Doris Howe:

>I understand the Didgeree Doo-occasionally to be heard played outside
>Boots here, by a very scruffy and "grubby" gent.  which frightened the
>puppy-is played using circular breathing.  Maurice Bourge plays his oboe
>this way I'm told.

I am not sure how it is played but.  circular breathing may explain why it
is so versatile.  The instrumentalist can breathe through the nose without
interrupting the sound he is producing.

Peter Sculthorpe wrote an extraordinary (operative word) piece for
didjeridu and orchestra.  He blends or opposes didjeridu and orchestra
to great effect.  The didjeridu opens and closes the work, ever present
throughout, suggesting strange moves in mysterious ways.  The orchestral
techniques are rich, thorough, and quite challenging, ranging from the
chordal to pulsating clusters and riveting percussion.  Sculthorpe never
seeks the vapid spectacular or the folkloric.  He never seeks to merely
describe.  The music is true, powerful, evocative of vast lands, and
vibrant with hidden stirrings of life and fluttering wings.  The four
movements without pause say all: Calmo/ Lontano/ Feroce/ Calmo.

The title is "Music for Japan" as it was commissioned for The Osaka
Universal Exhibition (1970).  Sculthorpe stresses that the music is *for
Japan but *about Australia...

An amazing work, quite stirring.  As it was written in 1969, although it is
"significant, well-constructed and original", Kevin Sutton may not wish, as
it is too close to 1962, to count it as a valid no-nonsense modern piece...
But it is ;-)

Regards,

Christine Labroche