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

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Thus, Lilburn's melodies of this period are in the ma1n scalie.
They are characterised by an abundant use of reiterated notes and an
absence of intervals wider than a perfect fifth. They make occasional
use of minor thirds, major thirds, perfect fourths and.perfect fifths.
but arguably in less frequency than one might reasonably expect.
Durations of melodies and motivic content
Durations of themes are difficult to assess as a large number of .
variable factors are present. In general, Lilburn's melodies tend
towards being short. This is due in the main to the fact that many of
the melodies are built on one idea or motif. At least one-half of the
above fifty examples are based on only one dominating idea or motif.
EmbellIshments in the thematic line
Many of Lilburn's themes are characterised by little rhythmic
configurations that are quasi-ornamental in design. Some themes do make
use of ornaments such as trills, grace notes and tremolandi, but usually
the embellishments are written out in full and do not function, strictly
speaking, in the same manner as traditional ornaments. At least one-
. half of the fifty examples contain some form of embellishment or
ornamentation. The most common of these embellishments are a rapid
oscillation between two notes in the manner of a mordent, and a
configuration in the manner of a turn joining two notes more than a tone
apart~
following table.
To illustrate this, consider the extracts contained in the
Table 3: Common Embellishments
A) Oscillation in the manner of a mordent
I. Aotearoa Overture
violin I,II
bars 30-1
(see Ex.2)
r· A ~
, ,
\
2. Festival Overture
violin I
bars 10-11
(See Ex.S)