Some Makings of an Australian Composer (1964-1965): Historical Context and the National Library of Australia's Peter Sculthorpe Papers (Essay‪)‬

English Abstract Under the shelf-mark, National Library of Australia, MS 9676, the "Papers of Peter Sculthorpe" already comprise some 25 linear metres of personal and professional correspondence, autograph scores, printed ephemera (concert programs and press clippings), photographs, and other memorabilia, collected by the composer over most of a lifetime. This article summarises the contents, and addresses its importance of the collection, especially to the study of Sculthorpe's "first period" (1929-74), and to the monograph literature on the composer. It also gives a referenced account of the historical background to Sculthorpe's emergence as a figure of national importance, and as one of a new wave of modernist Australian composers in the years 1963-64. Finally, complementing his recent biography of the composer, Peter Sculthorpe: The Making of an Australian Composer, the author presents new data found among a newly identified correspondence drafts dating from these same years.