Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Fish Tale* Raffaele Marcellino (b. 1964)
The work is structured as a cantata and is conceived as an allegory based on the
narrative of Schubert's The Trout. There are 5 movements with the text drawn
from widely disparate sources.
The first part: Water uses lhe Vidi aquam of the Roman rite of water purification of
the Paschal season.
The second part: The Riddle of the Fish, uses an old English riddle from the Exeter
Book.
The third part: The Pleasure of the Fisherman, is based on a text of the traditional
recipe for bouillabasse (fish stew).
The fourth part: Death uses a mixture of unvoiced utterances with a single verse
from one of the penitential psalms.
The fifth paft: Memory, uses a portion of text set by Schubert in The Trout.
* World Première. Commissioned by The Song Company with assistance from the
Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council

Raffaele Marcellino graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with
merit in 1985. Since that time he has had his music performed by various
prominent Australian ensembles including Synergy, the Sydney, Adelaide and
Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, The Sydney Front, The Song Company and
The Seymour Group. ln 1993 Raffaele represented Australia at FORUM 93 in
Montréal with his work lniquitous Symmetries performed by the Nouvel
Ensemble Modern.

ln 1995 Raffaele was appointed to the staff of the Tasmanian Conservatorium of
Music as Lecturer in Composition and Music Theory and will be working as a
composer with Pipeline, the Tasmanian Conservatorium's resident ensemble. ln
July of this year the Seymour Group premiered The Lottery in Babylon at the
Paddington Town Hall. Other works in progress include a tuba concerto for Steve
Rossé and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and an opera for Calculated Risks
Opera Productions.