Composer Notes

Introduction to the music of Nigel Butterley - page 1

Australian composer and pianist Nigel Henry Cockburn Butterley, AM, was born in Sydney on 13 May 1935. He died in Sydney on 19 February 2022, aged 86. He is one of Australia's finest composers.

Butterley's music does not immediately present its ideas overtly or simply. Listeners are rewarded upon repeated listening as its depth and layers unfold and reveal themselves.

From his earliest work to his late, mature works, Butterley's music is primarily concerned with a search for meaning and spirituality. In early works, this quest encompasses some conventional religious ideas. In middle works this becomes a search for self, and in late works it is a quest to find meaning in the world.

The True Samaritan

In 1958 Nigel Butterley composed his first significant work, The True Samaritan. It is four movements of sumptuous choral writing. The outer movements are vibrant and celebratory. The inner movements are quiet and reflective.

Growing up in an Anglican household, and with Noel Nickson and Raymond Hanson as his teachers, Butterley had exposure to English idioms of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He knew the music of composers such as Vaughan Williams and Holst. Some writers on Butterley excuse the work on this basis. I don't share that view. I see it as his first serious work, coming after several short piano pieces. While there is more modern writing in other works from the same period, The True Samaritan has a strong, individual voice. It has become part of the standard repertoire for many choirs and choral societies.

The first movement entitled Morning Fanfare sets a poem by William Austin (1587-1634), All this night shrill chanticleer (c. 1630). Butterley uses the first line from the third verse to open the music and as a refrain in key places throughout the movement.