Richard Pennycuick wrote:

>Inveterate browsers through new release lists are sometimes worried by a
>composer they've never heard of and thus perhaps avoid--of course, MCML
>members simply post and someone knows.  Thus I thought it worth giving a
>plug to Alfred Hill (1870-1960), an Australian composer who trained and
>played in the orchestra in Leipzig and spent a number of years doing good
>things for the musical life of New Zealand.

Agreed.  And there are many other interesting Australian and New Zealand
composers.  Ross Edwards, Peter Sculthorpe, Eugene Goosens, Carl Vine,
Richard Meale, Roger Smalley, George Antil, Douglas Lilburn, and others.
Most write in a quasi-British style, with a certain indefinable ruggnessk,
often with influences from their native cultures, that I find quite
appealing.

There was a pretty good Australian composer series on LP some years back,
and ABC has put out some interesting music on CD (many now available from
Berkshire).

Roger Hecht