4 Early Arranging and Composing

During Ormandy’s visit to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, he gave Charles Mackerras a unique opportunity to hear a run-through of an arrangement he had made of the famous Australian bush ballad Waltzing Matilda. He had modelled it, brilliantly as it turned out, on the Fugue from Schwanda the Bagpiper by Weinberger – a piece he greatly admired.

INTERVIEW 1-4: JOAN MACKERRAS

MUSIC 4: MATILDA (ABC Archive Recording)

Sir Charles Mackerras conducting his own Waltzing Matilda Fugue there at a concert with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1995 – 50 years after Eugene Ormandy had first played it through with the same orchestra. And we are most grateful to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for enabling us to play that unique archive-recording extract.

SUPPLEMENTARY RESOURCES

Sir Charles Mackerras arrangement in the form of a fugue of Waltzing Matilda performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Brett Weymark (2007). (YouTube)