Island Landfall (2003)Ross Edwards The instrumental septet Island Landfall is in many ways a summing-up of the spiritual and emotional territory already explored in two works Ross Edwards completed in the year 2000: his Third Symphony (Mater Magna) and the quintet Enyato V. These works make a powerful statement about present-day Australia while at the same time introducing such European musical resources as plainchant, canon and passacaglia into Edwards' own distinctive forms and textures. Here they coexist with rhythmic and melodic shapes gleaned from the natural world (birdsong, frog and insect patterns) as well as musical references to various Asia-Pacific cultures. The result is a kaleidoscopic but highly unified interplay over drones and ostinati which symbolise the earth. As hinted at by its title, Island Landfall seems to enact some kind of
ceremonial journey, and this culminates in a celebration. The work is
largely built around a fragment of the plainchant Ave Maria Gratia Plena
(Hail Mary Full of Grace), which also pervades the Third Symphony and
which holds special significance for the composer. Much of his music has
an an ecological theme and it would appear that the Christian Mary has
been magnified here into a symbol of the Earth Mother, common to many
cultures and probably synonymous with the concept of Gaia, in which the
earth is held to be both sacred and alive. In his music, then, Edwards
is expressing his recognition that humanity, in order to survive, must
once again live in harmony (grace) with nature.
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© Ross Edwards