Sydney composer Mark Isaacs records second symphony

Sydney Morning Herald

24-06-2025

The piano remains central to Isaacs' craft. Credit: Louie Douvis
When still a teenager, he studied composition with Vincent Plush and Kim Williams at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Williams (now chairman of the ABC) later commissioned Isaacs' first symphony.
Loading
But the piano remains essential to his craft. He writes his symphonies sitting at the keyboard, allowing ideas to come to him through improvisation. When a theme emerges he'll jot it down with pencil and paper, perhaps with a note about instrumentation.
'When I'm sketching I might put in 'woodwind flurries', or I know there will be a cor anglais solo – and I make a note at the piano and work out the details later,' he says. 'It's like drafting something and then going into finer detail.'
He used to write his orchestral scores in longhand, working at a sloping architect's table. These days he works with music-notation software when he is filling out the orchestration.
Symphony No. 2 is scored for strings and triple woodwind, brass, three percussionists and harp. It also includes a piano – not as a solo instrument, but as part of the orchestral texture – as well as celesta and harpsichord.
Isaacs dedicated his first symphony to his father, Saul Isaacs, a research chemist and composer whose song In a Little Moment was recorded by Petula Clark. At the time Isaacs was writing the symphony, Saul had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His father was able to attend the world premiere of his first symphony – given by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and conductor Benjamin Northey in 2013 – before he died.
The piece impressed no less a figure than conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, who suggested that Isaacs write his next symphony in a more upbeat mood.
The second movement of Symphony No. 2 is an expansive adagietto. The third and final movement begins with an unusual expression marking, largo supplicando, suggesting supplication or prayer.
Isaacs says he doesn't subscribe to a particular religion, but the musical direction is intended to evoke a 'sense of humility and devotion to what I would call Oneness, with a capital O'.
Loading
After this moment of reflection, the third movement launches into an exuberant finale, attended by emphatically affirmative chords and sweeping glissandos from the harp.
Isaacs received an Australia Council (now Creative Australia) grant to write his second symphony. It was completed in 2017 and Isaacs spent the next seven years trying to find an orchestra to play it. To continue the literary analogy, it was like an author sending his novel to publishers and receiving only polite rejection slips.
He is philosophical about this, but was determined that the music should at least be recorded, given the public investment in it. Recording the symphony in Prague cost $57,000, supported by $50,000 from Creative Australia. At the same sessions he recorded his suite of songs called Grace City, with Deborah Dicembre.
Isaacs is not finished with the symphony. Indeed, he speaks of a possible cycle of symphonies – each instalment distinct but related to the whole, like a sequence of novels.
'I think the third should introduce a choral element, a choir or vocal soloists – or both,' he says.
'I've only just scratched the surface.'
Mark Isaacs' Symphony No. 2 and Grace City are available on major music platforms.
The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.