My String Sonata No.5 is a heart-felt expression of my concern about climate change, about the future of our fragile planet. Rather than attempt to write a work that addresses the plight of the planet itself, I chose to use Australia as a metaphor for it. The work is in five movements: ‘Prelude’; ‘A Land Singing’; ‘A Dying Land’; ‘A Lost Land’ and ‘Postlude’.

 

‘Prelude’ introduces the alternation of the pitches ‘A flat’ and ‘G’, a recurring motif in the work. Insect sounds also appear in this movement. Cries of birds first appear in the next movement, ‘A Land Singing’, which is based upon an energetic Indigenous chant known as Windmill. This is juxtaposed with episodes derived from it that contain brief suggestions of didjeridu patterns. These patterns give rise to the somewhat impassioned thematic material of ‘A Dying Land’.

 

‘A Lost Land’ is the emotional heart of the work. Its desolate outer parts embrace a section that follows the contours of a nostalgic Torres Strait Island song, Waiye. There are no references to the didjeridu or to birds in this movement. These return in ‘Postlude’, which presents two statements of O God, our help in ages past. Sung on national days of mourning and regularly in Aboriginal communities, this hymn provides the comfort of hope for the future.

 

The alternation of the pitches ‘A flat’ and ‘G’ in every movement but the fourth is a reference to the motif that the astronomer Kepler believed to be the sound of Planet Earth. These movements are founded upon a low ‘C’. In my music a low ‘C’ always represents God, the God of all religious beliefs.

 

P.S.