The Drysdale Overture of 1937 is among the earliest works for orchestra by New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn.
[1] The piece was written while Lilburn was a student at the Royal College of Music, and was based on something of a challenge from his professor, Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Lilburn later reported that his score greatly upset Sir George Dyson, to whom he brought it for piano reduction.
[1] It is meant to celebrate the family farm and estate upon which Lilburn was born.
In writing it, the composer once wrote that he was "left with that lovely Mark Twain image of Jim and Huckleberry drifting on their barge down that great river, looking up at the stars and wondering 'whether they was made, or only just happened'" The Drysdale Overture has been recorded twice by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra: first under Sir William Southgate and second under Kenneth Young.