From Sorrowing Earth which stands as one of Butterley's major achievements. It was commissioned by the ABC for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and first performed in 1991.
1991 was a significant year for Butterley.
In 1992 From Sorrowing Earth won the Sounds Australian Award for the Best Orchestral Composition
Butterley's titles often came from poetry, and at this time the work of English poet Kathleen Raine was prominent. Butterley had visited Raine in England and they corresponded regularly, but the title is not actually in her work.
The poem that heads the score as an epigraph is:
Polluted tide,
Desecrated earth destroyed:
Yet one green leaf opens for the heart
The shelter of a great forest.
This short poem was central to Butterley's thinking as he composed From Sorrowing Earth. Other writers have speculated that the title comes from other sources but not Raine's poetry. Butterley stated that as he was composing the work, the title came to him, and it was only after he had settled on this title that he realised the phrase is not actually in Raine's work. The important aspect of both the poem and the orchestral work is that both alert us to the destruction of the natural world, and also offer hope.
The music falls into five main sections:
Firstly, there is a lengthy opening typical of Butterley's style with the gradual accretion of ideas. Short ideas are bounced around and shared amongst small groups of instruments.
Seamlessly following on from the first section, but clearly with more vigour and direction, is a gradual build-up of material.
The third section is where that climax arrives, and it is shattering. It is possibly the most direct statement in all Butterley's output.
After the climax subsides, a short section recalls fragments of the opening.
This gives way to the extraordinary ending, the fifth section, a hymn of hope and consolation.
The CD by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra conducted by Isaiah Jackson is out of print. The complete work is available on YouTube.