Side by side on the first disc of Where Fairburn Walked – a just-released album of New Zealand piano music – are works by two composers from the same generation. The late Jenny McLeod’s characterful fragment Mysterious Whirly Square Dance bursts with her humorous personality. Gillian Whitehead’s evocative Outlines through Rising Mist, from her Central Landscapes, is typical of her response to the Otago environment and a marked contrast to the McLeod.
Pianist Jian Liu’s project to record and publish this major collection of piano music offers 38 compositions and the authentic, individual voices of 24 composers of Aotearoa. His performances are as thoughtful as his curation, all played with subtly varied dynamics and colours, judicious pedalling, unobtrusive virtuosity and relaxed enjoyment.
Liu brings loving care to the often musically simple works of the first disc. The playful pieces of Dorothy Buchanan’s Birthday Music sing with an unaffected loveliness typical of a composer who loves children and the piano.
We’re also offered a slice of our musical history with a handful of works by composers working in the first half of the 20th century. Thomas Haight’s Rotorua (Boiling Mud Pools) is quirkily descriptive, with lugubrious gestures imitating the muddy “plop”.
Among the longer works of the second and third discs is David Farquhar’s Three Inventions (1993), rhythmically challenging and redolent of his dry wit. In Kenneth Young’s French-flavoured Elusive Dreams from the same decade, Liu revels in rippling pianistic gestures. Douglas Lilburn’s piano music is absent but somehow he is not. Where Fairburn Walked could also be “Where Lilburn Walked” – both men loved a perambulation in nature and this music often reflects Aotearoa’s landscapes and birds. A sampling of McLeod’s Tone Clock pieces includes For Douglas on his 80th birthday, and the “Epilogue” of David Hamilton’s Variations on Oriori has Lilburnian hints. So does Salina Fisher’s teenage “Raindrops on a misty pond”, one of Three Short Pieces revealing her outstanding early talent.
The composers represented are endearingly themselves. Claire Cowan’s Shadow Hands is a strikingly original keyboard chase, Gareth Farr’s The Horizon from Owhiro Bay combines minimalism with lyricism and John Psathas’ Jettatura provides a dramatic conclusion to the album with a driving moto perpetuo.
Throughout, Liu’s playing is lyrical and luminous, with unfailing attention to detail and respect for the music. This essential collection was released to complement publication of the full set of scores in China.
Where Fairburn Walked, by Jian Liu, (Rattle), is out now.
