Peter Sculthorpe Night Pieces Pd

Peter Sculthorpe (1929-2014) was an Australian composer who was known for his distinctive musical style that blended elements of Australian, Asian, and Pacific cultures. He wrote music for various genres and media, including orchestral, chamber, vocal, and film music. One of his most popular works for solo piano is Night Pieces, composed in 1971.

Background and Inspiration

Night Pieces was commissioned by the Festival of Perth and premiered by David Bollard at the Octagon Theatre, University of Western Australia, on February 28, 1971. The work consists of five short movements: Snow, Moon, Flowers, Night, and Stars. The first three movements are based on a Japanese concept known as setsugekka, which means "snow, moon and flowers". This concept is concerned with metamorphosis: moonlight, for instance, may make snow of flowers, and flowers of snow; and the moon itself may be viewed as an enormous snowflake or a giant white flower. The music of these three movements, and of Stars, is concerned with transformations of similar harmonic and motivic structures. Night, on the other hand, is a free transcription of a part of Sculthorpe's orchestral work Sun Music I (1965). It is related to the other movements in its gong-like punctuation and its harmonic usage. Sculthorpe dedicated each movement to a different person: Snow to Michael Hannan, Moon to Anne Boyd, Flowers to Peter Kenny, Night to Anne Boyd again, and Stars to Peter Kenny again.

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Structure and Style

Night Pieces is a work of about seven minutes in duration. The movements are played without pause and have contrasting tempos and characters. The following table summarizes the main features of each movement:

Movement

Tempo

Key Signature

Time Signature

Character

Snow

Lento

None

4/4

Gentle, delicate, impressionistic

Moon

Lento e tranquillo

None

3/4

Mysterious, serene, lyrical

Flowers

Lento e rubato

None

4/4

Graceful, expressive, melodic

Night

Lento molto e pesante

None

4/4

Dramatic, dark, percussive

Stars

Lento e tranquillo (come prima)

None

3/4 (with 6/8 cross-rhythms)

Dreamy, sparkling, ethereal

The music of Night Pieces reflects Sculthorpe's interest in Asian musical traditions and techniques. He uses pentatonic scales, modal harmonies, ostinato patterns, drones, gongs, bells, and glissandi to create a distinctive sound world. He also employs various effects such as pedal clusters, tremolos, harmonics, grace notes, trills, and cross-relations to create contrast and color. The music is mostly quiet and subdued, except for the fourth movement Night, which reaches a climax with loud chords and dissonances. The work ends with a peaceful coda that recalls the opening movement Snow.

Reception and Legacy

Night Pieces is one of Sculthorpe's most performed and recorded works for piano. It has been praised for its beauty, simplicity, and originality. The composer himself considered it one of his best works and said that it "contains some of the most personal music I have ever written". The work has also inspired other composers, such as Ross Edwards, who wrote a piece called Night Flowers for flute and piano in 1979, based on Sculthorpe's Flowers. Night Pieces is a significant contribution to the Australian piano repertoire and a reflection of Sculthorpe's musical vision.

References

: [Night Pieces Faber Music]

: [Peter Sculthorpe - Night Pieces (1971) - YouTube]

: Peter Sculthorpe, Sun Music: Journeys and Reflections from a Composer's Life (Sydney: ABC Books, 1999), 144.

: Ross Edwards, "Night Flowers", in Aflame with Music: 100 Years of Music at the University of Melbourne, ed. Brenton Broadstock et al. (Melbourne: Centre for Studies in Australian Music, 1996), 195.

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