March 10, 2015

  • Lilburn String Music

     Lilburn: String Chamber Music
    New Zealand String Quartet
    Naxos 8.573079
    Total Time: 72:49
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

     

    It is not very often that I take a look at chamber music here as I tend to prefer larger-scale orchestral music.  However, it was not hard to want to explore this new Naxos collection of string music by New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn (1915-2001) whose Diversions for Strings was one of my first exposures to his music.  The music on this release spans the composer’s student years at the Royal College of Music (1939) up to the mid- to  late 1950s.  Among the works here are an important string quartet from 1946 and a trio from 1945.

    Lilburn’s three-movement String Quartet was composed in 1946 and is a work where beautiful lyric writing is on full display.  The opening movement has this wonderful upward movement for its first theme followed by a slightly more melancholy, though slightly more intense and impassioned second idea.  This latter music will continue to flutter and soar ever upward after a series of outbursts.  All this somewhat reflective of the composer’s interest in creating interesting environmental connections some may hear in this music relative to birds flying or crying out.  A folk atmosphere enters in the central “Allegretto” with lilting eighth-note patterns.  The rhythmic pulse sometimes feels like it is taking a page from Baroque dance as it moves joyfully along, the “fluttering” ideas appearing here and there.  The final movement bears the greatest weight of the piece with some Bartokian rhythmic punches that open the movement.  Here the upward lyrical music vies with these emphatic chords to create additional tension.  The quartet is really a beautiful work that is filled with great beauty and engaging drama.  The music is similar to the likes of Peter Warlock with a mix of Samuel Barber, both contemporaries writing in a more accessible harmonic language.  This is a significant work certainly worthy of entering the repertoire of all string quartet players.

    The more significant work is this set of Duos for 2 Violins (1954).  The six-movement work now sees Lilburn integrating the more modernist approaches of Bartok and Copland.  The composer sent the latter a copy of the work.  It is on one hand an expression of Copland’s “Appalachian” suggestive folk music coupled with the more modal writing in Bartok’s folk-influenced music.  Along the way we are treated to a rustic “hoe down”, gypsy music, and wistful rural reminiscences.  The blend of these styles here is of course still filled with Lilburn’s beautiful lyric writing.

    The 1945 String Trio, which follows, was Lilburn’s first work to be published outside New Zealand.  The music reflects a bit on Schubert’s Quartetsatz.  Schubert’s music was a particular fascination of the composer during this time with other pieces finding inspiration and influencing Lilburn’s lyric writing and tone.  An interesting march-like idea provides a contrasting second subject before the opening movement moves into some intriguing sinuous interplay.  The central movement is another gorgeous lyrical exploration that seems to reflect back to the 19th Century at times.  The final allegro has a dance-like folk feel as it bubbles along.  Small motivic cells become an important aspect of this movement which grows in excitement.

    Over the course of sixteen years, Lilburn wrote three canzonettas for violin and viola.  The first of these was in 1942 followed closely by the second the next year.  They were written during a time when Lilburn was composing incidental music for Shakespearean plays and do have a Renaissance feel to the music, even the plucked, or strummed strings recreate a lute-like sound.  The third of these, from 1958 is in a more reflective mode, similar to the other reminiscence approaches in the previous works on this release.

    The final work, the Phantasy for String Quartet, was composed in 1939 when Lilburn was a student at the Royal College of Music.  It was his winning entry for the Cobbett Prize.  The idea was to create a single movement work exploring Jacobean “Fancy”.  As the basis for the work, Lilburn chose a period ballad, “Westron Wynde”.  Some may hear a bit of Sibelius, but really all the aspects of the composer’s later lyrical style can be heard here alongside some subtle period inflections and folk-feel.  The piece sort of fell to the wayside, but it is receiving its world premiere recording here.  It makes a fitting close to the program with its somewhat ambiguous ending.

    The New Zealand Quartet members really make this music come alive.  Their ability to shape Lilburn’s gorgeous lyrical ideas while also getting at the dramatic undercurrents in the music make the case for each of these pieces as important chamber pieces of the 20th Century.  Certainly the quartet, trio , and the duos are worthy of greater awareness and the rest of the program is simply icing on a luxurious cake.  Highly recommended for those who love 20th Century music and the work of composers who still found much to say in an accessible harmonic language.