‘… seemed to distil aspects of his vocabulary with the shrewd economy of utterance of a style carefully honed. The instrumental prelude was simple and transparent to the point of primitivism, while the simplicity of the first song, first unaccompanied, then brushed lightly with the wispy sounds of glass on the silk strings of the koto (producing the characteristic estuary birdsong which in various instrumental manifestations has invaded many of Sculthorpe’s pieces – the prevailing gentleness an