Diversions for String Orchestra (1947), is the last of a series of works for string orchestra, including Allegro for Strings (1942) and Landfall in Unknown Seas (1942), composed during the first decade of Douglas Lilburn's return to New Zealand after study with Ralph Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music in London.
Diversions was the most instantly appealing, the lightest, and the most easily performed and programmed. It expresses Lilburn's coming of age as a composer in rural New Zealand and touches on the love of a region that never goes away. The freeing voice of this music is a wonderful respite for world-weary listeners - the musical equivalent of a brisk walk or a dip in the river on a summer's day.
In his Otago journals, written in a crib purchased from an adjoining farm, where he retreated from university life, Lilburn speaks of landscape as a form of listening. The auditory imagination is grounded in the presence of the 'rich wide landscape and sky' and the seasonal cycle of the farm causes the composer to 'spontaneously think a folk-like fragment into a long melodic jubilus or bird-flight'.
In its five movements, Lilburn seems to tell us that he cannot conceive of the country without the people working and celebrating it. This he reveals in dance (Vivace), a quasi-antiphonal hymn-tune (Poco adagio, espressivo), in the sound of cantering horses, including a direct reference to the 'Lone Ranger' theme tune (Presto), in song (Andante) and in the chatter of the river under the banks of the hill (Allegro). The work is both a tribute to the dignity and grace of ordinary people and a lyrical vision of duty to home.
Diversions was composed in response to a call by the English conductor Boyd Neel who was touring his string orchestra in Australia and New Zealand and wanted to include music submitted by local composers. Lilburn's contribution was selected and the premiere took place in Wellington Town Hall on 9 July 1947 with a second performance in Christchurch. Neel's decision to keep Diversions in his repertoire was an important factor in boosting Lilburn's international reputation. It not only ensured performances abroad – a 1949 Times review described the work as 'bubbling with spontaneous ideas and written with resourcefulness' – but also led to its publication in Britain by Oxford University Press in 1963.
—Robert Hoskins
