Elliot Gyger, The Music of Nigal Butterley

[Extract] Published to coincide with the eightieth birthday of the composer, Elliott Gyger's The Music of Nigel Butterley represents a significant contribution to the analytical writing that surrounds contemporary Australian concert music. The work forms part of the 'Australian Composers' series presented by the new scholarly publisher Wildbird Music, the aim of which is to reveal the creative processes that sit behind various important Australian composers' idiosyncratic styles. In eschewing biography in favour of rigorous musical analysis, the series is targeting a highly educated readership. Gyger's book does include a brief note explaining the use of musical examples and terminology in the text, but an in-depth knowledge of serial process, set theory and the nomenclature surrounding modernist musical practices is nevertheless a prerequisite to effectively engaging with the text. That being said, the tone of the work is appealing and successfully avoids dry analytical monotony. Gyger achieves this via regular asides that function to position Butterley's work in the broader discourse surrounding contemporary concert music, and by offering a reading of the significance of Butterley's output.