Margaret Sutherland OBE AO 1897-1984

The 1950s and 1960s were Sutherland’s most creative years. She wrote vocal, piano and
chamber music, concertos, major orchestral pieces and music for ballet – including Dithyramb (1946) and The Selfish Giant (1947) for Laurel Martyn’s Victorian Ballet Guild, and Variations on a Mood for Gertrude Johnson’s National Theatre Ballet (1953).

Sutherland’s last major creation was a short chamber opera called The Young Kabbarli; Maie Casey’s libretto was based on the experiences of Daisy Bates and incorporated the poetry of Judith Wright and John Shaw Neilson. The Young Kabbarli premiered on 19 August 1965 at the Theatre Royal, Hobart, during an Australian contemporary music festival. In 1972 it was presented by the Intimate Opera Group in the unlikely setting of the Olde King’s Music Hall theatre-restaurant as part of the Adelaide Festival and, soon after, in a series of Melbourne concerts celebrating Sutherland’s 75th birthday. It was the first opera ever recorded in Australia.

In 1969 Sutherland found herself unrepresented in a massive portfolio of recordings of the works of significant Australian composers, a project of the Commonwealth Assistance to Australian Composers Scheme. This was apparently the result of her steadily deteriorating relationship with conductor Bernard Heinze, who was a member of the Scheme’s board. Sutherland never forgave the slight.

In 1976 Graeme Murphy used Sutherland’s 1950 tone poem Haunted Hills, a lush evocation of the Dandenongs, as the score for his ballet Glimpses, a depiction of the unconventional world of Norman Lindsay. Murphy restaged Glimpses for his Sydney Dance Company in 1979 and again in 2006.

The University of Melbourne awarded Sutherland an honorary Doctorate of Music in 1969. She received the Order of the British Empire in 1970, the Queen’s Jubilee medal in 1977 and she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1981.  

By then she had suffered a near-fatal stroke and her eyesight was failing. She spent her last 10 years in a nursing home. Happily she lived long enough to attend the opening of the Melbourne Concert Hall (now Hamer Hall) in 1982, but, inexplicably the gala program included not one note of her music.

Margaret Sutherland died on 12 August 1984. In his obituary, James Murdoch described her as ‘more than the Mother of Australian music – she was the Matriarch.’ A memorial concert was presented, appropriately, in the foyer of the Melbourne Concert Hall, and the Concert Master’s Suite was named in her honour. Unfortunately, it’s right next door to the Conductor’s Suite, which commemorates her old foe, Sir Bernard Heinze.

She is also commemorated in the Margaret Sutherland Strings, a string ensemble of around 55 musicians aged 11 to 16 who have completed AMEB Grade 4+. The development of ensemble, musical and technical skills is emphasised as the members prepare for advancement to the larger symphony orchestras. Now, that, at least, is something that Margaret Sutherland would have liked.

Frank Van Straten, 2007