Douglas Lilburn
        Symphonies 1-3

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra/James Judd
Naxos 8.555862  TT: 77:16

Summary for the Busy Executive: Colonial boy.

A native of New Zealand, Douglas Lilburn (1915-2001) studied composition
in England with Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music.  As a
teacher, Vaughan Williams had his good and bad points -- chief among his
good ones, he didn't apply himself to turning out little disciples.
Indeed, listening to Lilburn's first symphony (1949), one is struck by
how little it sounds like Vaughan Williams or any other English symphonist
of the time (maybe, in spots, Moeran).  To me, it most resembles an
American symphonist like Piston, Mennin, or Diamond, more or less the
hard-core neoclassicists in the United States.  Indeed, at one point in
the finale, Lilburn fashions a theme from the folksong "Dives and Lazarus"
-- a great Vaughan Williams favorite -- and it still doesn't sound
English.  It's all in the rhythm, or rather the cross-rhythms.

Of the three symphonies -- each of which differs greatly from the other
-- the first is my favorite, athletic and optimistic.  The opening
movement begins with a wind-up and worrying of an upward fourth scalar
run in mainly Phrygian mode (E to A on the white keys of the piano),
which generates the energy of the rest of the movement.  Here and there,
one can discern the influence of Sibelius in the orchestral colors.  The
colors change far more quickly than in Sibelius, however.  Lilburn uses
the timps and the brass sparingly and to great effect.  All very winning.
The passionate second movement rises to wonderfully Romantic climaxes,
yet (paradoxically?) within a neo-classic musical idiom.  Neither Vaughan
Williams nor Sibelius are anywhere in obvious sight.  Brief bits of
bitonality (music in two keys at once) cut through.  Yet it all stems
from the harmonic nature of the material, with I-II progressions (in the
key of C, a C-major chord followed by a D-major one) and frequent shifts
from major to minor mode.  It sings ardently.  The finale, according to
Lilburn, works through four basic ideas.  All of these ideas, however,
have their echoes in the earlier movements.  The world-view, however,
has become more complex, with a subtly acerbic first part.  This gives
way gradually to a section of "fiddle tunes," many of them made up by
Lilburn.  The folksong connection comes through not only in the "Dives
and Lazarus" theme, but also in a "come-all-ye" theme.  Again, this
sounds closer to American composers' evocations of Appalachian music
than anything English.  After a bit, the mood of the opening combines
with the fiddle tunes, and we get a struggle toward light, which does
finally come.

Lilburn produced the second symphony in 1951.  Apparently, commentators
find it expressive of the New Zealand landscape.  I've never been to
New Zealand, so I wouldn't know.  However, Vaughan Williams's harmonic
thinking of the Forties, around the time of the Sinfonia Antartica, does
show up.  The first of its four movements strikes me as enigmatic, in
the way of VW's seventh, eighth, and ninth.  The scherzo second movement
again recalls American symphonies, in this case those of Henry Cowell
(something like the Fourth).  This may be a simple matter of a long,
modal melody against a rapid ostinato.  It's fanciful, muscular, and
lyrical all at the same time.  The later Vaughan Williams returns in the
slow movement, with at least one theme very close to the Sixth Symphony's
concluding fugue.  It's, of course, fun to play "Spot the Influence,"
but I don't mean to belittle Lilburn's achievement.  It's a beautiful,
deeply-felt movement all by itself - indeed, the outstanding movement
of the symphony, or perhaps of the three symphonies.  I simply want to
convey what it sounds like.  Indeed, Lilburn sets himself a difficult
job trying to follow that movement with any sort of finale.  The last
movement begins with a kind of updated Brucknerian ostinato, which breaks
out into the "big-shoulder" energy which, again, I associate with the
classic American symphonists.  Although a very fine movement, the finale
doesn't quite cap the work.  The slow movement strikes too deep.

By 1961, Lilburn had become intrigued with serial procedures, although
he never, as far as I know, succumbed to all of it.  He still sounds
tonal to me.  His language is still modally-inflected, but there's more
chromaticism.  One really notices, however, a change in the emotional
landscape - darker, harsher, less boundingly athletic, more complicated.
The attention to the course of the motific argument has become more
focused, almost laser-like.  Although in one moderately-long movement
(about 14 minutes), it does the basic symphonic job of transformation,
of moving the listener from here to there.  I should say it picks you
up by the scruff of the neck and hauls you off with it.  The graciousness,
even the relative relaxation, of the earlier two symphonies has gone.
After many listenings, I don't yet have its true measure, and it will
probably take me a while.  But it's addictive as all get-out.

Judd and the New Zealand Symphony surprise me.  They do alright in the
first two symphonies (though you would suppose that if any orchestra has
any experience playing Lilburn, it would be the New Zealanders), but
they don't really knock your socks off.  The attraction of the recording
comes mainly from Lilburn himself.  The third symphony, on the other
hand, is a different story.  The orchestra rises to the greater challenge
the piece sets.  Judd and his players concentrate on setting out Lilburn's
argument.  Nevertheless, a great performance would take all of this for
granted.  Lilburn needs a real champion, not someone working through the
score.  This is visionary music - not in its technique, but in its
"poetry."  It will never make its full effect until you get someone who
can communicate that vision.

Naxos has done its usual good, if not spectacular, job of recording.

Steve Schwartz