Scott's polar trek revived in words and music
SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - "For four days we have been unable to leave the tent - the gale howling about us. We are weak, writing is difficult, but for my own sake I do not regret this journey."
The words from the journal of polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott, famed for his doomed attempt to be the first man to reach the South Pole, echo through the Sydney Opera House before the music of the haunting Sinfonia Antarctica gently builds.
Projected on a huge backdrop, black and white pictures from the 1912 expedition illuminate the wind swept wastes and icicle encrusted faces of Scott's team members.
One of the most poignant stories of the Edwardian age, Scotts' expedition has been resurrected by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in words, music and images.
"I think there is a definite lingering fascination with the pathos of the story, of course, but also with the Antarctic today. It's in people's psyche," says the orchestra's director of artistic administration Raff Wilson.
The Symphony has used readings from Scott's diaries and stunning pictures by expedition photographer Herbert Ponting to build on the music of composer Ralph Vaughn Williams, written originally as a score for the 1948 film "Scott of the Antarctic".
Best known for lush English pastoral music, Vaughn Williams later turned the score into his seventh symphony, a darker than usual work with a windy, glacial effect that incorporates a wind machine and a eerie chorus of women's voices.
"People like the orchestral experience, but to add elements to it does enhance it, if it can be done with focus," says Wilson.
The diaries tell of intense suffering, but also of Scott's early impressions -- curious penguins evading attempts to keep them away from the expedition's dogs, a booming blizzard and drift snow like finest flour.
The original plan to combine just words and music was extended when a symphony staff member with a family link to Ponting, showed Wilson some of his pictures.
"I was loaned this book and started flicking through it and realized just how amazing these images are," says Wilson.
Despite the difficulties of freezing temperatures and primitive equipment, the high resolution of Pontings's images allowed Wilson to zoom in on fine details during the performance, such as a climber atop a snow peak, without losing the clarity of the image on the big screen.
The archetypal British explorer of the Edwardian age, Scott was beaten to the Pole by Norwegian Roald Amundsen. He and three companions died on their return, just 11 miles from a supply depot.
"We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far," he wrote. "It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more."
