This striking performance by the Marais Project was originally scheduled to be coordinated with the 250th anniversary of Cook’s voyage in 2020 but Covid threw a spanner in the works .It has now been livestreamed from Sydney by the Australian Digital Concert Hall.

Utilising their singular background on Swedish art and folk music , combined with Australian colonial music by Isaac Nathan , and readings from James Cook’s and Joseph Banks’ diaries , the Marais Project , led by Jennifer Eriksson on viola da gamba , with Susie Bishop singing and on violin and Tommie Anderson on a 5 course guitar from 1770 and a 9-string guitar , and James Fraser narrator/actor , present a fascinating analysis of the life and times of Daniel Solander , who accompanied Cook and Banks upon the 1770 voyage of the Endeavour. Solander was the first Swede to circumnavigate the world , and set foot on Terra Australis Incognita.

The program opens with Carl Michael Bellman’s (1740-1795) Käraste Bröder (Fredmans Epistel No 9) and Haga (Fredmans Sång No 64) , arranged by Andersson , the trio of musicians very busy .The first was pulsating , throbbing and joyous , with the atmosphere of being on a ship bobbing up and down on the water . The second was slower, more formal, with Andersson on sonorous guitar.

Then there is the first, introductory reading about Solander , how he moved to London in 1760 and his summons in 1798 to join Cook and Banks.
We then hear Swedish folk music consisting of Kristallen den fina (Dalvisa) (a traditional piece from Skattungbyn, Dalarna) and Polska from Fu (after Bengt Mattsson, Mora) where complicated, intricately interwoven notes flow and mingle, contrasting rich , moody and melancholy with a spirited , lively section.
Then dramatically read by James Fraser we learn of the first part of the voyage from first to Tahiti then Charlotte Sound, Aotearoa, known today as New Zealand and eventually Terra Australis.

A highlight of the concert would have to be Tommie Andersson and Jennifer Eriksson performing two pieces – Isaac Nathan (c. 1791–1864)’s The Aboriginal Mother (a poem by Eliza Hamilton Dunlop) , arranged by Andersson, delicate , melancholy and wistful , with a steady beat . The song powerfully describes the 1838 Myall Creek massacre where some 30 unarmed people of the Wirraayaraay clan of the Kamilaroi people were murdered, contrasted a bit with Isaac Nathan’s (c. 1791–1864) The Aboriginal Father (a Native Song of the Maneroo Tribe. Words transcribed and versified by Eliza Hamilton Dunlop) also arranged by Andersson – passionate, strong and determined.

 

There are readings from both Bank’s and Cook’s journals about the encounters with the Indigenous peoples of Botany Bay and the cultural clash. Solander was involved in helping Banks with the preservation of his wildly expanding collection of plants and other items (leading to the site being named Botany Bay)..There is also mention of evidence of wallabies – or possibly kangaroo (?).

The Endeavour moved on – we then hear readings about the dramatic way the ship was caught on rocks at what is now Cooktown and took on water and needed repairs .While the ship was laid up , Banks and Solander went exploring and adding yet more to the extensive collection of plants and other items .
A haunting, rippling old Scots song from the collections of Sydney Living Museums; arranged by Andersson Johny Faa, or the Gypsie Laddie is included .Andersson also has a dazzling solo on guitar- Johan Wikmanson’s (1753-1800) Sonate för en Zittra (solo guitar)I. Allegro moderatoII. Presto, with its catchy rhythm and cascade of notes .

In Banks’ journal he makes mention of both his and Solander’s homelands when they see giant ants nests.

More Swedish folk music features ,again arranged by Andersson – Min levnads afton–Hjort Anders Olsson (1865 –1952) Gullklimpen(The Golden Nugget) -Timas Hans Hansson (1846-1916) follows- mellow, rich , flowing and many layered at first then leaping and jumping.
Fraser then reads from Cook’s journal describing how they shot a kangaroo for the first time, which leads into the Catadon Polka by George Strong (1853) with its infectious rhythm and flourishes.

We then hear more readings , especially about Lizard Island , and the return voyage back to London , arriving 12 July 1771 . While Cook claimed the land for Britain ,there was no comprehension of interaction or that the Indigenous peoples actually owned the land.
On the voyage back to London Solander was extremely ill at Batavia , but survived – which leads to a fluid yet sombre and grateful traditional hymn arranged by Andersson.

Lastly we hear descriptions of Solander, how he became Bank’s private secretary , invented the Solander box , a method for preserving prints, drawings and samples still used by libraries and archives today ,gives his name to Cape Solander in Botany Bay, the Solander Islands off New Zealand’s South Island, and not forgetting the Daniel Solander Library in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Australia’s oldest botanical research library.

THE FANTASTICAL LIFE OF DANIEL SOLANDER by the Marais Project was livestreamed through the Australian Digital Concert Hall on February 17 .