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When I arrived at the Royal College of Music in London, in September 1937, and was accepted as a student by Vaughan Williams, he put me through routine disciplines of writing fugues and part-songs, and then one day said: “Isn’t it time you composed something?”

I accepted the challenge and produced by Drysdale Overture, with its nostalgic memories in a musical language which rather disconcerted him. Still more did it upset Sir George Dyson, who brilliantly realised my rough orchestral score on the piano and then said: “Don’t bring me another manuscript like that.” He did, however, give it a reading rehearsal with the RCM first orchestra, and I took steps to improve my musical handwriting.

In those far-off heady days, Hans Keller’s “functional analysis” had hardly impacted on the RCM – we students ignorantly and derisively called it “sweet FA”. And so I may hardly provide an “analytical synopsis”.

With my meagre knowledge of classical forms, I thought that proper overtures should have a solemn introduction, with motifs recalled later in various structural guises, and that they should have a contrasting “second object” – hence my nostalgic oboe tune, with fitting Scottish inflections. Curiously, what might have been a routine “development” turned into a sunlit rondo, nostalgic of childhood happiness.

I’m left with that lovely Mark Twain image of Jim and Huckleberry drifting on their barge down that great river, looking up at the stars and wondering “whether they was made, or only just happened”.

Douglas Lilburn
14 October 1994

• Lilburn: Drysdale Overture; computer-set 

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• Douglas Lilburn: Drysdale Overture; audio 

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• Alfred Hill and Douglas Lilburn- Wellington Chamber Orchestra Vol. 2 

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• Landscapes: New Zealand Orchestral Music 

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• Douglas Lilburn: A Song of Islands  Year: 1987 

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• Lilburn: Prodigal Country  Year: 1987 

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• Lilburn: Prodigal Country  Year: 1987 

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• Douglas Lilburn: Orchestral Music  Year: 1995 

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• Douglas Lilburn: Orchestral Works   Year: 2004 

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• Island Song  Year: 2010 

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• Carr: Four Pieces; computer-set 

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• Concertos: Anthony Ritchie, Dorothy Buchanan, Edwin Carr  

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• Wells: Four Short Works for Pianoforte; facsimile 

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• Wells: Four Short Works for Pianoforte; facsimile 

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• John Wells: Four Short Works for Pianoforte; audio 

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• Carr: Night Music; computer-set 

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• Edwin Carr: Night Music; audio 

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• Music by Edwin Carr  Year: 1978 

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• Edwin Carr: Orchestral Music  Year: 1995 

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• Powell: Reading Gaol; facsimile 

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• Powell: Reading Gaol; facsimile 

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• Kit Powell: Reading Gaol; audio 

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Sings Harry, a setting of six poems by Denis Glover, tells of an endearingly idiosyncratic New Zealander. It is a prime example of Lilburn’s subtle handling of poetic texts. The self-reflective tone of the protagonist, and the slightly complex narrative mode, are established in the first song: it is Harry’s voice that we hear, Harry singing his home-made song cycle; yet a guiding narrator is ever present to tells us so. One’s awareness of this narrative voice is enhanced throughout the cycle by the recurrent falling-third motif at the phrase ‘sings Harry’, and by the composer’s frequent use of a vocal reciting tone or a pitch to which the voice is drawn. It is nonetheless easy to become absorbed in the various voices of Harry, which range from the crusty critic to the carefree swaggerer. Lilburn captures the fluctuating temporality and unpredictability of his subject with great sensitivity and humour. In the final song, a delightful recollective melange of landscapes and uncles, this is achieved by means of recurrent motifs (the ‘river running by’) and reflective pauses. Sings Harry was released in 1960 on a label called Kiwi New Zealand Composer Edition. It was the third work by Lilburn to be recorded and the sole piece on a 45 rpm disc. Programme note: Nancy November

• Douglas Lilburn: Sings Harry - hardcopy score 

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• Douglas Lilburn: Sings Harry - handwritten hardcopy score 

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• Douglas Lilburn: Sings Harry; video 

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• Waiteata Collection of New Zealand Music Vol. 9 - Douglas Lilburn: Salutes to Poets  Year: 2006 

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• Carr: Sonata for solo violin; facsimile 

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• Release: The Mozart Fellowship  Year: 2012 

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The Sonata for Violin and Piano is in one movement of five contrasting sections. It dates from 1950 and was composed for two well-known musicians: the violinist was Ruth Pearl, from England, who had settled here shortly after the Second World War and was for some time the leader of the Lindsay String Orchestra; and pianist was Frederick Page, for many years professor of Music at Victoria University. These artists performed the work throughout New Zealand and took it on tour for the Chamber Music Federation. Even now it remains the one sonata for violin and piano by a New Zealand composer that is heard with any frequency.

• Lilburn: Sonata for violin and piano; computer-set 

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• Douglas Lilburn: Sonata 1950; video 

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• Chamber Works Vol. 2 (NZ Composer Edition) 

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• Lilburn: Two Works 

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• Douglas Lilburn: Violin and Piano Works  Year: 2011 

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• Douglas Lilburn: Master Works for Strings  Year: 2011 

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