Search - Douglas Lilburn, James Judd, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra :: Douglas Lilburn: A Song of Islands; Aotearoa Overture; Forest

Austral Nordicism

Thomas F. Bertonneau | Oswego, NY United States | 11/13/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A couple of years ago Naxos extended the favor to all students of Twentieth Century symphonic music of collecting on one bargain priced disc the three symphonies of the best known of New-Zealand composers, Douglas Lilburn (1915 - 2001), a protégé in the mid-1930s of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Even for educated listeners, Lilburn had hitherto been little more than an entry in the music-dictionary. In Los Angeles in the 1980s, when one was tuned into late-night radio, one might hear the "Aotearoa" Overture (1939), broadcast from a long-playing record of New-Zealand origin, wonderfully hypnotic in the quiet minutes of the dark antemeridian. (The DJ was probably Skip Weschner, who also broadcast the BIS LP of Aulis Sallinen's "Symphony 1970.") That first Naxos disc revealed an austral inheritor of the Sibelius tradition, who, like his American counterpart Howard Hanson, put a new inflection on Sibelius' Nordic language without greatly altering the grammar or the syntax. This is not meant as a complaint, but rather as a compliment. The new disc of Lilburn's orchestral music other than his symphonies, played once again by the New Zealand Symphony under conductor James Judd, verifies the earlier impression, but it also extends the picture of the composer by including his earliest orchestral score. This is a tone poem called "The Forest" (1936), dating from Lilburn's student-days in London, at the Royal College of Music. Like its companion, the "Drysdale Overture" (1937), "The Forest" takes it cues from the late Sibelius of Symphonies Nos. 5, 6, and 7 and the tone poem "Tapiola." In the Finnish national epic, "Kalevala," the god of the pine-forest bears the name Tapiola, so that Lilburn may be said to have borrowed even his nomenclature from the Master of Ainola. I recommend an AB comparison of the two works. Lilburn's score owes a debt, seeming to quote not only "Tapiola" but also the slow movement of Symphony No. 5, yet no one can really fault an apprentice artist from taking the best model that he can find. Richard Strauss modeled his early symphonic poems on those by Franz Liszt, but the listener enjoys Strauss, despite the indebtedness, on his own merits. In "Aotearoa" (1938) and "A Song of the Islands" (1946), we move from convincing apprentice work to journeyman accomplishments while remaining aware that the ghostly presence of the Finn glides through the landscape. "A Song of the Islands" is the outstanding item on the disc, a beautiful and moving score. In the 1960s, Lilburn came under the influence of Aaron Copland. SOme of the later pieces reflect this. James Judd presides over these performances with total commitment and exacting control of dynamics and tempi. Long gone are the days when the idea of a New Zealand orchestra seemed to American record collectors a bit like a quirky joke. Judd's orchestra is as good as any to be heard nowadays on CD. No one who buys this disc will suffer disappointment. Admirers of Sibelius and Hanson should take well to Lilburn's art. I also recommend the earlier CD of the three symphonies."

New Zealand's Greatest Composer

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 10/21/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There is no question that Douglas Lilburn (1915-2001) is New Zealand's greatest and best-known composer. And if there is a quintessential orchestral work by Lilburn, it is his 'Aotearoa Overture' which has been played all over the world, and recorded several times by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the group heard on this CD. It has been noted many times that 'Aotearoa' (which is a Maori word meaning 'land of the long white cloud') is very reminiscent of the music of Sibelius. Lilburn studied in England under Vaughan Williams at a time when the music of Sibelius was exerting enormous influence on English composers. If one did not know who the composer was, one might very well think it is unknown Sibelius piece. And since it is a musical landscape it has connections with similar Sibelius works. More important, it is an entirely lovely work and as far as I'm concerned one of the great short non-European orchestral works. I've loved it for thirty-five years and was thrilled to hear this fine performance by the NZSO under its music director, the Englishman James Judd.



Just as exciting, though, is the collection of otherwise relatively little-known works by Lilburn (little-known outside New Zealand at least). All but one are fairly early works; indeed two of them -- 'Drysdale Overture' (1937) and 'Forest' (1936) -- are student pieces, although you probably wouldn't recognize it on hearing them. 'Drysdale' is named for the farm in the central plateau of New Zealand's North Island on which Lilburn grew up. It has two main themes, one of them limning the landscape and the other a reminiscence of native lullabies that Lilburn's mother sang. 'Forest', a quarter-hour tone poem, describes an autumn landscape of a mountain in South Canterbury. There are typical Sibelian pizzicato basses that tread delicately through the first part of the work, but one can hear Lilburn's distinctive voice emerging. The piece won a competition for a work on New Zealand themes sponsored by Percy Grainger.



'Festival Overture' (1939), also a prize-winner, depicts the national spirit as the newly consolidated nation of New Zealand approached the War. It is both minatory and celebratory. 'A Song of the Islands' (1946), written after Lilburn had returned for good to New Zealand, is a quarter-hour tone poem in arch form that was inspired by a painting by New Zealand's Rita Angus depicting a church, cottage, barn and furrowed fields against a background of sea and snowy peaks. There is a haunting oboe melody that figures heavily in the work, along with a kind of breathless admiration for the scene depicted. The work has a sense of ultimately fulfilled anticipation, partly described through long-held harmonic suspensions, that is striking.



'A Birthday Offering' (1956) was written for the tenth anniversary of the founding of the National Orchestra (now the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) and sounds a little like Copland, with wide-open harmonies, along with what sounds like a tale-telling mood. The last-written work recorded here is the short 'Processional Fanfare' (1961, rev. 1985) composed by Lilburn while he was professor at Victoria University in Wellington. It is, as one might guess from its title, sometimes used as a processional at graduation ceremonies and it features three trumpets and strings calling out, among other things, variations on 'Gaudeamus igitur', the student song well-known from Brahms's Academic Festival Overture.



The performances by the very fine NZSO are all one could want. My copy of the CD had some sporadic problems with mistracking, a defect I assume was unique to my copy. Otherwise sound was lifelike. For those who are drawn to this music I would call attention to the fine recordings on Naxos of Lilburn's three symphonies performed by the same forces.



Scott Morrison"