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

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7
1960-1965
In October of 1960, Lilburn was approached by the Drama Department
of the National Broadcasting Service to write incidental music for a
production by Bernard Kearns of Allen Curnow's 1946 play The Axe. 1
Lilburn's brief was for " ••• a highly didactic score for full orchestra
setting off the protagonists, i.slanders, missionary, timeless chorus. 1I2
The play was based on the story of the arrival of Christianity to
Mangaia in the Cook Islands during the nineteenth century, portraying the
struggle of two tribes -
one pagan and one converted to Christianity. In
the best Shakespearian fashion, two lovers (one from each tribe) are
involved in this political stru.ggle, eventually meeting their death as
a consequence.
pagan tribe is vanquished.
Much blood is shed by the spear and by the axe until the
Lilburn reacted against the brief of a full symphony orchestra,
favouring simpler island sounds of surf and seagulls:
"Following a bleak period of experimenting -
conch shells, au.thentic island drumming,
search for a variable speed tape-player -
excursions to Dom. museum, N.F.U., D.S.I.R.,
Physics Dept., NZBS archives, to Island Bay
where the surf was loaded with exhaust from
Blenheim freighters and the bloody seagulls
wouldn't sing for love or bribery. Producer
& Production Dept. highly suspicious meanwhile.
Even tried out fragments of Eimert, Stockhausen
etc. & rejected them out of hand as European,
machine-age, sophisticated & curiously but
definitely unrelated to this particular scheme
of island and time.
At the moment of despair heard Fred Page's
talk over the air on Cage & others & heard one
note out of the bowels of the Steinway that
made me think "Hah. I can do it betterl ll So
out went all the electronic & even concrete
aspirations & I had the right disassociated
sounds to mix with the natural sounds .•••
The innards of a small Bechstein at Productions
2
Allen Curnow, The Axe, published in Four Plays by Allen Curnow
Wellington, A.H. and A.W. Reed, 1972:23-88.
Douglas Lilburn, getting
to Peter Crowe, 1961-65.
Composers Association of
into electronic music: letters of Lilburn
Douglas Lilburn 2nd ed., Wellington,
New Zealand, 1980:63.