The beginnings and development of a New Zealand music: The life ...

shows little more than that Lilburn was reflecting what was a world-wide
trend amongst all, bar the most radical and most conservative, composers.
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As suggested in Part I of this study, Lilburn's output of
compositions falls relatively neatly into three periods of writing. The
first period spans the first twenty years of Lilburn's work as a
composer, from 1936 and the composition of Forest to 1955-6 and his
overseas study of that time. The second period begins in 1956, with the
composition of A Birthday Offeri~ and his first use of the serial
techniques he encountered overseas, and spans a decade to the composition
of Nine Short Pieces for Piano of 1965-6. Lilburn's third period ~s
characterised and shaped by his interest in the electronic medium.
Some overlapping occurs between his second and third periods of writing.
For the sake of convenience, this third period could be-said to have
begun in 1965 (with the completion of his first major work in the
electronic medium, The Return), and ended in 1979 (with his last
electronic work to date, Soundscape with Lake and River, and with the
announcement of his impending retirement from the Victoria University of
Wellington) •
Lilburn's first period of writing was his most prolific, partly
because it spans the greatest time, and partly because Lilburn was
working for much of the period as a free-lance musician. This period ~s
dominated by works for orchestra and string orchestra, and is characterised
by Lilburn's interests in finding a New Zealand voice for his music.
Lilburn's style of writing, however, does not remain static throughout
this 'New Zealand' period, indeed,it shows a logical, if gradual,
development brought about by the gaining of experience and by the
passage of time. A certain restlessness can be detected in the music
from this period that Lilburn wrote after moving to Wellington in the
late 1940s. This restlessness was partly due to his change of social
environment, and partly due to the beginnings of an awareness of change
in compositional techniques overseas. Such a restlessness, though,
makes only a subtle impression on his music. Indeed, much of the music
Lilburn wrote initially in Wellington had been planned in Christchurch.
Works written during this first period of composition include
three orchestral overtures, two symphonies, two 'tone poems' and a suite
for orchestra, nine works employing a string orchestra, a dozen works
for piano, some ten works for solo instruments or chamber ensembles-,
up to a dozen songs (mainly set to New Zealand texts), two song-cycles,
up to twenty separate scores of incidental music, and a handful of works
using choral forces, narrative voice or solo singers.