Complete Piano Music Vol.7 (Preview)

In 1947 Lilburn joined the staff at Victoria University College in Wellington and completed several
works that received high critical acclaim, including two symphonies, two piano sonatas, and the
Alistair Campbell song cycle Elegy (1951) – a vision of the titanic indifference of nature.
Lilburn composed the Symphony No.3 (1961), along with Sonatina No.2 (1962) and Nine Short
Pieces for Piano (1965–66), in response to a stimulating period of sabbatical leave. Masterpieces of
concentrated form, these works explore the boundaries of his instrumental writing. From this point
until his retirement, Lilburn chose to take on the new territory of electroacoustic composition.
Lilburn’s final years were spent quietly at home in Thorndon, Wellington, tending to his garden and,
until the onset of arthritis, playing his beloved August Förster piano. He received the Order of New
Zealand in 1988.
Prelude (1951)
This piece, which has a Bachian feel for harmonic movement, has aptly been described by the pianist
Margaret Nielsen as ‘exuding a sort of rhapsodic nostalgia as each phrase struggles to escape from
the pedal points that act as secure anchors to different tonal areas.’ A surge of sound in the middle
releases the music into a new tonal centre of C sharp minor but shifting tonalities ensue until it
finally resolves into D major. Lilburn is spare with performing instructions but, as a general rule in
pieces like this, one aims for clearness and plasticity of sound.
Five Bagatelles (1942)
Allegro
Largo
Allegro con brio
Tranquillo (‘From the Port Hills’)
Allegro
The musical structure as one moves through this set progressively reveals a larger unity. The fourth
prelude is known independently as ‘From the Port Hills’, which is a topographical reference to the
Christchurch landscape; the hushed chords and ambient modalities create a warming nimbus, and
this special envelope of sound sustains from first to last. Noel Newson premiered Five Bagatelles
on 12 December 1942 at a concert presented by the Royal Christchurch Musical Society (he gave
a repeat performance at a concert devoted to Lilburn’s music held in the Canterbury University
College Hall on 29 September 1943). A recording of Lilburn playing ‘From the Port Hills’ exists in
the National Sound Archives.
‘Three Pieces’ (1965)
These pieces reveal the erudition of Lilburn’s serial technique but, just as in his Third Symphony,
this is not serialism for the sake of serialism but serialism to invite another dimension. The last piece
is a marvel of sustained intensity and it is wonderfully instructive to see how Lilburn varies the limpid
sonorities emanating from the opening bars to create an even more transfixing beauty.
PEL07 – v