Julian Smiles
Julian Smiles's cello underpins the Goldner String Quartet's complete Sculthorpe cycle and the Australia Ensemble's chamber recordings, from Schubert's String Quintet and Shostakovich's Piano Quintet and Trio to the Mozart and Brahms clarinet quintets.
In the Goldner Quartet he is the low voice of Sculthorpe's landscape writing: rich, resonant lines in Quamby, and the full weight of loneliness, anger and yearning in the later quartets, taped with the composer in the room. With the Australia Ensemble the same instrument turns to classical and romantic chamber music of unhurried eloquence and feverish passion, partnering Catherine McCorkill's basset clarinet in Mozart and Brahms, and holding the string texture through Shostakovich's brooding, hair-raising Piano Quintet and Trio. The playing is committed and superbly controlled rather than flashy, the kind of cello that lets the music speak without fuss.
Performing as Australia Ensemble
The Australia Ensemble, resident at the University of New South Wales since its founding in 1980, is widely recognised as Australia’s leading chamber music ensemble. Seven principal instrumentalists form its core, joined by guests for standard repertoire and unusual combinations.
Mozart & Brahms: The Clarinet Quintets
Catherine McCorkill joins the Australia Ensemble for two pillars of the clarinet chamber repertoire: Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581, on basset clarinet, and Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115.
Shostakovich
Two of Shostakovich's most powerful and popular chamber works, given hair-raising performances by Australia's finest chamber ensemble.
Mozart: The Wind Quartets
The Australia Ensemble, with Geoffrey Collins (flute) and David Nuttall (oboe), play Mozart’s four flute quartets and the Oboe Quartet. The recording was the Recommended Performance in the 1995 Gramophone Good CD Guide.
Schubert
Schubert's best-loved chamber works: the great String Quintet in C and The Shepherd on the Rock, played by The Australia Ensemble with guest artists Jennifer Bates (soprano) and David Pereira (cello).
Performing as Goldner String Quartet
The Goldner String Quartet plays Peter Sculthorpe's complete string quartets with the authority of an ensemble totally inside the music: precise, tonally varied, and alive to landscape, ritual rhythm and sudden cascades of harmonics.
Peter Sculthorpe: The String Quartets, Vol. 3
Tall Poppies presents this third volume of Peter Sculthorpe’s string quartets as a tribute on the occasion of his 80th birthday in April 2009.
Peter Sculthorpe: The String Quartets, Vol. 2
The Goldner String Quartet, the string players of the Australia Ensemble at the University of NSW, presents this historic survey of Sculthorpe’s string-quartet oeuvre, available as a set on CD for the first time.
Peter Sculthorpe: The String Quartets, Vol. 1
The Goldner String Quartet — the string players of the Australia Ensemble at the University of NSW — presents this historic first volume, making Sculthorpe’s substantial body of string-quartet writing available on CD for the first time.
Julian Smiles also appears on
Australian Premières, Vol. 2
This CD proves a concerto can be recorded with a soloist and a digital orchestra, and at the same time brings to light four remarkable works never recorded before, two of them never performed. Patiently languishing in archives, they can now see the light of day.
Antarctica: The Film Music
Australia's first IMAX film, scored by Nigel Westlake with music that captures the awesome spaces of the ice and the delights of the local fauna. Soloists include David Pereira (cello), Dene Olding (violin), Timothy Kain (guitar) and Christine Douglas (soprano).