Description
The titles are all drawn either from specific poems or from specific passages within those poems. The references are as follows: 1) Snatched Voices (after the poem by Rosemary Dobson) describes a visit to the ancient Stonehenge site in Britain during a howling gale. Like initial items in other sets of studies it's also a 'limbering up' piece in C major. 2) Tch'mala: The Rainbow Serpent (after the poem by Mark O'Connor) refers to a mythic figure, widespread in Australian Aboriginal Cultures. It's a dance-like piece in G minor. 3) Epiphany of Light is a quotation from the poem Ode on the Death of Pius the Twelfth by A D Hope, which refers to the moral quandary faced by the war-time Pope: how to represent justice and truth in the age of the ascendancy of the Third Reich. The piece quotes the plainsong melody Justus ut Palma ("the just man shall flourish as a palm tree"). It's a contemplative piece in E-flat major. 4) Rainbow Lorikeets (after the poem by Mark O'Connor), is, by contrast, a quasiprogrammatic reflection in F major of one of the many unique species of bird-life found in Australia. The variety of such species is greater in Australia than on all of the other continents combined. 5) Red Autumn in Valvins (after the poem by Christopher Brennan) is a quiet reverie in D major at the graveside of the great French poet Stephane Mallarme. 6) Wild Cherries and Honeycomb is a quotation from the poem The Poor, Poor Country by John Shaw Neilson. It's a virtuoso perpetuum mobile in C major.
