Move Records MCD 657

*****

This year commemorates the 70th birthday of Australian composer Michael Easton, who died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage at the early age of 49 in 2004. Founder of the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, together with his friend, pianist Len Vorster, he wrote numerous film and television scores, nine operas, three symphonies and many concertos.

Australian label Move Records has now released a selection of Easton’s music and it shows just how versatile a composer the man was. Included in this nine work collection are a flute sonata, a piccolo concerto, Moods for Piano, a variety of songs very much in the Benjamin Britten vein, and my personal favourite piece, the two piano Cocktail Suite consisting of the Whisky Sour Waltz, Martini Melody and Schneider Cup Charleston, just three of the witty five movement work, which he shares with his friend Vorster.

The range of emotions that Easton covers in his various works goes from Alone and Lonely to Practical Jokes in his Moods for Piano, and the funny, though at times rather risqué. Song of Perfect Propriety from Dorothy Parker Says, cheekily sung by soprano Kathleen Southall-Casey.
All in all this is a fitting tribute to a brilliant Australian composer who left us far too early.

Michael Morton-Evans