Drawing its images from the pioneer sheep-farming hill country of his youth, Lilburn's Sinfonia for Strings points to the growth of his symphonic style through which New Zealanders could experience a common identity. The sunny appeal and rhythmic lift of the opening movement, the transcendence of the central movement, and the nationalist aspiration of the finale combine to evoke both the spiritual and physical dimensions of the human condition.
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.
