Three Plain, Three Serious

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 291, 19 January 1945, Page 8

Three Plain, Three Serious

"RESTRAINT" is a dangerous word to use in praise of an artist’s work, because it is such a temptation for someone to retort as the poet Roy Campbell did in connection with certain South African novelists, "I’m with you there, of course; they use the curb and bit all right, but where’s the bloody horse?" Nevertheless it was thié word that came to my mind when I heard six new compositions by Douglas Lilburn, broadcast for the first time by Frederick Page (from 2Y¥A), And if Roy Campbell’s question is put to me (with or without the Great Australian Adjective) I shall have my answer ready. The six piano preludes made me think of power in harness, waiting to be given rein-and where they were not being forceful, their motion was so nicely balanced and smooth that again I thought of the care that must have gone into keeping it so. They had that gentle modesty that one misses so much from a lot of contemporary music and yet there was no diffidence about them when the composer cared to be emphatic. Three of them

were called simply "Preludes" and three were called "Serious Preludes." The first of the former was printed in Lady Newall’s Gift Book-it is a delightful little formal fragment. The first and last of the "serious" group seemed to me to be highly original. Every note seemed necessary. Mr. Lilburn writes in a way that demands exactness, clear precision; which is what very good composers do,