The Australian Chamber Orchestra has consistently championed the music of its countryman Peter Sculthorpe. Cello Dreaming, premiered by Steven Isserlis and the BBC Philharmonic during the 1998 Manchester Cello Festival, is inspired by the sights, sounds and diverse cultural mix of Australia's northern coastline. It's a beguiling evocation, boasting nature music of imagination and local colour; Emma-Jane Murphy is an impressive soloist. The Aboriginal melody known as 'Djilile' was first used by Sculthorpe as far back as 1950 in his Fourth String Quartet. This transcription for strings is one in a series of reworkings of a tune that has haunted the composer for over 50 years. No less appealing is the substantial Second String Sonata (1988), an arrangement of the Ninth Quartet of 1975.
Shrewd programming frames the threnodic Irkanda IV for solo violin, strings and percussion (Sculthorpe's first real breakthrough from 1961, named after the Aboriginal word for a remote and lonely place) between Irkanda I for solo violin from 1955 (a beautifully proportioned essay which provides the first glimpse of the mature composer in its rapt identification with Australia's landscape and wildlife) and the moving 1976 Lament for strings. It isn't hard to detect a kinship, so naturally does each piece emerge from its predecessor.
Three tracks here (Irkanda IV, Lament and the Second Sonata) overlap with a rival ABC Classics release featuring these same artists. There's little to choose between the two in terms of performance (those earlier accounts are a degree more restrained), but Chandos's sound has the edge, possessing breathtaking definition and range. A very fine issue.