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

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1
PREAMBLE
The society into which Douglas Lilburn was born was not one that
would encourage, nor even be able to develop, the idea of composition as
a profession.
In matters of art, letters and music, New Zealand, in the
first decades of the twentieth century, was still very much the young
British colony. Attitudes and tastes that had developed in the
pioneering years of the nineteenth century prevailed. 1
Music, in the main, was equated with entertainment.
The concept
of concert music for art's sake had yet to find full acceptance in a
community that historically had looked to music to provide relaxation,
rather than enrichment, after a day's hard manual labour.
had wanted sensual, not intellectual recreation.
The pioneer
This not surprising preference accounts for the unsurpassed
interest in that least abstract of all music forms, light opera.
was a popular medium that had dominated colonial musical life from as
This
early as the 1860s through to the second decade of the twentieth century.
Amateur operatic societies had proliferated, and a spate of overseas
opera companies had toured the country during this 'Golden Era' of New
Zealand entertainment. 2
For accounts of the early histories of musical activity in Auckland,
Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin respectively, see:
i) ANNABELL, Angela Ruth. Music in Auckland 1840-55; with
reference to aspects of music in the Bay of Islands area both
before and after 1840. Unpublished MA thesis, University of
Auckland, 1968 •
.... H) MORIARTY, J .M. Wellington I s music in the first half century of
settlement: a particular aspect of Victorian New Zealand.
Unpublished MA thesis, Victoria Universi~y of Wellington, 1967.
iii) WATSON, Helen M. Music in Christchurch. Unpublished MA thesis,
Canterbury University College, 1948.
lv) PEARSON, Ethel. The history of music in DUnedin to 1925.
MA thesis, Otago University College, 1941. Published as
CAMPBELL, Margaret (pseud.), Music in Dunedin: An Historical
Account of Dunedin's Musicians ·and Musical Societies from the
Founding of the Province in 1848 Dunedin, Charles Begg, 1945.
2 See HURST, Maurice. Music and the Stage in New Zealand:. A Century of
Entertainment 1840-1943 Wellington, Charles Begg, 1944.