CSAM Music
Opera
Stella, opera by G.W.L. Marshall-Hall
Set to a libretto with local references, Stella (opera in 1 act: 1910) is a landmark Australian opera by Melbourne’s leading musical personality of the period, G.W.L. Marshall-Hall (1862-1915).
Tracing the downfall of a young nurse at the hand of “respectable” society, the plot is a thinly disguised re-working of Marshall-Hall’s own experiences in Melbourne. At times deeply moving, the opera bears the influence of Wagner and Puccini, composers whose operas Marshall-Hall deeply admired.
Full score: Spiral bound, xviii, 393 p.
$50.00 AUD
Vocal score: Spiral bound, xvi, 185 p.
$30.00 AUD
Giovanni, opera by Alfred Hill
Edited by Haydn Reeder, Kerry Murphy and Jennifer Hill, this opera of Alfred Hill’s was part of the first and only season of the Australian Opera League.
In 1914 Fritz Hart and Alfred Hill set up an Australian Opera League with a view to encouraging both the composition and performance of Australian operas by Australians by means of national and private subsidy. The first and only season included a performance of Hart’s Pierrette and Hill’s Giovanni (in three acts). With a romantic plot, set in Italy, the language and structure of Giovanni is highly traditional and received generally favourable reception at its premiere, helped, no doubt, by a cast that included one of Sydney’s favourite sopranos, Florence Young.
Full score: Spiral bound, xii, 371 p.
$50.00 AUD
Vocal score: Spiral bound xxi, 98 p.
$30.00 AUD
Parts available for hire (poa)
Riders to the Sea, opera by Fritz Hart
Melbourne composer, teacher and conductor Fritz Bennicke Hart’s (1874-1949) fourth opera, Riders to the Sea (1915), reflects his developing interest in the literature of the Celtic revival.
A setting of J.M. Synge’s play of the same name—Vaughan Williams was to set it a dozen years later—it depicts life and loss in a family living in pre-industrial simplicity on an island off the coast of Ireland. Written with modal-influenced harmonies, though bearing the influence of Wagner, this is an accomplished and powerful one-act opera. Edited by Haydn Reeder, Kerry Murphy and Jennifer Hill.
Full score: Spiral bound, xviii, 369 p.
$50.00 AUD
Vocal score: Spiral bound, xvii, 105 p.
$30.00 AUD
Parts available for hire (poa)
The Quickening, opera by Johanna Selleck
Melbourne composer, musicologist and flautist, Johanna Selleck’s first opera, The Quickening (with libretto by Sue Tweg), received its premiere at the Port Fairy Festival in October 1998.
Based on Dymphna Cusack’s play Shallow Cups, the setting is a family vigil for a young woman who has recently died, with her husband, friend, sister and father-in-law in attendance. A “Light Bearer”, or cosmic presence, offers to reanimate her by lighting a candle. She will stay alive only if one of them truly wants her to live.
Full score: spiral bound, xxviii, 215 p. | $30.00 AUD
Joy, opera by Lindsay Brunsdon
To a libretto by Meredith Martin and the composer, Joy was first performed in 1998 at the Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne in 1998 and was the inaugural winner of the University of Melbourne/Victorian College of the Arts Opera Composition Competition.
Set in Melbourne in 1947, and based on Janine Burke’s biography (1983) of painter Joy Hester, the opera is the story of the breakdown of her marriage to fellow-artist Albert Tucker, her diagnosis of Hodgkin’s disease and departure for Sydney to live with her new lover.
Full score: spiral bound: 305 p. | $30.00 AUD
Art Song
Songs by Dorian Le Gallienne
A critical edition of eight previously unpublished songs with piano accompaniment by Melbourne composer, teacher and critic Dorian Le Gallienne (1915-1963) and the first volume in the Historic Australian art song series.
Shakespeare settings
- Fear no more the heat of the sun (1943)
- No longer mourn for me (1946)
- How oft, when thou, my music (1946)
Songs on Australian texts
- Moonlight (text by Hugh McCrae) (1948)
- The cactus of the moon (text by Nancy Keesing) (1956)
Three songs (1957)
- The Ghost (text by Omi Okura, trans. C.A. Walsh)
- Winter (text by J.C. Hobson)
- Cranes (text by T.W. Earp)
Format: Spiral bound, xii, 29 p. | $20.00 AUD
Herrick Songs:
Settings of Poems by Robert Herrick by Fritz Hart
A critical edition of 49 songs with piano accompaniment by Melbourne composer, teacher and conductor Fritz Bennicke Hart (1874-1949). The Irish poet, AE (George Russell) was the first figure of the Celtic literary renaissance to command Hart’s attention. He set the poems in less than seven weeks in 1918 as seven sets of seven songs (opp. 28-33), a creative feat, certainly, but not an unusual one for this highly prolific composer.
- Fourteen songs, op.10
- Twenty-one songs, op.23
- Twenty-five songs in five sets of five songs, opp.50-54
- Thirty-six songs in nine books opp.82-90
- Five songs op.148
- Five songs op.149
- Five songs op.150
- Five songs op.166
- Five songs op.167
Format: Spiral bound, vii, 155 p. | $40.00 AUD
AE Songs:
Settings of Poems by AE (George William Russell)
by Fritz Hart
A critical edition of 49 songs with piano accompaniment by Melbourne composer, teacher and conductor Fritz Bennicke Hart (1874-1949) edited by Anne-Marie Forbes and Bronwen Arthur. The Irish poet, AE (George Russell) was the first figure of the Celtic literary renaissance to command Hart’s attention. He set the poems in less than seven weeks in 1918 as seven sets of seven songs (opp. 28-33), a creative feat, certainly, but not an unusual one for this highly prolific composer.
Format: Spiral bound, vii, 155 p. | $40.00 AUD