After three years of scholarship, the first of three volumes of orchestral music by Larry Pruden is released for sale. Pruden retains a special place in the history of music in New Zealand. Alongside Douglas Lilburn, he was among the first generation of composers in the country to establish a genuine vernacular. This sixth volume includes his quintessential works The Antipodes, Harbour Nocturne and Lambton Quay, each of which reveals the voice of a composer celebrating the direct and open experience of life. Through each of these works runs a vibrant sense of New Zealand, but whereas The Antipodes is an anthem to national pride, Harbour Nocturne and Lambton Quay are regional hymns that are drawn with affection but without a blurring sentimentality. This sixth edition of the Larry Pruden Collected Edition has been edited from extant source material and brings these essential works of Pruden into an elegant and definitive format.
With Douglas Lilburn, John Ritchie and others, Larry Pruden belongs to the earliest generation of New Zealand composers to discover a genuine vernacular, and in his music is reflected the trail-blazing spirit of the pioneers, their passion for creativity and their rebelliousness of spirit. Throughout his output, whether the music is modest in scale and purely functional (civic fanfares and radio advertising jingles, for example) or more extended and overtly ‘serious’ in tone (such as the larger works for orchestra and strings), Pruden’s vivid response to urban society and rural life in New Zealand is revealed.
