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Songs of sea and sky

Sheet Music: Score & Part(s)

Songs of sea and sky : for soprano saxophone and piano / Peter Sculthorpe.

by Peter Sculthorpe (2003)

  • Sales Availability: This item is not available to customers outside Australia and New Zealand.
    Please contact Faber Music for all sales enquiries.
  • Library Availability: 788.72/SCU 1 — Available for loan
  • Instrumentation: Soprano saxophone, piano.
  • Audio Sample

    Performance by Nigel Westlake, David Bollard from the CD Songs of sea & sky


    (this sample is of the clarinet with piano version of this work)

N/A

This item is not available to customers outside Australia and New Zealand.
Please contact Faber Music for all sales enquiries.

Product details

Songs of Sea and Sky was inspired by a traditional dance song from Saibai, an island just south of Papua New Guinea, in Torres Strait. The song was collected on Saibai by Jeremy Beckett in May 1961.

Although some traditional Torres Strait music still survives in its original form, most of that heard today is strongly influenced by the religious music introduced by missionaries in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, its themes are still predominantly of sea voyages, flights of birds and changes in sea and sky.

The work is in one continuous movement consisting of seven parts : Prelude, a somewhat dramatic saxophone solo; Saibai, a reworking of the traditional melody; Interlude, a second solo; Mission Hymn, a variation of Saibai; Dance Song, a rhythmic section based upon the material presented in the Prelude and Interlude; Lament, a second variation of Saibai; and Postlude, a brief coda. Following the climax, at the end of the Dance Song, the emotional content of the music culminates in the Lament. Here, the music yearns for the years before white settlement.

Published by: Australian Music Centre (under licence from Faber Music) — 1 score 24p. -- A4 (portrait)) and 1 part (18p. -- A4 (portrait))

Duration: 16 mins

Includes programme notes and performance directions.

Typeset edition.

Related products

This work also exists as the following versions:
- Clarinet with piano
- Violin with string orchestra
- Flute with piano
- Didjeridu with string orchestra

 

- Browse other works published by Australian Music Centre (under licence from Faber Music)

- Browse other works for Saxophone with piano

- Browse other works by Peter Sculthorpe

Analysis & Media

- Resonate Article: Ecstatic Dances - Soundstream and OzAsia Festival


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