In doing so, Kerry has accomplished something quite personal and eloquent, coloured in no small way by the fact that, as a composer himself, he is able to imagine the view from inside the creative process. However, I remain uncertain of the book’s intended audience and function. It certainly does not set out to be a reference work, but explores less socio-historical context and more musical detail than would be normal for a layperson’s guide. It seems pitched at about the right level for music teachers and students, but the organisation is too idiosyncratic for it to work as a textbook.

The structure of the book is unusual: Kerry has deliberately eschewed chronology and biography in favour of a thematic approach. Chapters are devoted to the landscape, the competing musical influences of Asia and Europe, reactions to modernism, the inspiration of virtuoso performers, myth and spirituality. Perhaps as a by-product of this approach, many or most of the works discussed have significant extra-musical content. Is Australia actually the last bastion of program music, or is it simply that such pieces are easier to talk about (especially for a non-specialist audience)?

Several composers’ work is referred to in more than one place, making the whole book a network of relationships rather than a linear or teleological account, and producing some thought-provoking juxtapositions. Interestingly, Kerry largely avoids discussing the direct influence of one Australian composer’s work on another’s, either as teacher and student or in a less direct way: composers from different generations appear side by side as colleagues, not as masters and apprentices. One gets the impression that although Australian music has by now acquired the beginnings of a history, it continues to lack much sense of ongoing tradition.

Most of the chapters consist of a short introductory essay exploring the theme, followed by up to five sections devoted to individual composers. The introductions are, unfortunately, the weakest parts of the enterprise: they set out to contextualise ideas which will be explored in more detail in the later sections, but are poorly organised and lack focus. Part of the problem, I suspect, is Kerry’s apparent attempt to make sure that practically every composer of significance receives at least a passing mention (notwithstanding his stated disavowal of such exhaustiveness). As a result of this, several of the introductions dissolve into a succession of one-liners. From time to time, we find ourselves in the midst of a relatively detailed discussion of a particular piece, but in such cases it is not always clear why the discussion is not given its own section (a case in point being Stephen Cronin’s composition Cries and Whispers). The introductory essays should play a key role in articulating the themes and connections which are the book’s raison d’être, but to do so effectively would require much more careful editing. Kerry is on firmer ground in the composer case studies that form the larger part of each chapter. Relevant biographical detail is sometimes supplied, but Kerry is not concerned with assessing a composer’s output in toto; rather, he zooms in on one or two significant works, providing only the minimum of necessary context. The descriptions themselves are mostly well judged in terms of length and detail, with one or two strange exceptions, notably the inexplicable attempt to cover Richard Meale’s Voss, Moya Henderson’s Lindy and Andrew Schultz’s Journey to Horseshoe Bend (two full-length operas and an hour-long cantata) in the space of barely four pages.

More often than not, however, Kerry succeeds in communicating a vivid impression to the reader – no mean accomplishment in writing about music. His selection is an all-encompassing one, deliberately refraining from promoting any particular stylistic agenda, and herein lies perhaps its greatest strength. It is hard to think of many people who could write with equal understanding of, and affection for, the work of, for example, both Graeme Koehne and Liza Lim (Andrew Ford is the only other who comes readily to mind). One striking characteristic of the prose is Kerry’s occasional borrowing of metaphors from poetry and philosophy: for example, he quotes T.S. Eliot to describe a passage in Roger Smalley’s Diptych, and Dante to characterise Ross Edwards’s Symphony No. 4. This procedure does sometimes carry the risk of implicitly putting words into a composer’s mouth, however: when Kerry says of Edwards’s Symphony No. 1 that ‘we see the empty tomb, but not yet the risen Christ’, a reader unfamiliar with the work might assume that this specific theological reading was part of Edwards’s intent.

It is disappointing that the choice of music on the accompanying CD seems haphazard, to say the least. Only one of the works included (Georges Lentz’s Caeli enarrant … III) is discussed in any detail in the text, while several of the others are not even mentioned. I am sure that obtaining rights to use the recordings enforced considerable limitations, but the CD as is looks more like a completely independent ‘sampler’ of recent Australian music than something designed to accompany and enhance the book.

Kerry’s prose style throughout is eminently readable; relaxed, at times witty without being arch. The book seems well researched and accurate, although I was startled to see Nigel Westlake referred to as a member of Flederman, which does not chime either with my memory or with any documentary source I can find. The typesetting and presentation are clear and elegant, although there appear to be problems with some non-English characters (which are simply missing). The quality of layout in the musical examples is somewhat variable: moreover, the rationale for their selection is not always obvious. The photographs, on the other hand, make a striking contribution. The benefit is most direct in the case of the Brian Blanchflower installation Tursiops, a picture of which greatly illuminates the discussion of the Roger Smalley work inspired by it; but the portraits of composers and performers add a great deal of impact. The photograph of the Song Company’s Via Crucis Australis is amusingly mis-captioned – the presence of cross-dressing countertenor Ian Oi reveals the piece being rehearsed as Vincent Plush’s tongue-in-cheek Station X, not Mary Finsterer’s intense and disturbing Omaggio alla Pietà. I also wondered about the choice of Simone Young’s portrait for the inside front cover. I can see that choosing a composer portrait would pose certain problems, but why not go for a performer more obviously associated with the music of Australian composers?