In Pillars of Creation, pianist Bernadette Harvey continues her indefatigable championing of Australian composers, the album presenting a constellation of contemporary works for solo piano that are by turns intricate, virtuosic, lyrical and cheeky.

Peggy Polias’s Sonata: Ode translates The Exaltation of Inana, an ancient poem by the Sumerian high priestess Enheduanna, into a spacious, often pointillistic five-movement architecture. Exploring the haunting solidity of etched cuneiform and the transcendent power of the divine feminine, Polias, in five movements of startling variety and invention, manages to evoke a sense of timeless mystery without alienating the listener.
Equally compelling is Tim Dargaville’s Kolam, a mesmerising cycle steeped in the ephemeral geometric mandala patterns and konnakol rhythmic chants of South India. Dargaville weaves these culturally rich strands into delicate skeins and “sonic mandalas” whose evanescence is hard-wired into the compositional process.

Offsetting this spiritual gravity is the late Donald Hollier’s Second Sonatina, a masterclass in musical pranksterism and anachronistic cosplay. Hollier smuggles popular melodies – including Autumn Leaves, Yesterday and Hello Dolly – into the antique forms of a Choral Prelude, Passacaglia, Ayre, and Fugue – a technique not unknown to Renaissance and Baroque composers anyway. It’s marvellously good fun, and one of the highlights of the recital. Ross Edwards offers a gentler form of frivolity with Three Australian Waltzes filled with charm, whimsy, nostalgia and even romanticism.

Harvey’s interpretations throughout are of course as insightful as they are technically assured, her deep familiarity with the composers’ unique idioms and demands upon the performer resulting in a profound, all-embracing fluency.

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Title: Pillars of Creation
Works: Music by Ross Edwards, Peggy Polias, Donald Hollier et al.
Performer: Bernadette Harvey p
Label: Rylstone Records