Programme Note
Organ solo
Bridal Entry (1973)
Bridal Entry and Wedding March were written for the wedding of Hyde’s son Robert and his bride Marilyn, in Melbourne in 1973. It can be played on organ or piano.
Trio for violin, cello and piano
Fantasy Trio in B minor (1932-33)
This work was written while Hyde was on a scholarship at the Royal College of Music in London, when she was nineteen. Fantasy (or Phantasie as it was earlier spelt) was the word used in early twentieth century England for short chamber works in a single movement, written for the Cobbett competitions. This Fantasy Trio has a slow cantabile middle section, so overall, the composition has the quick-slow-quick structure of traditional works in three movements.
Trio for violin, cello and piano
Fantasia on Waltzing Matilda (1936, arr. for piano trio in 1994)
Hyde wrote most of the orchestral music for the pageant ‘Heritage’ which was staged during the South Australian Centenary celebrations in Adelaide in 1936. This is an adaptation of a short orchestral overture to a scene opening with a ‘jolly swagman camped by a billabong’. It has also been arranged for various instruments and their combinations – for piano solo, piano duet, two pianos, wind quintet, four flutes.
Piano solos
The Fountain (1928)
Hyde was only fifteen when she wrote The Fountain, entranced by the sight and sounds of playing water in the fountain of a large garden of friends in the Adelaide Hills.
The Ring of New Bells (1959)
In 1959, the parish of St Paul’s Church was looking forward to the arrival of a peal of eight bells, to be installed the following year. It was first played by the composer at a recital in her home to help raise funds for the new bells. The music represents the bells being rung in different patterns, or chimed.
Songs for Soprano
Hyde’s output for voice consists of more than fifty songs, plus some choral works, and some orchestrated songs. The following three are among the fifteen songs which are settings of her own poems. In the 1950s, when busy raising a young family, she did not have the continuity of time required for composing large works. Her songs won several competitions.
Winter Willow Music (1954)
Thoughts at Dusk (1951)
Sunrise by the Sea (1954)
Violin solo
Bodhi, by Mark Isaacs. Written for the Burwood Sesquicentenary, in memory of Miriam Hyde, based on a theme of compassion. World premiere.
Piano solos
Woodland Sketch (1965)
Hyde wrote this after examining students at St Scholastica’s College, Glebe, Sydney. ‘It was summer, and on a hot rather windy day, leaves from the trees were swirling’. In the contrasting middle section is a suggestion of bird calls among the trees when the left hand twice crosses over the right hand. It ends with a slower, wistful coda in a minor key.
Scherzo Fantastico (1986)
‘My ideas for this piece just seemed to fall to my hands, on the keyboard, in 5/8 time, and I use it consistently throughout its length. It has an almost kaleidoscopic changing of colours with many changes of key. The varying accents and syncopation give it a piquant character, which is highly pianistic even for smallish hands. I would like it performed at a swift tempo that can bring to it a touch of virtuosity and dynamic impact.’- M.H.
Flute and Piano
Beside the Stream (1962)
The piano part gives the effect of running water, and the flute cadenza is reminiscent of bird song. The last few bars have a gentle rocking effect as though a small boat has returned along the stream and is being moored.
Evening under the Hill (1936)
Originally written for violin and piano. It is a dusk scene in a garden in the Adelaide Hills. The lowering sun casts lengthening shadows across the lawn from tall trees. It ends calmly, and when one looks to the sky, stars have come out.
Piano solo
Valley of Rocks (1975)
This evokes the dramatic location of Valley of Rocks above high cliffs at Lynton on the north coast of Devon in England – and the primeval-looking dark rocks which encircle it. It was by far the most popular Australian composition chosen by competitors in the 1988 Sydney International Piano Competition, and has become Hyde’s best known piano solo. It is a strong, brooding and compelling piece.
Clarinet solo
Tangled Rope (1993)
Tangled Rope was written for Sydney clarinettist Deborah de Graaff who had recorded Hyde’s Sonata for Clarinet. It was prompted by the composer’s frustrating experience in trying to use a tangled garden hose, then the task of undoing the knots and straightening the kinks.
Euphonium and piano
Festival March (1965)
Hyde’s son Robert played euphonium (like a small tuba) in the brass band of the Army Cadets at Newington College.
Songs for Baritone
Flotsam (1942 – lyrics by Walter de la Mare)
The Gypsy (1942 – lyrics by Patricia Hackett)
Violin and Piano
Dryad’s Dance (1936)
This was composed for a recital by Arved Kurtz, violin teacher at the Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide. A dryad, mentioned in English poetry, is a mythical being, a nymph inhabiting trees. There is an element of fantasy about this piece, with lively semiquaver movement for the violin, while the accompaniment features off-beat chords and piquant staccato quavers.
Piano solo
Evening in Cordoba (1987)
In her autobiography, Complete Accord (1991), Hyde recalled her impressions of her visit to Cordoba in southern Spain, which subsequently gave rise to this piece:-
‘Groups of young people moved in an ever-increasing stream, singing in an uninhibited way and clapping a steady rhythmic pulse, as though providing a substitute for castanets. Sometimes someone would be strumming a guitar in their midst. Again near the mosque, the narrow streets surged with humanity, reaching a sort of midnight madness of crescendo.’
Other piano pieces in Spanish idiom are Ear-Rings from Spain (1970) and The Vine Trellis (1988).
Piano solo
Study in Blue, White and Gold (1962)
This virtuosic piece is in three keys, inspired by the colours of a Danish embroidery which had a white candle (C major) with gold flame (E major) on a blue background (B major). Hyde had strong associations between keys and the colours or characters they evoked for her.
Flute and piano
Sonata for Flute and Piano (1961-62)
Hyde wrote music for most woodwind and string instruments. The Sonata is one of 13 pieces for flute and piano. It was written between October 1961 and January 1962, mostly in trains, while the composer travelled to and from appointments as a music examiner. It is in three movements.