''Kakadu'' (1988) is a composition for orchestra by

Peter Sculthorpe Peter Joshua Sculthorpe (29 April 1929 – 8 August 2014) was an Australian composer. Much of his music resulted from an interest in the music of countries neighbouring Australia as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of Aborigi ...

. It is one of the broad

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

compositions for which the composer is best known. Sculthorpe used his knowledge of the

World Heritage World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

listed

Kakadu National Park Kakadu National Park is a protected area in the Northern Territory of Australia, southeast of Darwin. It is a World Heritage Site. Kakadu is also gazetted as a locality, covering the same area as the national park, with 313 people recorded l ...

from studying photographs and listening to recordings of

Northern Australia The unofficial geographic term Northern Australia includes those parts of Queensland and Western Australia north of latitude 26th parallel south, 26° and all of the Northern Territory. Those local government areas of Western Australia and Q ...

n Aboriginal music.

Conception

The composer explained the way he conceived ''Kakadu'' thus: Sculthorpe also used some material from his earlier works ''Djilile'' (1986) and ''Manganinnie'' (1980).

Instrumentation

The music is scored for two

flutes The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

, two clarinets, two

oboes The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...

, a

cor anglais The cor anglais (, or original ; plural: ''cors anglais''), or English horn (mainly North America), is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially ...

, two bassoons, a

contrabassoon The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower. Its technique is similar to its smaller cousin, with a few notable differences. Differences from the bassoon The Reed (mouthpie ...

, four French horns, four

trumpets The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B o ...

, two tenor trombones, a

bass trombone The bass trombone (, ) is the bass instrument in the trombone family of brass instruments. Modern instruments are pitched in the same B♭ as the tenor trombone but with a larger bore, bell and mouthpiece to facilitate low register playing, and u ...

, a

tuba The tuba (; ) is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece (brass), mouthpiece. It first appeared in th ...

, a

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

, three

percussive A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

parts, as well as

string String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

parts. A didjeridu part was later written in 2003 for a recording by the

Queensland Symphony Orchestra Queensland Symphony Orchestra (QSO) is an Australian symphony orchestra in the state of Queensland. The orchestra is based in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's building in South Bank. The Orchestra is funded by private corporations, the ...

. ''Kakadu'' notably features some sections with no

key signature In Western musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp (), flat (), or rarely, natural () symbols placed on the staff at the beginning of a section of music. The initial key signature in a piece is placed immediately after the cl ...

due to the abnormally

chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, es ...

nature of these sections.

Commission and performance

The work was commissioned by Emanuel Papper as a present for his wife upon her birthday and first performed by the

Aspen Festival Orchestra Aspen is a common name for certain tree species in the Populus sect. Populus, of the ''Populus'' (poplar) genus. Species These species are called aspens: * '' Populus adenopoda'' – Chinese aspen (China, south of ''P. tremula'') * '' Populus ...

, under

Jorge Mester Jorge Mester (born April 10, 1935, Mexico City) is a Mexican conductor of Hungarian ancestry. He has served as the artistic director for the Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Veracruz, since it was founded in 2014. Biography He studied condu ...

on 24 July 1988. It was voted number 51 in the 2011 ABC's Classic 100 Twentieth Century countdown. The Australian premiere was given by the

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an Australian orchestra based in Melbourne. The MSO is resident at Hamer Hall. The MSO has its own choir, the MSO Chorus, following integration with the Melbourne Chorale in 2008. The MSO relies on fun ...

to celebrate Sculthorpe's 60th birthday in April 1989.

References

{{italic title Compositions by Peter Sculthorpe Compositions for symphony orchestra 1988 compositions Kakadu National Park