ABSTRACT
The symphonies in this chapter avoid any explicit connection to Australia or any external programme: they concentrate on the interplay of musical motives and formal organization in an abstract, ‘absolute’ music sense and they demonstrate a more international style. Robert Hughes's idiom shows awareness of Sibelius, Prokofiev, early Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams and Walton. Raymond Hanson, Dorian Le Gallienne, Margaret Sutherland and David Morgan demonstrate aspects of leaner neo-Classical idioms and a confident use of extended tonality that permitted strong dissonance. Felix Werder, alone among his contemporaries, composed two symphonies in a very progressive serial idiom, but these works were not performed until the 1990s.
