New Zealand piano music: walking with the birds

Where Fairburn Walked: an exploration of New Zealand piano music, performed by pianist Jian Liu and recently released by Rattle Records

Side by side on the first disc of Where Fairburn Walked are works by two composers from the same generation. The late Jenny McLeod's spiky, characterful fragment Mysterious Whirly Square Dance bursts with her humorous personality. Gillian Whitehead's evocative Outlines through Rising Mist, from her Central Landscapes, is both typical of her response to the Otago environment and a marked contrast to the McLeod.

Composer Gillian Karawe Whitehead

…her piano piece Outlines through Rising Mist is typical of her response to the Otago environment.

Photo credit: Daniel Belton

Pianist Jian Liu’s project to record and publish this major collection of our 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 poetic and 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 both 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’.

Pianist Jian Liu

…his performances are as thoughtful as his curation.

Amongst 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.

Composer Gareth Farr

“…The Horizon from Owhiro Bay combines minimalism with lyricism”

I listened in sunny late autumn with windows open and local tūī in melodious response. Throughout, Liu’s playing is lyrical and luminous, with unfailing attention to detail and respect for the music. This essential collection, beautifully recorded by Rattle, was released to complement publication of the full set of scores in China. 

Where Fairburn Walked: An Exploration of New Zealand Piano Music performed by pianist Jian Liu (Rattle) Purchase link here

This review was first published in NZ Listener issue July 13, 2024

Read my profile of pianist Jian Liu here