Simon Purtell's Books

Tuning the Antipodes: Battles for performing pitch in Melbourne

By: Simon Purtell

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Tuning the Antipodes: Battles for performing pitch in Melbourne

By: Simon Purtell

Examining the many controversies associated with pitch standards in Melbourne over more than a hundred years, Simon Purtell discovers their impact on the tuning of the city’s orchestras and organs, as well as its defence, municipal and Salvation Army bands. This fascinating history involves famous local and touring singers, conductors and organists, including Nellie Melba, Malcolm Sargent and William McKie, revealing just how complex a problem it was to ensure that Melbourne’s music-makers remained in tune. “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has nothing on the saga of ‘Pitch, pitch, that cursed pitch’: the seemingly endless and frequently caustic attempts to establish a uniform performing pitch for music in the Antipodes. It is a typically Melburnian drama of mixed deference to Britain and stubborn upholding of local interests that the author so eloquently and patiently chronicles, and it ranges from the almost theocratic intervention of Dame Nellie Melba at the beginning of the twentieth century to the Stanthorpe Apple and Grape Harvest Festival of 1972. At the same time, it will have been a battle taking place comparably in all the major cities of the British Empire and beyond, though each with its peculiar twists and turns. What Simon Purtell has done is show us, in immaculate detail, just how pervasive and intricate, not to mention costly, this tectonic realignment of a fundamental element of musical infrastructure must have been in all places over a very long period of time” (Emeritus Professor Stephen Banfield, Centre for the History of Music in Britain, the Empire and the Commonwealth, University of Bristol).

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Page Count

230

Publisher

Lyrebird Press Australia lyrebirdpress.music.unimelb.edu.au

Published Date

ISBN 10

0734037856

ISBN 13

9780734037855

Pointy-Enders

By: Simon Petrie

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Pointy-Enders

By: Simon Petrie

Dodging flying chairs, wrestling screaming, abusive children and dealing with angry parents. This is part of the daily fare for Hugo Walker who fights crime and violence every day. His beat is not the cruel streets but the classrooms, corridors and playgrounds of Kookaburra Primary School. Hugo is part of the rapid response group charged with keeping children and staff safe from harm. It is a big job. Travel with Hugo behind the scenes. Join him in his quest to bring order to the chaos as he provides a sense of caring in an increasingly uncaring world.

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Page Count

267

Publisher

Xlibris Corporation

Published Date

ISBN 10

1479787124

ISBN 13

9781479787128

Tuning the Antipodes: Battles for performing pitch in Melbourne

By: Simon Purtell

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Tuning the Antipodes: Battles for performing pitch in Melbourne

By: Simon Purtell

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

230

Publisher

Lyrebird Press Australia lyrebirdpress.music.unimelb.edu.au

Published Date

ISBN 10

0734037856

ISBN 13

9780734037855

Book's by Simon Purtell

Tuning the Antipodes: Battles for performing pitch in Melbourne

Tuning the Antipodes: Battles for performing pitch in Melbourne

Pointy-Enders

Pointy-Enders

Tuning the Antipodes: Battles for performing pitch in Melbourne

Tuning the Antipodes: Battles for performing pitch in Melbourne

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