Land's soul laid bare

Peter Sculthorpe, at 76, is the grand old man of Australian music, a composer of mysterious soundscapes that blaze with the unforgiving sun of the Fifth Continent.

Sculthorpe's music is bold, sharing the palettes of Russell Drysdale and Sydney Nolan, and he looks within the country's very soul, and beyond Australia as well, to enrich his language. Expect to hear the Balinese gamelan in some works and the throb of the didgeridoo in others.

We hear precious little of him on our concert stages - although if you were in Wellington in September 2003 you might have caught the NZSO celebrating 20 years of the Michael Fowler Centre with two Sculthorpe works - the Piano Concerto, with Tamara Anna Cislowska, and Earth Cry, with William Barton on didgeridoo.

Both pieces have been perfectly captured on the orchestra's latest Naxos recording, with three other Sculthorpe scores, all brought to brilliant life by producer Tim Handley. They were recorded in the Wellington Town Hall.

The didgeridoo connection is fascinating. Sculthorpe, who admits he was "bashed into" using didgeridoo on a Kronos Quartet commission a few years back, has now turned full circle and finds what he calls "an implied didgeridoo" in all his pieces.

The added didgeridoo in his 1986 Earth Cry reveals a context that was previously unsung. William Barton's magnificent cadenzas, and ruggedly hewn counterpoint in the face of such orchestral might gives it an earth-centred connection that reflects Sculthorpe's worries about the state of Australia and, by implication, of the world.

The attractive 1983 Piano Concerto has a winning soloist in Cislowska. There is a hint of gamelan here, and Bartok and Debussy also look over Sculthorpe's shoulder, although the bold move from Come Notturno to Esrarico is quintessentially Australian.

The 1993 Memento Mori, a series of restless variations on the "Dies irae" chant, shows once more the composer's concern for Earth's survival, taken up with passion by conductor James Judd and his New Zealand musicians.

Kakadu contrasts the elegiac and eerie in a Northern Territories setting but the 1970 Into Oceania is a blazing ceremonial for the new Pacific, a score that moves from conch shells through nervy rhythms to climaxes in which searing clusters melt away into E major. An experience not to be missed.

* Peter Sculthorpe: Earth Cry (Naxos 8.557382)