Sonata (1949)
The bracing lyric power of this sonata in A minor is established in the hill-shaped contour of the opening octave statement and the shadowy recesses of the chordal reply. The counterweight thus provided by chords rebounding from the octaves creates a resonance or “oversound” which emanates through the first movement, and indeed the entire work. This bold gestural opening (reminiscent of the brooding opening paragraphs of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in A minor, D.784), along with a cheerful second theme announced over a broken-chord accompaniment, instinctively identifies with the forces of nature and affirms an enduring passion for life. The curve and grain of the music partakes of an impressive physical space in a way that Lilburn described plainly as “letting our music grow out of the land beneath our feet”.

The central movement, intensely lyrical rather than starkly dramatic, seems to plough the earth. The musical heart is a lullaby-like theme which wells up out of heart-break. Cut this music and it will bleed – yet even so, consolation can be found in the warmth of wanting to feel the earth and in the sweet whisper of the closing bars. This movement reveals Lilburn at his most humane.

If the physical push of the second movement is earthward then the psychic direction of the finale is skyward; its melodies overbrim without complication to bring the sonata into abundant fruition.
The composer’s friend and colleague Frederick Page gave the first performance of this sonata and Margaret Nielsen, a key Lilburn specialist, subsequently established it in the repertory.

Occasional Pieces for Piano (1942-73)
This collection of sketches, studies and personal tributes was brought together for publication in 1975. Written mainly for amateurs, these pieces weave a personal narrative, giving voice to the gratitude of friendship, the fold of landscape and the articulation of musical tradition.

The first two sets – Four Preludes (1942-44) and Two Christmas Pieces for L.B. – are primarily dedicated to Leo Bensemann, an artist known for his powerful regional paintings. The bells that peal through these pieces seem not only to resonate greeting but also the essential identity of Bensemann and the alpine freshness of his paintings – the third prelude in particular is notable for its shifting transitions from light to shadow.

The Four Preludes (1948-60) and several other works in the collection explore iconic musical heritage including Bartók and the Eastern European tradition in the third prelude, Chopin’s mazurkas in the fourth, gypsy bands in the Rondino and Schubert in the Andante and Adagio sostenuto (the sombre mood of the latter could trace the lonely lover in Winterreise trudging through the snow).

Poco lento and Andante commodo are washed by tides, whilst Still Music for W.N.R. (the Christchurch doctor William Norris Rogers) and Three Bars for M.N. (the pianist Margaret Nielsen) are characterised by a profound and meditative sense of beauty which, welling out of silence, captures reclining landforms whilst reflecting the composer’s strong affinity with his friends. Surprisingly, Nielsen’s piece was written in exchange for compost for the composer’s garden; but, naturally this music is seeded in the warm earth.

Evidently, in the first of the Two Preludes (1951) Lilburn had in mind the peeping call of the grey warbler, a small New Zealand bush bird. The upward waft of the second prelude releases a sense of airy vernal daring and an overbrimming of invention which Lilburn achieves in his greatest work; the lifting power resides in the upsurge of the language.
‘Six Short Pieces’ (1962-63)

Unfettered by the constraints of longer structures, Lilburn seems to have regarded his short piano pieces (of which there are several collections) as a form of liberation. It was a genre that allowed him to experiment without inhibition, to pursue his exhaustive quest to test the boundaries of sonority and to develop a new language of sensation, feeling and thought. These six pieces, the first two composed in 1962, the remainder in 1963, pivot about expositional openings which turn into their own sensation or memory in the act of sounding. The set shows the simple, sensuous and passionate motifs of Lilburn’s work coming together in precisely adjusted balance.

Sonata for Piano in A minor (1939)
This work, composed during the period of Lilburn’s tuition in London with Ralph Vaughan Williams, is a welcome addition to the composer’s repertory. Grounded by a strong structural sense, the sonata combines the influence of the New Zealand landscape with romanticism, reflecting what Lilburn described as an “intense individual expression of emotion” with a pantheistic mood invoking the Sublime. The sullen chords and ensuing flow of the opening paragraphs evoke a long line, like a wave gathering and breaking. This is almost a barren severity, like the rocky coast this music celebrates; at climactic pianistic moments the surf smashes the shore. The expressive tonal modulations of the second subject, with its mixture of rejoicing and weeping notes, are perfectly matched to human sentiment – joy stirs within the music to anticipate a not-impossible human happiness.

Eden-like joys engage us in the second movement – a twisting stream of semiquavers alternates with an almost mazurka-like dance in dark earthen colours. The finale, a hymn to what the painter Thomas McCormack called “the power of the sea, rivers, plains and mountains”, celebrates Wordsworthian “spots of time”, in which we become intensely open to experience and also aware of a heightened openness – aware that the moment is privileged.

Moths and Candles (1948)
Subtitled ‘a dance for children’, this miniature was written for Infant Schools, a National Film Unit documentary produced by Margaret Thompson. Lilburn simulates the tinkle of a musical box and the recurring tune rotates like a clockwork ballerina. Presumably the flitting moths feature in the melodic moments and the candles on the flickering appoggiaturas.