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

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after they were brought into currency in Europe and the United States is
all the more of an achievement in comparison with the then rising young
generation of New Zealand composers. David Farquhar, Larry Pruden,
Edwin Carr, Ronald Tremain and Robert Burch were all studying in London
in the early 1950s. Admittedly London was not the centre of the new
music, but nevertheless, the opportunity for contact with the new music
must have been far greater there than for Lilburn in Wellington.
Pruden, Carr and Burch all chose to remain uninfluenced by the
new directions modern music was taking. Tremain, who remained overse~s
until 1957 and his appointment as a senior lecturer at Auckland University
College, did not show cognisance of the new serialist's approach to
composition until as late as 1964, with his Webernesque Five Epigrams
for twelve solo strings. Farquhar had returned to New Zealand in 1953,
but took a further overseas trip in 1956. Although his.Concertino for
piano and strings (1960) shows evidence of a mathematical sub-structure,
it was not until later in the 1960s, with works such as Three Pieces for
Violin and Piano (1967) and especially ••• And One Makes Ten (1969),
that wholesale adoption of serial techniques is in evidence.
Curiously, the third wave of New Zealand composers (Jenny McLeod
and Jack Body to name but two) by contrast were quick to assimilate the
new techniques. Why the second wave of New Zealand composers was slow to
take stock of the new trends in composition, and indeed, why, at a later
date, they did not follow Lilburn into use of the electronic medium, is a
. 2
matter f or conjecture.
Thus, Lilburn's first compositional period closed with a style
that, although acceptably modern in New Zealand, had been largely
superceded by new developments in composition overseas. The change in
direction so evident in A Birthday Offering of 1956, though, was not
wholly a result of Lilburn's desire to remain modern in an international
context. As became increasingly evident throughout the preceding five
chapters, and as will be discussed further-in a later chapter, Lilburn's
Suite for Orchestra of 1955 displays, in many of its aspects, a growing
dissatisfaction with his older style.
This same dissatisfaction, or restlessness, can be felt in his
chamber and vocal music of an earlier date - from about 1950 onwards.
Prior to 1950, there is a,straight-line progression from works such as
his 1939 Phantasy for String Quarter through his 1945 String Trio and
2 Most probably, particularly in the case of ~ruden and Carr, it was
simply a matter of disinclination.