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

was completed with a .view to a performance by the 3YA Studio Orchestra
at the all-Lilburn concert of that year.
Elegy (In Memoriam Noel Newson) was prompted by the death of
pianist Noel Newson and written specifically for the Noel Newson
Memorial concert, where Lilburn was to conduct the 3YA Studio Orchestra
in a performance of the work.
153
Cambridge Overture (completed in January
of 1946) was written specifically for performance by the string
orchestra of the First Cambridge Music School in 1946.
only performance of this work was- also conducted .by Lilburn.
The first and
The two string orchestral works written outside of this period
were likewise written with a possibility or promise of an immediate
performance.
Diversions of 1947 was prompted by the impending visit of
the Boyd Neel String Orchestra, and Three Poems of the Sea (1958) was
written with the promise of a performance by the Alex Lindsay String
Orchestra. 4
Such links between Lilburn's composition of a work and the
possibility of a performance or the availability of a performer can also
be established in his compositions for solo piano, solo instrument and
chamber ensemble, though with less certainty.
With respect to his piano
compositions of the 1940s,it would seem logical that they were prompted
by the existence of a number of good pianists in Christchurch at that
time;
to name but a few - Ernest Jenner, Noel Newson, Althea Harley
Slack, and Frederick Page. Later, works such as Sonatina No.2 (1962)
were to be prompted by Lilburnsadmiration for the playing of Margaret
Nielsen.
However, it is also likely that some of these piano compositions
were written because Lilburn himself was a pianist. Some, indeed, may
well have been written for his own amusement;
others, certainly many of
the miniatures composed in the 1940s, were written as 'gifts' or
'tributes' for friends.
It is in Lilburn's writing for solo orchestral instruments and
chamber ensembles that some interesting links between performer
availability and the composition of specific works can be observed.
existence of a number of string orchestras in the country in the early
1940s
meant that there were many string players who were in regular
employment as musicians. Fo~.woodwind and brass instrumentalists, however,
opportunities to find full-time employment practising as a musician were
relatively rare, until the formation of the National Orchestra in 1947.
The
4 Established 1948 following the stimulus to string playing the 1947
visit of the Boyd Neel String Orchestra gave to New Zealand musicians.