as his‘maninya’ style (from a non-signifying text thathe wrote for one of the early works of this type).Here the music is active, full of dance rhythms,happily using an open-hearted tonal or modalharmony, and the Piano Concerto was just sucha piece. Sitting on the bus in 1982, Edwardswrote that the traditional simplicity of the workwas ‘an absolutely one-off, I’m never going towrite a piece like this again.’ Famous last words, as the Piano Concerto (though sinceextensively re-worked) laid the foundation for arapprochement with the tradition of Westernmusic which has since borne fruit in a series of substantial orchestral works including five symphonies.

A century ago, two of the greatest symphonistsof their time had a famous conversation. JeanSibelius maintained that a symphony must beself-contained, explicable only in terms of itsinternal formal logic. Gustav Mahler demurred,insisting that it must be like the world andembrace everything. Despite prophecies of itsdoom, the symphony has remained a crucial partof Western music since then, with Australiancomposers like Carl Vine, Brenton Broadstockand Edwards contributing a body of work in theform. Where Vine’s tend to be exquisitely

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wrought, abstract ‘classical’ works, Broadstock’sand Edwards’ symphonies all embrace the worldin some way. The aesthetic and political programin Edwards’ work is clear given that three of hisfive symphonies contain a crucial textual element.

Edwards’ Symphony No. 1, Da pacem Domine,which was composed in 1991, has no vocalcomponent but embraces the world through itsreferences to a fragment of Gregorian chant. Twomajor events helped shape the work: the firstGulf Crisis, which led to military intervention inKuwait in January of that year; and the mortalillness of conductor Stuart Challender, ChiefConductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestraand champion of new music, to whom the workis dedicated. In his own program note for thepremiere performance (by the West AustralianSymphony Orchestra under Jorge Mester)Edwards wrote:

A large, monolithic single movement, theSymphony evolves slowly and organically over adeep, insistent rhythmic pulse. It is thus, ineffect, a sort of massive orchestral chant of quietintensity into which my subjective feelings ofgrief and foreboding about some of the greatthreats to humanity: war, pestilence andenvironmental devastation, have been subsumedinto the broader context of ritual. And although itis manifestly more architectonic than some of myother ‘contemplative’ music, the Symphony isdesigned to create a sense of timelessness

associated with certain Oriental and MediaevalWestern musical genres. A hymn-like episodebased on a fragment of the plainsong Da pacemDomine (Give peace, Lord) gives the work its title.

The work begins quietly, in the lower regions ofthe orchestra, with the insistent figure of asemitone rising and falling, as if struggling forexpression. The orchestral texture very graduallygains mass, building to rich, fully-scoredstatements of the material derived from theplainchant. The harmonic language of the work issimple and modal, occasionally recalling some ofthe luminous textures of Vaughan Williams. Ascomposer Paul Stanhope has noted, theSymphony is an example of ‘sacred style’ in its‘brooding and quiet nature’ but its harmonybrings it closer to that of the ‘maninya’ pieces.For all its simplicity, however, the Symphonynever quite slips the surly bonds of earth.Embodying the unsung chant, the tutti sectionsare satisfyingly climactic but the piece as awhole, rather like the final pages of Britten’s WarRequiem, never quite achieves musicalresolution. In fact the work has a kind of archshape, ending, as it began, in the depths. AsEdwards has said in an interview with the ABC’sRachel Kohn, ‘I tried to transcend all these darkfeelings in the piece. And at moments I mayhave, but it sort of goes black at the end, andpeople get very upset by it.’ The symphony is aprayer for peace, not a description of peacehaving been achieved.

A decade later, Edwards completed hisSymphony No. 4, Star Chant. In the interim hehad produced his Second, Earth Spirit Song,with texts for solo soprano by the medievalmystic Hildegard of Bingen and Australian poetJudith Wright, and his Third, Mater Magna, a‘meditation on the need for ecological re-balancing’. It seems almost inevitable, then, thathaving essayed the pessimistic world-view of Dapacem Domine, and our relationship to thephysical world in the subsequent two works,Edwards should turn his attention to the widercosmos as he does in Star Chant. The composerhas noted that:

to William Blake, the stars were coldly andlogically Satanic. To the Australian Aboriginalpeoples they have been familiar, meaningful andultimately benevolent. And indeed, to mostcultures the night sky has always abounded inhuman drama and symbolism: the strikingsummertime constellation of Orion, for example,represented an intrepid hunter in many diversesocieties. And the Pleiades – which the Greeksmythologised as seven sisters changed first intodoves and then stars – have also receivedstartlingly parallel interpretations in various partsof the world. If anything can reconcile thehuman inhabitants of this planet, it may well beour eventual recognition that under the canopyof the night sky we are all equal: how couldegos that prance absurdly in the daylight fail tobe awed and humbled by the magnificence of

the stars – if it were not for the light pollution of our cities?

The seed for this work was planted whenEdwards accompanied a group of astronomersto outback Queensland on a stargazingexpedition, and it was Fred Watson, Astronomer-in-charge at the Anglo-Australian Telescope, whoprovided a kind of ‘map’, ‘The Astronomy of StarChant ’, which the symphony follows and whichgives it its form. Watson writes:

This musical fusion of art and sciencerepresents a journey through Australia’s nightskies. It celebrates the stars in Western andAboriginal culture with names taken from bothancient European legend and the Dreamtimestories of many different Indigenous peoples...The work begins with four stars that form partof the far-northern constellation of Ursa Major(the Great Bear). They steal unnoticed acrossAustralia’s northern horizons on chilly autumnnights, and their appearance in the symphonyevokes a sense of mystery that permeates allthe star-patterns of the northern sky. But thisenigmatic music is eventually transformed intoan extended climax as the Pleiades and Hyades star-clusters herald the constellation ofOrion. The brilliant star-fields in this part of thesky are rich in Aboriginal legend, and arecelebrated in the symphony with a giganticorchestral and choral tutti that the composermarks as ‘sparkling’.

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Immediately afterwards, we cross the celestialequator – the imaginary line in space thatdivides the northern and southern hemispheresof the sky. Edwards draws a sustained blade ofsound through the heavens as the Earth turnsponderously beneath. And then, on, to thesouthern constellations: Hydra the water-snake(whose head is Unwala the crab to the people ofGroote Eylandt) and Scorpius, the glitteringscorpion of the sky that is also the Aboriginalcrocodile Ingalpir.

There is only one object in Star Chant thatcannot be seen with the naked eye, for it isnearly a thousand times too faint for humanvision. Proxima Centauri is among the leastluminous stars known, but it is also the Sun’sclosest neighbour in interstellar space. Edwardsserenades our tiny companion in the Universewith an a cappella lullaby of exquisite beauty.

In contrast, Canopus, second-brightest star inthe sky (and Wahn the crow to Aborigines) is agateway to the far-southern constellations ofCrux Australis and Centaurus, whose brilliancehas inspired a wealth of Dreamtime stories.Crux (the Southern Cross) is one of Australia’sbest-loved icons and, intermingled with itsancient Aboriginal counterparts, becomes ahymn of reconciliation in the symphony’sglorious climax.

There remains but one final step in the journey.Low in the south and seemingly unnoticed byAborigines is a faint star that marks the apex of

the entire sky – the southern polar star. LonelySigma Octantis remains fixed in position, neverrising or setting. Its veiled tones echo themystery of Star Chant’s opening, bringing thisradiant work to a subdued close.

Star Chant has a similar trajectory to Da pacemDomine; both begin quietly with prominent useof the quietly insistent rising and fallingsemitone and both end in, as Watson notes,‘subdued’ fashion. But where the earlier work isgrounded in human ritual, Star Chant evokes the(to us) timeless repetitions of the ‘majesticclockwork’; unlike Da pacem Domine, Star Chantfinds a place for passages of extravagant,glittering energy.

The work requires a chorus who sing the names– in the languages of various cultures – of thecelestial features depicted in the music:

Alioth, Mizar, Alkaid, Alcor.

Capella: Purra. Deneb: Woorbrady. Lyra: Neilloan; Vega: Boi-Boi. Aquila: Totyarguil; Altair: Ku-ur-rook.

Arcturus: Marpeankurrk. Delphinus: Otchocut.

Pleiades: Meamei; Aldebaran: Karambal. Aldebaran: Gellarec. Procyon: Beegerer.

Pleiades, Hyades, Orion: Tjilpuna. Orion: Njiru; Pleiades: Kungkarungkara.

Hydra: Unwala. Spica: Gurie. Sirius: Warepil. Fomalhaut: Gani.

Antares: Djuit; Scorpius: Ingalpir. Antares: Alkarinja. Archernar: Agnura.

Proxima Centauri, Proxima Centauri.

Canopus: Wahn. Crux Australis: Waluwara; Crux Australis: Yaraan-do; Crux Australis:

Wanamoumitja. Crux, Centaurus: Iritjinga; Crux, Centaurus:

Mirrabooka.

Sigma Octantis, Sigma Octantis.

Edwards explained to Rachel Kohn:

You’ve got the Indigenous peoples’ view of thesky, of the southern sky specifically, and also theEuropean and Arabic words for our local sky.And [Fred Watson] put them side by side, whichI thought was a wonderful idea. So I made itinto a chant in which these words are literallyjust repeated with appropriate music in thebackground. Had I done it any other way, itwouldn’t have made sense to me. It really goesback to the piece I wrote in 1986 or 1987, called

Flower Songs. Again I was stuck for a text. Itwas a commission from the Sydney ChamberChoir and I just grabbed a book of Australianwildflowers, and took some of the names that Iliked out of it. And so it was a piece which forme was about flowers, but it wasn’t descriptive,it was just chanting the names. And I did thesame with the sky.

Edwards is far from being arch here. His‘chanting the names’ has a ritual element, andfor him both ritual and music are about healing.Contemplation of the heavens is a cure for those‘egos that prance absurdly in the daylight’sowing conflict; this work, dedicated toEdwards’ wife Helen, is also perhaps a reminderof Dante’s sublime final image in the DivineComedy of ‘the love that moves the sun andother stars’.

Gordon KerryFred Watson’s The Astronomy of Star Chant ©2001 is used by kind permission of the author.

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Adelaide Chamber Singers

Artistic Director and Conductor – Carl Crossin

Adelaide Chamber Singers (ACS) has been anenergetic and innovative contributor to musicmaking in Adelaide for over twenty years.Formed in 1985 by Carl Crossin, the choircomprises some of Adelaide’s best and mostexperienced ensemble singers, some of whomare also soloists and/or conductors in their ownright. The choir has built a substantial reputationwherever it has performed – locally, nationallyand internationally – and is widely regarded asone of Australia’s leading chamber choirs.

Although essentially a chamber ensemble ofbetween ten and sixteen singers, ACSoccasionally augments its membership up to 40voices in order to present larger-scale works andto continue its highly successful relationship withthe Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Thesecollaborations have included a diverse range ofmusic by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Cherubini,Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Copland, Pärt andMessiaen, as well as the world premieres ofRoss Edwards’ Symphony No. 4 Star Chant andPeter Sculthorpe’s Requiem. Adelaide ChamberSingers also made its film debut in 2003 in thePaul Cox film Human Touch.

Within Australia, Adelaide Chamber Singers hasperformed at a number of Australia’s majorfestivals including the Melbourne, Perth andAdelaide Festivals, the Barossa Music Festival,

and the national Choralfest. ACS has also touredBritain, Norway, Singapore, Japan and NorthAmerica, and in 2006 undertook its sixthinternational tour, with performances at majorchoral festivals in the United States and Canada,and at the Cambridge Summer Music Festival inEngland. While in Canada, the ACS was giventhe ‘Choir of the World at Kathaumixw 2006’award at the International Choral Kathaumixw inBritish Columbia. Adelaide Chamber Singers hasalso represented Australia at both the Asia SouthPacific Symposium on Choral Music in Singaporein 2001 and the Sixth World Symposium onChoral Music in the USA in 2002.

Sopranos Altos

Hannah Bleby Christie AndersonGreta Bradman Penny DallyEmma Horwood Anna PopeGemma Munro Jennifer TranterSheila McCarthy

Tenors Basses

Anthony Hunt Christopher GuntnerPatrick Lim David HaytonBernard Mageean Alan McKieMartin Penhale Jeffrey Oates

Timothy Sexton

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The Adelaide Philharmonia Chorus

The Adelaide Philharmonia Chorus is the premierlarge choir in South Australia, singing a range ofclassical music from 15th-century works throughthe major classical composers to contemporarypieces. The APC frequently performs with theAdelaide Symphony Orchestra and has been amajor body involved in choral productions at theAdelaide Festival.

The Chorus’s Music Directors have includedElizabeth Silsbury, Graham Abbott, Russell Larkinand current incumbent Timothy Marks. Thisrecording was made during the tenure ofTimothy Sexton, Musical Director from 2000 to2005; during that period Adelaide PhilharmoniaChorus began to explore a range of newcollaborations, most notably with the AdelaideSymphony Orchestra and State Opera of SouthAustralia. These have included Orff’s Carminaburana and Fauré’s Requiem in an Australianpremiere of these pieces as staged works withThe Australian Ballet, and the Verdi Requiem andMascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana. In 2001 the APCgave the first South Australian performance inmore than forty years of Honegger’s King David.

Other highlights have included the premiere ofWendy Hiscocks’ Love Falls (an AdelaidePhilharmonia Chorus commission); the SouthAustralian premiere of Handel’s oratorio Joshua,in collaboration with the Adelaide UniversityChoral Society and the Adelaide Art Orchestra;

appearances at the award-winning Music-on-the-Murray festival at Waikerie; J.S. Bach’s ChristmasOratorio; and performances with the ASOincluding Holst’s The Planets, Debussy’sNocturnes, an Anzac tribute concert and theUltimate Symphonic Spectacular at the AdelaideEntertainment Centre.

Sopranos

Miriam AhrensSue AvareyRobyn BarrattMelinda BroadhurstJane Caddy Christine CoxMichele CunninghamAlison DayJulie de LaineAlexis DeanJill DuffLynne FlavelMargaret FoordKerry GoldsworthyFairlie GreeningKerri GreeningDelyse HendersonHelen HerrimanBarbara HopwoodJen Hughes LovellJanice JonesVal KilgourLiz MacKenzieJudith Mair

Nicky MarshallMargaret May Suzie McKennaCaroline MilneAnnette MowattBet PetersenInge PottharstMargie RipperAudrey RoweNicole RungeLorna SaundersPatricia Smith Katharine StaffordJanet StephensonAngela SullivanJanie TelferKay ThorpMargaret-Ann WilliamsFrancis Wilson

Altos

Joan AnchorCharlotte Balfour Pamela BallLyne BecluJo Ben TovimJenny DickensonLorraine DrogemullerAnnie DouglasJenny FrancisBev GoldringPam GunnellAnne Halliday

Hilary HamnettBeverley HillNanette HillSylvia HorsmanNadine JohnstonMeredith JutilaneMariola KwiatkowskiRobyn LakosMarlene MagraithAnne MasseyJoanne McInerneyAnne MorphettHelen NicolasJanice PallantRosemary ParkerJillanne PetersAlison RyanMelanie Sandford-Morgan Mary SlaytorCoraine SopruKate ThomasAnne TimmisMelissa Veitch

Tenors

Alistair BrastedGraeme CowanDean de LaineJan DerksMalcolm HillamJulian KentHilary LineageRex Millsteed

Henry RischbiethRichard SaundersJohn StattonMichael WeaverPeter WetherellBasses

Michael BeamondJoel BecluIan BrownMatthew CormackChris DaviesPeter FoordNeville HicksRoss JonesLeon LackJames MayfieldRoger ReesGeoff SeidelRick ShortridgeJohn SlaytorDavid StevensonArthur ThomasPeter van der ZwaagLaurie Williams

proudly celebrated its 70th anniversary seasonunder the leadership of Music Director and ChiefConductor Arvo Volmer. It is the largestperforming arts organisation in South Australia,each year performing over 100 concerts across adiverse musical spectrum. The ASO provides theorchestral support for the State Opera of SouthAustralia and Adelaide performances by theAustralian Ballet and Opera Australia, and is the most prolific contributor to the biennial Adelaide Festival.

The ASO’s commitment to artistic excellencehas also strengthened its reputation within theinternational community. Following itsgroundbreaking 1996 tour to China, the ASOwon world acclaim in 1998 with Australia’s firstproduction of Wagner’s Ring cycle. Thismonumental project was repeated in 2004 underthe baton of Israeli conductor Asher Fisch.

The ASO excels as a dynamic, versatile orchestra,performing with such outstanding artists asPlacido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Split Enz,Shirley Bassey, Tony Bennett, James Morrison,Dionne Warwick, Andrea Bocelli, kd lang, LaloSchifrin, Ben Folds and Herbie Hancock.

The ASO reaches out to all sections of thecommunity with music experiences that areaccessible, affordable, informal and entertaining.

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Richard Mills

Richard Mills is one of Australia’s most frequentlycommissioned and performed composers, and aregular conductor of the country’s leadingorchestras. Currently, he is Artistic Director ofWest Australian Opera, Artistic Consultant withOrchestra Victoria and Director of the TasmanianSymphony Orchestra’s Australian Music Program.He was made a Member of the Order ofAustralia (AM) in 1999 and received an AustralianCentenary Medal in 2001.

His works for the stage include an opera of RayLawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1996)and Batavia (2001), which received a number ofGreen Room and Helpmann Awards includingBest Opera at both ceremonies and Best NewAustralian Work, as well as the APRA–AustralianMusic Centre award for Vocal/Choral Work of theYear. Love of the Nightingale was premiered atthe 2007 UWA Perth International Arts Festival.

Orchestral works include a Flute Concerto,commissioned and premiered by James Galway;Soundscapes for percussion and orchestra,recorded on film in a performance by EvelynGlennie and the BBC Scottish SymphonyOrchestra; Fantastic Pantomimes, for theMelbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Japanese tourin 1987; Earth Poem – Sky Poem for Aboriginaldancers, singers, electronic sound and orchestra;Tenebrae and Emblems for the SydneySymphony; Requiem Diptych, commissioned

and premiered in 2001 by the Chicago ChamberMusicians Brass; and Totemic Journeys,celebrating Australia’s Centenary of Federation.He was also commissioned to write for the 1982Commonwealth Games, the 2000 OlympicGames and the Australian Bicentenaryreorchestration of Charles Williams’ MajesticFanfare – the ABC News theme. Richard Millshas twice received APRA awards for MostPerformed Contemporary Classical Composition(Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and Overture withFantasias) and in 1995 he was awarded the DonBanks Music Fellowship by the Australia Council.

Richard Mills has conducted all the majororchestras in Australia, and made his USconducting debut with the Albany SymphonyOrchestra in 1989. For the Tasmanian SymphonyOrchestra’s Australian Music Program, he hasrecorded discs featuring music by PeterSculthorpe (Quamby), Ross Edwards (WhiteGhost Dancing) and Don Kay (There is anIsland), as well as a CD of of his own stringconcertos. Also available on the ABC Classicslabel are recordings with the Queensland andWest Australian Symphony Orchestras and theAustralian Youth Orchestra.

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

With a reputation for its youthful vitality andsuperb artistry, the Adelaide SymphonyOrchestra plays a central role at the heart of theSouth Australian community. In 2006, the ASO

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For ABC Classics

Executive Producers Robert Patterson, Lyle ChanRecording Producer Kevin Roper Recording Engineer Wayne Baker, Stuart Hall Editorial and Production Manager Hilary ShrubbPublications Editor Natalie SheaBooklet Design Imagecorp Pty LtdCover Photo Reflection nebula in Orion. To the nakedeye, this group of stars appears as a single star, thenorthernmost in the sword of Orion. © Anglo-Australian Observatory. Photograph by David Malin.

Photo p7 The nebula around Antares. © Anglo-Australian Observatory. Photograph from UKSchmidt plates by David Malin.

Photo p8 A dark cloud in Scorpio. © Anglo-Australian Observatory. Photograph by David Malin.Photo p13 The bright star in the centre is ProximaCentauri, our nearest stellar neighbour. © Anglo-Australian Observatory/Royal ObservatoryEdinburgh. Photograph by David Malin from DigitizedSky Surveys (DSS) data.

Photo p15 The Pleiades. © Anglo-AustralianObservatory/Royal Observatory Edinburgh.Photograph from UK Schmidt plates by David Malin.

For Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

Chief Executive Rainer JozepsArtistic Administrator James KoehneOrchestra Manager Karen Frost

Recorded 4-7 February and 12-13 March 2002 in theAdelaide Town Hall.

Ross Edwards’ Symphony No. 1 ‘Da pacem Domine’and Symphony No. 4 ‘Star Chant’ are published byG. Ricordi & Co. (London) Ltd.

ABC Classics thanks David Malin, AlexandraAlewood and Melissa Kennedy.

� 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. � 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Distributed inAustralia and New Zealand by Universal Music Group, underexclusive licence. Made in Australia. All rights of the owner ofcopyright reserved. Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion,public performance or broadcast of this record without theauthority of the copyright owner is prohibited.

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