Reconstructing the creative life of Australian composer Margaret Sutherland: the evidence of primary source documents
Margaret Ada Sutherland (1897-1984) is respected as one of the leading musicians in Australia in the twentieth century. She is widely recognised as having made significant contributions to the development of Australian musical composition and contemporary creative life. While a significant body of scholarly work has been completed on Sutherland and while it is varied in scope and purpose, to date, no study has been undertaken with a strong focus on the identification and examination of primary sources relating to Sutherland. Research on Sutherland and her creative life has been consistently hampered by problems such as numerous lacunae in the composer’s corpus of works and the transmission of errors from one study to the next. It is the thesis of this study that these problems can be addressed by a reevaluation of all previously-used primary documents as well as the study of newlyfound primary source material: returning to primary sources has uncovered a considerable amount of material, both by and about the composer, which has remained previously unexplored. In order to address omissions in Sutherland’s work list, the starting point for the current study is the compilation of a thorough catalogue of works which incorporates all known compositions by Sutherland. This catalogue is derived from the collation of comprehensive primary source material. Further to this, the close examination of extensive primary sources relating to Sutherland’s life and music provides insights into aspects of the contemporary musical network in which she worked and also into the particular problems she encountered as a female composer in a geographically isolated country. The diversity of her achievements is also illuminated. The resources used in this thesis provide the material which will enhance, augment, and sometimes offer new perspectives relating to the current understanding of Sutherland’s creative life. Thus, Sutherland’s contribution to Australian music can be more deeply understood.
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