Rita Crews and Jeanell Carrigan
Breaking the Drought (Book)
Breaking the Drought (Book)
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Biography of Roy Agnew: Composer, Pianist, Teacher
by Rita Crews and Jeanell Carrigan
Foreword by Emeritus Prof. Larry Sitsky AO
Robert (Roy) Ewing Agnew (1891-1944) was a man who dominated the musical scene in Sydney in the first half of the 20th century and his creative talent was admired and recognised by fellow musicians in Australia and abroad. He is remembered as a brilliant, virtuosic, and flamboyant performer who graced the musical stage in England and Australia, and as an important and influential teacher in the private sphere of his home in Ashfield; for many years at Kambala School for Girls and in the last year of his life as a staff member at the NSW Conservatorium of Music. He was celebrated as a composer of great originality who was led to “abandon the limitations of key and tonal relationships.”
This book aims to ‘break the drought’ of apathy towards a composer who bridged the gap that many had not dared before between the compositional trend of the conservative ‘English pastoral style’ and the modern language of Europe. Agnew dared to be scandalous!
Audio downloads (under development)
- Chapter 5:
- Sonata Poeme (fragment)
- Sonata Ballade (fragment)
- Chapter 6:
- From Australian Forest Pieces:
- When Evening Shadows Fall
- By a Quiet Stream
- Forest Grandeur
- From Rural Sketches:
- The Shepherd on the Hill
- A Starry Night
- From Youthful Fancies:
- The Gurgling Brook
- The Sunlit Glade
- A Sleeping Child
- From Holiday Suite:
- Spiders
- Lullaby
- The Party
- March of the Soldier Ants
- From Contrasts:
- A Child’s Dream
Country Dance - Chapter 7:
- Poem no. 1 from Two Poems (1922)
- Poem no. 2 from Three Poems (1927)
- Prelude no. 1 from Four Preludes (1925)
- Prelude no. 4 from Four Preludes (1925)
- Prelude no. 1 from Three Preludes (1927)
- Prelude no. 3 from Three Preludes (1927)
- Chapter 8:
- Deidre’s Lament
- Nocturne
- Album Leaf
- Two Pieces: Meditations, Looking Back
- Drifting Mists
- Rabbit Hill
- An English Dance
- A Country Lane
- Chapter 9:
-
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0018/5896/1460/files/green_Valley_3_133e295e-6c1a-49fd-a488-ab538e7321b4.mp3?v=1652501038Green Valley
- Chapter 10:
- Beauty
- A Sleeping Child
- Dusk
- Chapter 11:
- https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0018/5896/1460/files/Breaking_Of_The_Drought_d4da8cb9-4157-43db-a877-b9870cf16c82.mp3?v=1652500972Prologue of The Breaking of the Drought in the piano version.
ISBN 978 1 876829 84 1