Albert Morris
a new oratorio by Rowen Fox
My newest project is a full-length oratorio based on the life and work of the Australian amateur botanist and ecologist Albert Morris, who was a pioneer in utilising natural revegetation to restore degraded landscapes around Broken Hill during the 1930s.
Albert, along with his wife, Margaret, and members of the Broken Hill Barrier Field Naturalists club, established the regeneration reserves which today surround Broken Hill. These reserves transformed the town. A self-taught botanist, Albert was an inspiring figure. His discoveries around natural regeneration remain relevant to bush regeneration efforts today.
Albert Morris the oratorio will tell Albert and Margaret’s story through choruses and arias to detail and dramatize their momentous achievement.
Albert Morris 1886-1939
The first stage of funding for the composition of this work was made possible by a generous commission from the members of Phoenix Choir Blue Mountains, who commissioned the first 20 mins of choruses in 2020. Sadly, the planned 2021 preview performance for these was cancelled due to the second lockdown.
I continue to research and write with the next stage consisting of a completed piano score of the approximately 120 minute work. The finished product, of course, will be for full orchestra, chorus and soloists. The orchestration process will include some planned workshops with local musicians later in the project timeline.
A Broken Hill Dust Storm - 1907
“The extending country stretched for miles without a vestige of any green thing and each stone or old tin had a streamer of sand tailing out from it. The fences were piled high with sand, inside and out, and it looked as if the intended railway lines would just be buried every dusty day, which was every windy day. One could put up iron fences, but in the windswept areas they will only form sand-hills and need endless labour to keep them clear.”
“Broken Hill is not the place one would live in from choice... It is the intense heat of summer, mingled with those dreadful, blinding dust-storms, the severity and unpleasantness of which it is impossible to describe - the naturally desolate surroundings - the never changing outlook of Mills, Shafts, Stacks etc. - the dilapidated and tumble-down tenements so typical of every mining centre…”
About the ORATORIO
As a choral conductor, I have been exposed to my fair share of monumental choral works, and have been intrigued by the idea of creating my own. The choice to compose an oratorio might seem, to some, anachronistic. Historically the oratorio has usually dealt with biblical subjects, although not exclusively so. The first secular oratorio was composed by Monteverdi, and Handel wrote several based on Greek mythology. From the 20th century, Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Honegger’s Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher are well-known secular oratorios.
Bush regeneration may seem, at first glance, an uninspiring subject for this kind of grand treatment. I actually think Albert’s story is ideal for the format. In oratorio, chorus and recitative drive the story forward. It’s narrative flow can be literal, non-linear, or figurative, and the chorus has great scope to play differing roles and to express differing viewpoints. Arias, as in opera, allow the deeper exploration of an individual moment. To tell Albert’s story in this format allows me to explore that which is very archetypal and inspirational about it: namely, the persistence of the regenerators in the face of both the devastated ecology and the initial public apathy towards the scheme.
As a great lover of botany myself I am also personally inspired by Albert's self-taught knowledge and his ability to find solutions through simple observation of nature. In that, he clearly serves as an inspiration for our own times. Albert’s wife, Margaret, was a fascinating figure in her own right. She was responsible for keeping the regeneration project on track after Albert's untimely death in 1939.
This will be my own libretto based on several original sources, including Albert and Margaret’s own words where I can find them. Margaret and Albert both wrote articles on the regeneration scheme for local newspapers. The main book about Albert, is Horace Webber's The Greening of Hill, while Albert's collected writings are contained in his Plantlife of the West Darling. For an understanding of the scheme’s geography, I am also indebted to the fine article on the subject by Peter Ardill, Albert Morris and the Broken Hill regeneration area: time, landscape and renewal.
