The beginnings and development of a New Zealand music: The life ...

99
6
1950-1960
WELLINGTON
"So I put in for the lectureship and got it
and that was £600 a year. Not bad money in
those days. Kept one afloat in a single room
at least, and so I lived in a variety of
single rooms. And then I called in a bit of
capital which my family had been sitting on
all this time and bought myself a little place
at Paekakariki. I used to spend hours
travelling backwards and forwards." 1
In accepting the lectureship at Victoria University College,
Lilburn was reflecting the growing overseas pattern of composers
securing incomes through university posts. He was also initiating the
New Zealand pattern.
It is to Frederick Page's credit that he campaigned to have a
composer - Lilburn - appointed to the staff. Page later explained his
reasons:
" ••• if one wants plumbing done, one goes to
a plumber; if one wants composition finally
to come out of harmony teaching -
the point of it otherwise? - then go to a
composer."2
and what~is
If this observation seems an obvious piece of deduction nowadays, it
should be remembered that at that time, academic qualifications were
regarded synonymously with ability to teach at tertiary institutions.
Indeed, academic qualifications were the licence to teach. Consequently,
as Lilburn had no letters after his name, his appointment was regarded
with a deal of suspicion by the more conservative musicians in the
Douglas Lilburn as in Jack Body, Fragments of a stolen conversation.
Douglas Lilburn 2nd ed., Wellington, Composers Association of New
Zealand 1980:22.
2 Frederick Page as in Owen Jensen and others, A birthday for music.
New Zealand Listener vol.53 no.1360, 29 October 1965:8.
THE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY
CHRISTCHURCH, N.Z.