8/18/2019 Carnival of the Australian Animals - Program notes and instrumentation

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INSTRUMENTATION 

Flute / Piccolo 

OboeClarinet / Bass Clarinet  

Bassoon 

Horn in F Trumpet in Bb 

Piano Percussion 

Timpani 

Violin I* Violin II Viola Cello 

Double Bass 

*Concert master has an altered part 

8/18/2019 Carnival of the Australian Animals - Program notes and instrumentation

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PROGRAM NOTES 

Scenes from the Australian Wilderness

by Christopher Healey  

I. Introduction  

II. The Forest Critters and the Butcher Birds  III. The Snake Hunts (Birds and Wallabies)IV. The Hunter Becomes the Hunted  V. Ascension  

You are about to join the Queensland Philharmonia Orchestra for a journey through the Australianlandscape and for the story of one very unfortunate crocodile.

After a short introduction, the sounds of the Australian wilderness, and of a Queensland forest inparticular, set the scene; listen closely for the calls of the Butcher Birds in the trees, and the

chirping of forest critters amongst the trees.

Then, moving North, we first meet the main character of this musical narrative - the crocodile -skulking around his North-Queensland swamp, but hungry and in need of a feed, he soon sets outlooking for prey.

 

Hoping to snap up a few of the birds digging for insects on a near river bank, he very carefullysneaks closer, and closer (listen out for the plucked strings) and seizing the moment, he lunges!Instead of catching any dinner however, the birds angrily take flight and swoop down to peck at thecrocodile, who slinks away back into the river.

 

With a still-hungry belly, the Croc goes in pursuit of another dinner option and soon spies a smallfamily of wallabies hopping happily around by the river as they stop to drink. The Croc begins toprowl. The wallabies sense something is wrong however, and when our Croc burst from the wateragain, he only catches a mouthful of air, meanwhile, the wallabies hurriedly hop away into thedistance, leaving our still-hungry crocodile to go back in search of his dinner. 

Next the Croc comes upon a water python slithering around in the shallows. It’s a big one! Butmore hungry and desperate than ever, our croc begins to stalk his prey. Little does he know thatthe snake, also quite hungry, and feeling rather confident at this point in time, has spied the crocand is having very different thoughts about how this will play out…

 

The two clash! The croc snaps furiously at the snakes, who is too slippery and quick for him, and

the snake begins to wrap itself around the poor Croc. The battle rages on, but the poor croc haslost the upper claw! 

Sometime later, one very, very full snake slowly slithers away to find somewhere comfortable to liewhile his meal digests.

 

But fear not, that’s not the end of our Croc; As its spirit slowly awakes, he finds a great river-to-the-sky is waiting for him. No longer hungry, he decides a little exploring wont hurt, so with gentleswishes of his tail, he swims up it into the great sky river.