Bittersweet Symphony is a commission from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, which is a great orchestra and one I’ve had a long history with. A lot of the players are ex-students of mine from my years [teaching] at the Elder Conservatorium, so it’s a particularly meaningful group of people for me to write for.

Graeme Koehne leans on a piano.

Graeme Koehne. Photo © Andrew Dunbar

It’s a borrowed title, I have to confess. In a number of my pieces, I like to make the connection with popular culture, and there was a hit song by an English group called The Verve in the early 90s titled Bitter Sweet Symphony. While I make no musical reference to that piece, the idea of bitterness and sweetness in one piece really appealed to me. I had just read a book by Susan Cain called Bittersweet [when I was commissioned], so it all came together at the time I was writing this piece.

It’s not programmatic; it is more about this idea that’s always bothered me about a lot of contemporary orchestral music, that it’s all sort of monoemotional, angsty, expressionistic and kind of monotonous. It’s often somewhat humourless and...