From the compulsive unfurling of the opening movement, the choppiness of the second, the curvaceous swell of the third and the upward cresting of the fourth, we experience in Lilburn's music for Allen Curnow's Landfall in Unknown Seas a life-affirming endeavour. The work touches both the heart and the mind and was a much-needed tonic for New Zealand wartime audiences.
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.
