UNSW PRESS Peter Sculthorpe: The Making of an Australian Composer

This work offers a significant authorised biography of Australia's best-known composer featuring more than 60 images. It presents a reflective side of Sculthorpe not previously revealed in print. More than a biography, it examines an episode in Australia's musical past through the eyes of its key player and includes previously unseen personal correspondence spanning two decades. This book has been said to have comparable significance for music as David Marr's biography of Patrick White had for Australian literature.Peter Sculthorpe is Australia's best-known living composer and is widely held to be the most important composer the country has yet produced. This, the first biography of the composer, tells the fascinating story of his rise to prominence. Beautifully written and fastidiously researched, this authorised biography provides an insight into Sculthorpe's formative years: his quest for a personal voice, and his arrival - through many creative friendships and collaborations - at a place in the collective heart of the nation. It is also a social history, charting the rise of modernism in Australian music through the eyes of its key player.