Douglas Lilburn wrote relatively little orchestral music. Aside from the three symphonies (also on Naxos, very well played by this same orchestra) this disc about does it. Much of the music dates from early in his career and accordingly shows a variety of influences: Vaughan Williams (Lilburn's teacher), Copland in A Birthday Offering (1956), and above all Sibelius, particularly in Forest (1936) and A Song of the Islands (1946). These were all good models, but at the same time Lilburn had an individual voice, even if its elements are difficult to pin down because of the pace at which he developed from a home-grown, New Zealand branch of the English pastoral school to the much spikier idiom of the Third Symphony and (on the way there) A Birthday Offering.


Indeed, by the early 1960s Lilburn gave up working in traditional media and concentrated his attention on experiments in electro-acoustic music, which means that he effectively dropped off the map. Listening to the attractive works on this disc, from the Aotearoa Overture (his most famous piece) to the lovely tone poems, you can't help but regret his decision, however personally motivated and necessary it may have been for him. In any case we still have this rousing, very well executed, finely recorded disc to enjoy, in which Lilburn's home-town team under the baton of the ever-reliable James Judd does him proud. An easy recommendation.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com