Chamber Music Piano
SKU: PO.PEL12
Composed by Douglas
Lilburn. Performance
Score. Promethean
Editions #PEL12.
Published by Promethean
Editions (PO.PEL12).
ISBN
9781776605521.
This
volume contains Lilburn's
two piano sonatinas.
Sonatina No.1 (1946)
combines geometric
patterning of classical
forms with the
distinctive simplicity of
colour and line that the
composer so admired in
the work of the
regionalist painters. The
first movement hymns a
fundamental vitality
– a fresh
start in the morning land
that is New Zealand; an
almost geological majesty
pervades the second
movement and a three-note
motive sets the finale in
motion. Composed in
the Autumn of 1962,
Sonatina No.2, together
with Symphony No.3,
provides the fullest
expression of Lilburn's
last notated music before
he turned to the
electroacoustic medium.
Spare, elegant and
eloquent, both the
sonatina and the symphony
are rich and distinctive
works that maintain a
tension that keeps them
taut as cords in our
collective memory.
Although the pianists who
know the sonatina so well
from the inside talk of
its subtleties, beauty,
delicacy and meaning, it
will always be a work of
immediate appeal, a work
that is as much a delight
to listen to as to play,
a work that can be
enjoyed as pure
music.
