PROMETHEAN EDITIONS
Douglas LilburN Piano Music 2
New Zealand–British Connection: the music of Douglas Lilburn and Ralph Vaughan Williams
VOLUME 5 Works for String Orchestra
MASSEY UNIVERSITY MUSIC EDITION
Douglas LilburN Drysdale Overture
Ralph Vaughan Williams THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE Incidental music for a radio dramatization of Thomas Hardy’s novel Edited by Nathaniel G. Lew
The Lilburn & Vaughan Williams connection New Zealand is inexorably linked to Britain; while a former
In a pleasant coincidence, Promethean Editions’ Lilburn
colony, it is now a fully independent constitutional
series editor, Dr Robert Hoskins, has been involved in the
monarchy. In the middle of the twentieth century New
recent publication of two first publication of works by
Zealand began to search for its own cultural identity:
Vaughan Williams. We are pleased to present both of these
artists, composers, poets and writers all began to react to
special collections of music, Lilburn and Vaughan Williams
the unique New Zealand landscape.
together, hoping that each edition furthers a deeper understanding and scholarship of the music of both
In the late 1930s, young composer DOUGLAS LILBURN (1915–2001) travelled to London to study under RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872–1958) at the Royal College of
composers.
Douglas Lilburn
Music. The first among many young New Zealand
Douglas Lilburn holds a special
composers to study in London, Lilburn began composing
place in the history of New Zealand
works that reflected the narrative of New Zealand’s
music. He occupies a pre-eminent
landscape and in doing so he set the agenda for New
position in New Zealand music,
Zealand composition for the remainder of the century.
with a legacy extending well beyond his compositional output.
Shortly after his death in 2001, Promethean Editions
As a composer, teacher and mentor
established the Douglas Lilburn Complete Piano Edition,
he presided in innumerable ways
developing a companion print edition to Trust Records’
over the artistic growth of New Zealand from 1940
award-winning CD collection of the same name. And now
onwards. From the early works redolent of the influence of
in 2014, we are also pleased to announce the launch of the
Sibelius and Vaughan Williams, to the electro-acoustic
Douglas Lilburn Centenary Edition, a project to publish the
pieces of his later years, his works have been instrumental
remaining four orchestral works by Lilburn which have not
in establishing a genuine vernacular in New Zealand
yet been edited or typeset for print.
classical music.
Image caption: Leo Bensemann, Canterbury Spring, Oil on hardboard. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu; purchased 1961. Reproduced by permission of the estate of the artist.