Anyone who studied music through the Australian Music Examination Board in the 60s, 70s and 80s at high school will remember, not always fondly, as the soloist admits, the name Dulcie Holland, a music educator and author of the Master your Theory workbooks. Pianist Ronan Apcar writes, “Dulcie’s solo piano works demonstrate both sophisticated craftsmanship and a truly unique voice. There is always great respect for good melody and a willingness to experiment with harmony that sometimes sits in a space between tonal and atonal, functional and non-functional. The writing is colourful and inventive yet maintains a general appeal – a hard balance to strike, in my opinion. Rita Crews OAM describes her style as ‘less conservative and more appealing than many of her contemporaries’.” 

I query whether any of the material on this CD approaches atonality, and, as for the description of her output as “sitting somewhere between functional and non-functional music”: does he mean it in the same sense that Hindemith’s music was routinely described as socially useful relevant and accessible to amateur performance? He goes on to ascribe one of the reasons...