Sings Harry (1953/1954) for baritone and piano is a setting of six poems by New Zealand poet Denis Glover. With simple yet precise word setting, Lilburn created spare and direct tunes with accompaniments that vividly evoke the rural New Zealand landscape and the characters that inhabited Glover's poems. Also included are two previously unpublished settings by Lilburn of Glover's poetry, ‘Holiday Piece' for medium voice and piano and ‘The Magpies' for mixed voices.
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.
