Australian Piano Music of the Twentieth Century

Subjects:

• The Arts » Music (General)
• The Arts » Music Theory/Composition

Reviews:

• Australian Piano Music us abundantly illustrated with well-chosen excerpts from the scores discussed, and the individual treatment of each composer makes it an effective reference text, easily consulted for commentary on a particular composer. Those wishing to gain an overview of Australian music and cultural history will do well by reading it from beginning to end. An appendix, listing publication details of the works discussed, will help pianists seeking to explore new and unfamiliar repertoire.
  —Music Reference Services Quarterly 2005
• Composer and pianist Sitsky offers a detailed overview of 20th-century Australian piano music. Using a wealth of musical examples, he explores the ways the genre has developed from the work of early modernist composers such as Margaret Sutherland through the contemporary jazz of pianist Simplicius Cheong.
  —Reference & Research Book News August 2005

Table of Contents:

• List of Musical Examples
  Acknowledgment
  Preface
  The First Generation
  Composers of Their Time: Early Modernists and Neoclassicists
  Composers Looking Back: Late Romantics and the Nineteenth-Century Legacy
  The "Australian" Composers
  The Second Generation
  Post-1945 Modernism
  Retrospective Composers
  More "Australian" Composers
  Sitsky's Keyboard Music
  The Third Generation
  The Next Wave of Modernism
  Minimalism and Maximalism
  Pluralism: Popular Music/Jazz/Neotonality
  "Australian" Composers: The Next Generation
  The Youngest Composers
  The Australian Piano Concerto
  Conclusion
  Bibliography
  Appendix: Database of Piano Works Considered