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

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preparatory to its move to the tonic two beats later.
A typical modal cadence can be heard at bars 70-1 in conjunction
with a use of another non-triadic bass-note. This short phrase brings
about a shift from E-flat to B-flat major. The intervening chord is
comprised of an E-flat major triad in the upper instruments, but with a
C root in the bass. This gives the cadence its ii-I modal flavour.
A further use of a flattened leading note major chord can be
heard in bars 74-5 with the shift of chord from B-flat major to A-flat
major. Again, like the earlier example in this extract, the change
between the chords is overlapped rather than immediately effected, as
indeed is the return to the B-flat major chord in bar 76.
Thus far in this discussion, given examples of Lilburn's use of
modality have been confined to isolated occurrences - in cadences, or in
passing chords in a particular passage. Lilburn's modality, in fact,
assists in explaining many of his harmonically ambiguous passages, where
a given set of accidentals suggests a particular key contrary to the key
suggested by the established tonal centre.
The clue to this lies in Lilburn's persistent and prolonged Use
of pedal points. Frequently Lilburn will establish a pedal point on a
degree of the scale other than the dominant or tonic of the prevailing
major or minor key. This pedal point is often sustained for durations
past the length where it sounds like a sustaining of a secondary degree
of the scale. It then begins to sound like a tonic pedal, or at the very
least, the root of a new tonal centre. The scale notes employed above
the pedal remain the same as in the" previously prevailing major or minor
key. This gives the passage a strong modal flavour.
Take, for example, the opening bars of the Festival Overture (see
Ex.22). Despite the one-flat k~y signature, four flats dominate the
texture through to bar 20. Under a conventional major-minor analysis,
this suggests a key for the opening bars of either A-flat major or F
minor. The absence of any raised leading notes (E-naturals) for the
F minor key makes it more likely melodically that the key is A-flat major.
Yet not once does the bass-line sound the tonic of this A-flat major key,
and only once, briefly (as late as bars 15-16), 1S the root of the
dominant chord sounded. If A-flat major is the key of this opening
passage, then Lilburn has studiously avoided articulating the topic
chord in root position.
Harmonically, it Seems more likely that the key. is Fminor, for
that is the key eventually, and firmly, established in bar 16. Also,
the chord of F minor is stated with some frequency in the first eight bars.