Lilburn's Diversions for String Orchestra (1947) was composed within a few years of the composer's return to New Zealand after studying with Ralph Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music in London. At the heart of the work is a love for rural New Zealand, a tribute to the dignity and grace of ordinary people, and a lyrical vision of duty to home.
Douglas Liburn occupies a pre-eminent position in New Zealand music, with a legacy extending well beyond his compositional output. As a composer, a teacher, and later as a warm, generous and encouraging background presence, he presided in innumerable ways over the artistic growth of this country. His music, from the early works redolent of the influence of Sibelius and Vaughan Williams, to the electroacoustic pieces of his later years, makes up a corpus of works that has been instrumental in establishing a genuinely vernacular voice in New Zealand classical music.
