Now here's a find! I confess to having been totally unfamiliar with the output of New Zealand's elder statesman of music, Douglas Lilburn. My loss, for his three symphonies are all works of some substance and no little potential for popular appeal. Indeed, I'd venture to suggest that readers with a penchant for Sibelius, Barber, Nielsen and Vaughan Williams (Lilburn's teacher at the Royal College of Music in the late 1930s) will find this music very appetizing.
Even on first hearing, it is clear that Lilburn has a natural talent for symphonic form and his material evolves with a quiet, dignified purpose which commands respect. True, stylistic echoes are legion, especially in the First Symphony (1947), whose central Andante con moto contains many a striking thematic resemblance to the corresponding movement of Sibelius's Fifth Symphony (I was also strongly reminded of the introduction to Bax's Fifth, for that matter). The Second of four years later is a far more mature utterance: its four movements are beautifully crafted and the whole symphony evinces a genuine feel for nature and sense of atmosphere that is thoroughly beguiling—an antipodean counterpart, if you like, to Sibelius's Sixth or Tubin's Fourth. But it is the single-movement Third from 1960 that shows Lilburn at his most challenging. This is a notably terse piece in five interlinked sections, uncompromisingly gritty in idiom, yet one which I've found well repays closer study; it certainly packs a wealth of incident into its 14-and-a-half minute duration.
These performances from the New Zealand SO under John Hopkins and (in No. 2) Ashley Heenan are warm-hearted, consistently involving and very decently engineered into the bargain. For those willing to venture off the beaten track, there are undoubted rewards to be had here.'