18 Facts About Peter Sculthorpe

Peter Sculthorpe was known primarily for his orchestral and chamber music, such as Kakadu and Earth Cry, which evoke the sounds and feeling of the Australian bushland and outback.

Peter Sculthorpe wrote 18 string quartets, using unusual timbral effects, works for piano, and two operas.

Peter Sculthorpe stated that he wanted his music to make people feel better and happier for having listened to it.

Peter Sculthorpe typically avoided the dense, atonal techniques of many of his contemporary composers.

Peter Sculthorpe's work was often characterised by its distinctive use of percussion.

Peter Sculthorpe began writing music at the age of seven or eight, after having his first piano lesson, continuing in secret when his piano teacher punished him for this activity.

Peter Sculthorpe studied at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music from 1946 to 1950, then returned to Tasmania.

Peter Sculthorpe won a scholarship to study at Wadham College, Oxford, studying under Egon Wellesz.

Peter Sculthorpe left Wadham before completing his doctorate because his father was gravely ill.

Peter Sculthorpe wrote his first mature composition, Irkanda IV, in his father's memory.

Not long after this, Drysdale's wife Bonnie, who had introduced him to Peter Sculthorpe, took her own life.

Neville Cardus, after the premiere of Sun Music I, wrote that Peter Sculthorpe was set to "lay the foundations of an original and characteristic Australian music".

Peter Sculthorpe subsequently wrote an opera, Rites of Passage, to his own libretto, using texts in Latin and the Australian indigenous language Arrernte.

Peter Sculthorpe was a represented composer of the Australian Music Centre and was published by Faber Music Ltd.

Peter Sculthorpe was only the second composer to be contracted by Faber, after Benjamin Britten.

Peter Sculthorpe came to regard Russell "Tass" Drysdale as a role model, admiring the way he reworked familiar material in new ways.

Peter Sculthorpe was distantly related to Fanny Cochrane Smith, a Tasmanian Aboriginal woman whose wax cylinder recordings of songs are the only audio recordings of any of Tasmania's Indigenous languages.

Peter Sculthorpe died in Sydney on 8 August 2014 at the age of 85.