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

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Frederick Page for the volume of· their writings on the topics, and
Antony Alpers ('Marsyas,47) for his occasional perspicacious comment
on aspects of Lilburn's music in the 1940s.
It is worthwhile making
brief mention of the contributions these three writers have made to the
understanding of Lilburn's music.
Both Jensen's and Page's writings span almost the entire length
of Lilburn's output as a composer.
Jensen's writing on Lilburn began in
the 1940s through the pages of Music Ho and has continued to the present
day through the pages of The Evening Post. Page began writing on
Lilburn's music in The Press in the 1940s and has continued to do so as
one of the two music reviewers for the New Zealand Listener.
Both these writers were quick to encourage Lilburn's work 1n the
1940s, and indeed, they were the two who most helped bring many of his
compositions to public attention. Neither, though, have said much of
substance about Lilburn's music in any of their writing. Their
colourful prose most often concentrates on effect rather than content.
Jensen was always quick to point out the New Zealand quality in Lilburn's
writing but never attempted a definition of that quality. Page's
writing in the 1940s tended to concentrate on the modernness
of thought
in Lilburn's music, but rarely delved into the contents of the music.
It was rMarsyasr, through the pages of the New Zealand Listener in the
early 1940s, who most forcefully identified Lilburn's music with the
New Zealand environment. His writing, though over1y~poetic and studded
with direct comparisons to specific features of the landscape, did much
to establish an early acceptance of Lilburn's works as being
distinctively New Zealand in voice.
It was !Marsyas' who sprang to Lilburn's defence against the
frequent observations by reviewers that Lilburn's music was overly
indebted to the music of Vaughan Williams and Sibe1ius:
" ••• no really good composer has been totally
a pioneer and inventor. Great composers point
forward in their· latter works but in their eal'ly
works they usually imitate slavishly.
Every artist must learn by working on models at
first. The men whose. music we hear and admire
most, got their models from inventors whose works
survive only as museum pieces.
47 Alpers used this pseudonym in his writings for the New Zealand
Listener.