A trip Down Under

Six recordings to explore Start with the bright colours of Glanville-hicks’s Etruscan Concerto from the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (ABC Classics ABC4763222), paired with the finale from her opera Sappho, followed by The Warriors by her fellow expat Grainger (below), which is given an epic performance by the Melbourne SO, alongside the folk arrangements for which he is best known (Cala CACDS4033).

Piers Lane brings stunning clarity to

The Complete Piano Concertos (Hyperion CDA68011/2) of Williamson (above), and didgeridoo virtuoso William Barton joins the Queensland

SO for Sculthorpe’s dramatic Earth Cry and dance-inspired Songs of

Sea and Sky (ABC Classics ABC4761921).

Finish off with a few contemporary voices: Elena Kats-chernin’s Eliza Aria and excerpts from Deborah Cheetham’s Eumeralla: A War Requiem for Peace appears on Women Of Note: A Century Of Australian Composers

Vol. 2 (ABC Classics ABC4819109), while the complex, evocative Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus by Liza Lim (Kairos 0015020KAI) is brought to vivid, slithering life in the hands of the Klangforum Wien.