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

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country.
Page felt that his advocacy of Lilburn for the post was
vindicated after the results of Lilburn's tuition began to show through
in the end of year examination papers.
"Results began to show. In those days
papers went round the universities:
something was afoot at Victoria. Professor
Hollinrake at Auckland was so impressed by
our orchestration papers that he suggested
that he might come down to study with Lilburn.
The southern professors, full of letters,
went round in circles deploring the fact that
Lilburn had no degrees •. Embarrassingly
students came to us from other centres."3
During his years as a part-time lecturer at Victoria University
College (1947, 1948), Lilburn had become involved with the National Film
Unit,4 writing, on commission, a number of scores for films.
With the
resumption of activities that had been postponed during World War II,
there was a backlog of interesting material of national interest for the
National Film Unit to clear. Roading, state housing, hydro dam construction,
hospital and school building projects were but a few of the topics
to be documented by the Film Unit.
Backblocks Hospital, a to-minute documentary about the work of
Dr G.M. Smith and his staff in the Rawene Hospital Board district, North
Auckland, was the first film for which Lilburn was commissioned to write
incidental music.
Written in 1947, his music was recorded in November
of that year by nineteen members of the National Ot'chestra
conducted by Lilburn. 5
Two other scores for documentaries - Rhythm and Movement and
Infant Schools - resulted the following year, as well as a
score for the 50-minute feature production Journey for Three.
This
3 Frederick Page, Beginnings of the VUW Music Department. Douglas
Lilburn op.cit. p.55.
4 The National Film Unit was established in 1941 as part of the
Government Motion Picture and Advertising Studios. based in Mirimar,
Wellington. The primary function of the National Film Unit was
initially to help pUblicise ·the war effort. After the cessation of
hostilities in 1945, the National Film Unit continued on to pUblicise
peacetime activities. From 1941-50 the film unit produced 459
Weekly Reviews - ten-minute newsreels covering three or four topics.
In addition to this weekly commitment, the National Film Unit would
sometimes produce short feature films of 10 to 40 minutes duration On
New Zealand subjects. (W.B.H., Cinema. An Encyclopaedia of New
Zealand Wellington, Government Printer, 1966 v.I:351.)
5 The Press 5 November 1947:6. This was, in fact, the first time the
National Orchestra had been engaged in film work.