Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

My home in 1963 was a flat in a crumbling block at the south end of Bondi Beach renting at $8 per week which had a millionaire's view looking north along the surf, and which has since been replaced by expensive apartments. I body-surfed every day, rediscovering a beach life last experienced at age 10 in 1945 in Perth, WA, before being relocated to the UK by my family, from whence I fled in 1962 returning to Australia. This Rondo is one of a dozen or so music works I wrote in that year, and seems to have been a visceral and combative depiction of swimming in the surf in rough conditions, with conflicting currents above and below amid the constant excitement of waves rolling in. I have changed little of the structure and themes of the original score but have added detail to enhance texture, maintain motivic impulse and provide a more climactic Coda. This is first of three pieces making up a Suite "At Bondi". "Millpond" and "Perfect Day", with flute taking the woodwind role, were also written in 1963 and will follow in this catalogue, when I find time to revise and convert the score to digital.

Work Details

Year: 1963, this version: 2008

Instrumentation: Piccolo, guitar, cello.

Duration: 8 min.

Difficulty: Advanced

The composer notes the following styles, genres, influences, etc associated with this work:
programmatic, polyphonic, polymetric, melodic

Revised 2008.