Spinning: New Australian Flute Music
Geoffrey Collins has single-handedly shaped the Australian flute repertoire, and this is his third solo recording. Five of these works were written for him, and they show how freely composers respond to his playing.
Andrew Ford composer
Nigel Butterley composer
Roger Smalley composer
Martin Wesley-Smith composer
Keith Humble composer
Carl Vine composer
The programme pairs Vine’s driving Flute Sonata and Humble’s five-movement Sonata with solo works by Smalley and Ford, Butterley’s duo for flute and cello, Edwards’s Ecstatic Dances for two flutes, and Wesley-Smith’s Balibo for flute and tape.
Most of the pieces were written for Collins. The sessions were made in early 1995 at the ABC Ultimo Centre in Sydney, with David Miller and David Pereira joining on selected tracks.
Reviews
The disc takes its title from Andrew Ford's brief piece Spinning. This is really only a miniature, but it is an enjoyably energetic and well-crafted one. In fact, though, the most interesting work on the disc is Carl Vine's Sonata for Flute and Piano which successfully pursues the same kind of driving, insistent path as the composer's piano sonata [no.1].
Artist
Geoffrey Collins
Geoffrey Collins’s flute has been the voice of much new Australian chamber music. His playing moves from buoyant Mozart quartets to driving Vine sonatas, dreamy Boyd and Westlake colours, and solo works written for him that treat the instrument without cliché.
Tracks
- i. Fast 5:02
- ii. Slow 4:27
- iii. Very Fast 4:11
- Ceremony III (solo flute) Roger Smalley 9:29
- The Wind Stirs Gently (flute and cello) Nigel Butterley 4:59
- Spinning (solo alto flute) Andrew Ford 5:35
- i. Fast, Swinging 3:05
- ii. In a Swinging Easy Style 1:13
- iii. Amiably 3:32
- iv. Fast :44
- v. Delicately 2:43
- i. (two flutes) 3:47
- ii. (two flutes) 5:01
- Balibo (flute and tape) Martin Wesley-Smith 15:28
Flute Sonata Carl Vine
Sonata Keith Humble
Ecstatic Dances Ross Edwards
Performers
- David Miller · piano · tracks 1–3, 7–11
- Geoffrey Collins · flute, alto flute
- David Pereira · cello · track 5
Composers
Nigel Butterley
Nigel Butterley (1935–2022) was an Australian composer and pianist. His catalogue ranges from radiophonic and choral scores to chamber, vocal and orchestral works, and as a pianist he was closely identified with contemporary music and the prepared piano.
Ross Edwards
One of Australia's best known and most performed composers, Ross Edwards lives and works in Sydney. His commitment to music as a positive and regenerative force has led him to explore beyond the confines of Western art music.
Andrew Ford
Andrew Ford is an Australian composer, writer and broadcaster whose work ranges from chamber and vocal scores to opera and piano cycles. He has won the Paul Lowin Prize for the song cycle Learning to Howl and a Green Room Award for the opera Rembrandt’s Wife.
Keith Humble
Keith Humble won the National Critics Award in 1977 as the most outstanding recitalist working in Australia, and was appointed AM in 1982 for services to music. He was a constant champion of Australian contemporary music and of Percy Grainger.
Roger Smalley
Roger Smalley AM (1943–2015) was an English-born composer and pianist who made Australia his home from the mid 1970s. Composition and a distinguished life at the keyboard ran together throughout his career.
Carl Vine
Carl Vine AO is one of Australia's best-known and most often performed composers, with an orchestral catalogue of eight symphonies and thirteen concertos. His piano music is played widely around the world, and recordings of his work appear on more than seventy albums across the major streaming services.
Martin Wesley-Smith
Martin Wesley-Smith wrote music audiences actually like: electronic pieces that stay human, choral parables that turn nursery rhymes into environmental inquests, and chamber scores laced with Lewis Carroll fantasy and hard political irony.
Contributors
Design [Typesetting, Design]
Belinda Webster
Belinda Webster is the founder of Tall Poppies Records and a leading Australian producer and recording engineer whose work has documented classical, contemporary and jazz performance across decades of catalogue releases.
Technician [Piano]
David Kinney
David Kinney is the piano technician whose preparation underpins a wide stretch of Tall Poppies piano sound, from late Beethoven and Debussy to Janáček, Schubert and contemporary Australian repertoire. The instrument arrives ready for the music’s full colour and weight.
Photography By [Cover]
Ken Martin
Ken Martin is a photographer whose cover and artist photographs appear on Tall Poppies recordings from the 1990s.
Where to listen
Spinning: New Australian Flute Music is available for streaming through Apple Music. It can also be purchased through the iTunes Music Store.
Spinning: New Australian Flute Music is available as a CD. It can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre which both offer online ordering.
Product details
- Catalogue number
- TP069
- Total playing time
- 69 minutes 16 seconds
- Recording Engineer
- Belinda Webster
Neale Sandbach - Co-Producer
- Belinda Webster
Geoffrey Collins - Venue
- ABC Studios, Sydney
- Credit
- Belinda Webster
David Kinney
Ken Martin - Release date
- 13 Jun 1995
- Label
- Tall Poppies
- Musical work
copyright - © 1995 Tall Poppies Records
- Sound recording
copyright - ℗ 1995 Tall Poppies Records
- Category
- Australian Classics
- Genre
- Contemporary Classical
- Barcode
- EAN 9399000006923
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