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Garotte
L’Oiseau ..
Spherics
Sea Change
Etudes Espace
Stick Dance
Barren Grounds
Black River
Sea Call
Fast Talking
Stick Dance II
Distant Shore
Excerpts from Selected Reviews (1980-1989)
Garotte (1982)
Schultz's Garotte is "less serious but is never lightweight, indeed
its humour is black and when the pyrotechnics are over one is left with
a curious sense of loss." [Andrew Ford, New Theatre Australia]
L’Oiseau Fantastique (1984) (back to top)
“The L’Oiseau Fantastique of Andrew Schultz seems to have taken its inspiration from a scene in the film, Diva, but might also be regarded in principle as a distant cousin of the mechanical nightingale of Stravinsky’s La Rossignol…Its recycling of a small number of musical particals becomes a kind of aural nagging in which a momentary passage of legato phrasing intervenes with the effect of sublime invention.”
[Roger Covell, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 June 1988]
Spherics (1985) (back to top)
“Andrew Schultz is a creative musician of undoubted talents. His Spherics spends much of its time parcelling out small thematic interruptions to a continuum of what might be regarded as interstellar background noise. Tremolando episodes for the cello and taciturn comments from the bass clarinet seem to be linked to shifting phases of this continuum. The constant till-readiness of the texture communicates a feeling of suspense.” [Roger Covell, Sydney Morning Herald, 5/4/1989]
“A sextet titled Spherics, by the Brisbane composer Andrew Schultz who is in his mid-20s. Schultz uses the mosaic technique, assembling musical lines through the juxtaposition of tiny flickering phrases from each of the instruments. But he is shrewd enough to ensure a degree of coherence by maintaining a clear underlying rhythmic pattern.”
[Martin Long, The Australian, 21 May 1985]
''’Terra Australis,’ a local chamber ensemble with links to the Australian musical scene from which some of its members hail, presented six works new to New York at the Asia Society Saturday evening. All six were composed within the past four years, and they suggest that composers Down Under are finding Minimalism and popular music invigorating influences just now. Nothing heard here fit directly into those categories, but peppy, regular rhythms and simple harmonies had a prominence that I don't think one would have found on a similar program 10 years ago…''Snark Hunting'' (Martin Wesley-Smith) and ''Spherics'' (Andrew Schultz) seemed, in different ways, seemed [sic] undisciplined. The performers were Peter Jarvis, Bronwen Jones, Lisa Moore, Tara Hellen O'Connor, Scott Rawls, Rohan Smith, Mark Stewart and Matthias Kriesberg.”
[Will Crutchfield, New York Times, 31 October 1988]
“Andrew Schultz’s 1984 Spherics, in which a rhythmic vocal chant gave way, successively, to a gentle and captivating rolling rhythm, groping gestures and some unisons instrumental chants of s primitive nature, all developing with steadiness and purpose.”
[Hermann Trotter, The Buffalo News, 7 June 1988]
“Schultz’s understanding of rhythmic interplay was delightfully fresh and his affectionate quotations, or near quotations, were also evidence of his willingness to trust impulse and instinct. If Spherics teetered once or twice on the brink of sounding like a recomposition of Ravel’s Bolero, that was a fault on the right side of musical spontaneity.”
[Roger Covell, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 May 1985]
Etudes Espace for organ (1986) (back to top)
"In his tripartite Etudes Espace (1986), Andrew Schultz accomplishes the neat trick of combining aspects of the first movement's assertive gestural world and the second movement's charming rustic tune into a chorale style finale of much power."
[David Cleary, "Australian Organ Music", 21st Century Music, October 2001]
"Andrew Schultz's Etudes Espace evokes a lonely sense of space."
[Peter McCallum, "Sydney Morning Herald", 4-5 October 2008]
“Except the pieces by Koehne and Thalben-Ball, the remaining selections are world premiere recordings. Most of the composers comment on their work in the liner notes, which is a great help … Schultz’s Etudes include quiet, haunting works (Etude II) with slow, seemingly endless explorations with long held chords. … Bowman displays a fine command of these thorny scores, and allows listeners the chance to experience the full range of sonorities possible with this instrument.”
[Donald Metz, American Record Guide, in melbarecordings.com.au]
Stick Dance (1987) (back to top)
“Andrew Schultz’ Stick Dance for marimba, James Harper, piano, Valerie Dickson, and clarinet, [Floyd Williams,] made a strong impression. As with all the items the performance was strong and convincing. Schultz’ piece, written for Willaims’ at last year’s Musica Nova Festival, is well-shaped with material shared by all players in an interesting way.”
[John Colwill, Courier Mail Brisbane, April 1989]
Barren Grounds (1988) (back to top)
"Andrew Schultz's Barren Grounds (1988) . . . is far from barren. Its two movements are utterly contrasted: the first is a kind of mosaic passacaglia while the second, which was inspired by Paul Klee's Twittering Machine, is mercurial in its changes of mood and texture." [John Carmody, Sun Herald]
"The piece as a whole seems to me music of exceptionally high originality and abundant invention. Movement 1 is uncomfortable and at times terrifying in the way in which it piles on thought after thought; Movement 2 is a continual congeries of strange sonorities, musical events in unwonted juxtapositions with a disconcerting way of repeating themselves as if searching for some sort of release. The music proclaims absolutely the fecundity of sight inspiring sound, through feeling." [Peter Platt, Sounds Australian]
“The first passacaglia movement featured a web of instrumental fragments which made up a multi-textured/timbred line. Some interesting sounds resulted, with surges of dissonance heightening a sense of drama. The second movement, ejaculatory in character, was rhythmically complex and technically taxing. The work was well realised by Perihelion, coming closest to the meaning of their name – music near the sun.” [ John Noble, The Courier Mail, 31/10/1988]
Sea-Change (1987) (back to top)
“Sea-Change, for piano solo, is an unsentimental, imagistic portrait
of the ocean and its power.”
[HICKEN, “The Newest Music,” American Record Guide 60:1 (January-February
1997) p.245.]
Black River (1988) (back to top)
“There are moments in Black River, . . . which for a comfortable
white audience are among the most shattering one could come across in
the opera theatre." [Peter McCallum, SMH]
"There is a skilful interweaving of dramatic statements and reflective
interludes and the urgent, percussive rhythms propel the drama to an undecided
conclusion. As in life, the story continues." [Black River, Jill
Sykes, Vogue Australia]
"A landmark in culture." [Black River, Michael Hutak,SMH]
“The powerful metaphors of the libretto by Julianne Schultz are
matched in music of taut intensity by her brother, Andrew Schultz. The
insistent rhythmic propulsion and shattering dissonances provide musical
images that illustrate the deluge, both literal and metaphoric, as ideas
and emotions come into harsh conflict....Particularly assured is the way
the composer handles the architecture of the piece, able to find balance
between solo writing and extended ensemble passages: able, too, to capture
the distinctive voice of each figure...the strength of Black River lies,
with its compelling subject and riveting score, in its ability to question
and provoke.” [David Vance at the Festival of the Dreaming 29/10/1997,
Sydney Morning Herald]
Sea Call (1988) (back to top)
"Brevity is by no means a guide to a piece's substance.In 2002 the Queensland Conservatorium Brass ensemble played Andrew Schultz's Sea Call as the opening piece in a festival concert. Played from a balcony behind the audience it was highly successful in evoking a sense of the 'the dramatic coastline and its inhabitants near Wombarra on the NSW South Coast.'...Sea Call is more distinctive - being a portrait of a location and its people.'' [Ben Marks, Portraits: Music for Brass, Sounds Australian,
No. 64 2004]
“Sea Call, by Andrew Schultz…made a stronger statement, evoking a sense of melancholy meditation, which threatens to engulf the listener.”
[Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 June 1988
Fast Talking: The Last Words of Dutch Schultz (1989) (back to top)
“The stenographically recorded last words of the American gangster Dutch Schultz, as timed, grouped and choreographed in the Fast Talking of the Australian composer Andrew Schultz (no relation). This piece, which some listeners disliked intensely but which seemed to me a compelling and workable example of musical-theatrical grand guignol . . , was part of what has become a festival tradition: a Friday-night sequence of 20th-century music which escapes from the pauses, typecasting and restraints of normal concert giving.” [Roger Covell at the Huntington Festival 1996, SMH]
“a wonderful kaleidoscope climaxed in an extraordinary vocal performance by broadcaster and composer Andrew Ford doing a kind of Sprechgesang, Fast Talking, written by Andrew Schultz, based on the dying ravings of gangster Dutch Schultz.” [Laurie Strachan, The Australian, 12/12/1996]
“The Song Company had taken up position on stage before the hall opened, so that the audience caught them, or at least we were led to assume, midway through the opening work.
Mostly in sotto voce, Damien Ricketson's In God’s Esperanto consisted of a meditative mulling-over of evanescent choral harmonies and a cappella timbres, partly inspired by a failed 19th-century attempt to coin a universal language based on Sol-fa…
If proto-minimal Stockhausen came to mind in the Ricketson ensemble piece, the single-hander Fast Talking was redolent of the garbled 1960s linguistics of Luciano Berio and Sylvano Bussotti. It is based on the stenographically recorded Last Words Of Dutch Schultz, the American gangster, which composer Andrew Schultz (no relation) repackaged for a Huntington Festival performance by fellow composer, broadcaster and well-known fast-talker Andrew Ford. But as realised here by the Song Company director, Roland Peelman, its bedlam ravings seemed to encapsulate best of all the demented babel-babble beauty of his program theme.”
[Graeme Skinner, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 October 2008]
Stick Dance II (1989) (back to top)
“Stick Dance II, is based on a piece that was, itself, based on
a fairy tale. Its movement through time is light and airy, almost weightless,
like a glittering dance?”
[HICKEN, “The Newest Music,” American Record Guide 60:1 (January-February
1997) p.245.]
Read the full review
A Distant Shore (1989) (back to top)
“The centrepiece of the program was the new work, A Distant Shore,
by the Australian composer Andrew Schultz. Its 11 parts interact together
with the use of recurring ideas and Louis Nowra’s text...The first
section, for three brass instruments alone, was a gradual unfolding from
a single unison note. Much of the treatment could be described as austere,
none more so than the slow evolving second movement, Steps. The third,
Two Small Hands, has short sharp snatches of text giving it an almost
nursery quality, while the celli play col legno, or with the wood of the
bow, producing one of the many percussion effects throughout this work.
The lone question which starts the fourth movement, The Sea is Made from
Memories, is cut dramatically short, when the orchestra makes a cataclismic
reaction. This movement was effective with the terror of memories being
the focus. Behind the Dunes was colouristic, with great washes of sound...The
Barcarole was a tender treatment of the text by the composer with a superb
realisation [for the singer], the pianist and percussionist. Spoken text
by the baritone soloist was also a feature as in the seventh movement,
Bad Memories. Much of this music is dramatically conceived.” [Barry
Walmsley, The Newcastle Herald, 4/5/1991]
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