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

262
It can be clearly seen that the harmonies chosen are limited to chords
I,V,IV and ii of the G major key. This extract is also illustrative
of a number of other features of Lilburn's harmonic writing that will
be discussed later. These features include the wide spacing of chords,
the parallelism of the upper instruments, the octave doubling of melodic
lines, and the essentially homophonic texture (particularly bars 137-9).
The second extract (Ex.2) is from the Song of the Antipodes of
1946. The material quoted is the main theme of the work. Two pedal
notes can be heard in this extract: one the note D (bars 1-6 and bars
9-16), and the other briefly the note G (bars 7-9). The D pedal is the
tonic pedal. The melody of this extract is strictly diatonic, but the
inner harmony contains a few instances of chromaticism. The texture is
triadic but does contain some deviances from this, such as the harmonic
retardation of a single line within the triad (bar 3, m~lody line) as
well as the addition of non-chordal notes to the triad (bars 9 and 15).
Ex.2: Song of the Antipodes, bars 1-16, piano reduction.
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I I I -
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/
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I
c:::: d:N"II
"\ 1/ \ D 'i?-
-
I
1\.1
,
,
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The third example (Ex.3) is from the Diversions of 1947. It
comprises the announcing of the. first theme of the third movement. The
'pedal' in this extract takes the form of an A to E oscillation in the
cello line. As in the preceding two extracts, the melody line is
strictly diatonic, but the inner harmony shows an increasing use of