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Work

Sharp Folds (unspecified voice with chamber ensemble)

by Peter Knight (2018)

Audio Sample

Performance by Australian Art Orchestra from the CD Sometimes Home Can Grow Stranger Than Space

Sometimes Home Can Grow Stranger Than Space

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Work Overview

Sharp Folds imagines a parent's grief.

Garry Roberts and his wife Berta never recovered from the loss of their son, Frank, who was killed in action in September 1918. I was struck by the image of Garry sleeping in his son's bed for months after receiving that terrible news in the hope he might 'feel his son's presence again'. This all-consuming grief did not subside. Garry spent the rest of his life 'making memory' through working each day on scrap books and collections devoted to his son's life. He and Berta travelled to France to visit his grave near Pèronne and even raised a statue in his honour on the spot where Frank died at Mont St Quentin. Nothing assuaged their despair though, and 100 Stories records Garry dying in 1933 still mourning the loss of his son.

Bruce Scates mentions the 'tide of grief' that was set in motion by the Great War that washed through communities for decades after the war. As a parent of a teenage boy I find myself imagining mums and dads like Garry and Berta saying goodbye to their young boys.

I imagine them trying to be brave at the moment of parting, and my mind goes to what it must have been like to wait, then to hear that their precious child would never return. These are not the stories of heroism in the face of impossible odds, mateship, and noble causes that drive the nation building myths that perpetuate war. These stories are the reality of war.

— Peter Knight

Work Details

Year: 2018

Duration: 24 min.

Subjects

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