Paul Smith: Three Canzone

The performance and recording of Paul Smith’s Three Canzone by Alana Blackburn (recorder) and Clair Race (toy piano) sits within the broader context of contemporary Australian art music that dialogues with historical forms. It explores how structural archetypes from early music, such as the canzona, can be repurposed in modern works to bridge temporal, stylistic, and expressive divides and is a significant contribution to the recorder’s evolving concert repertoire. The use of the term canzone in Smith’s title is both a gesture of homage and a statement of continuity to early musical genres. The performance of the piece aligns within current practices of post-historically informed performance (‘post-HIP’) in the context of revivalist practice and broader cultural trends (Tassie, 2021). The piece exemplifies how the recorder—a historically-situated instrument often associated with early music—continues to serve as a vehicle for innovation when placed within new creative frameworks.