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

44
currently housed at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, show that
Lilburn began the exercise (in 1937) which was to be settings of portions
of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and The Rock. 29
During his study at Canterbury College, Lilburn continued to
take piano lessons, firstly from Ernest Empson in 1934 and then, in 1935
(after Empson emigrated to Australia), from Allan Wellbrock, under whom
he passed Grade VIII.
In 1936 he received lessons from Ernest Jenner and
unsuccessfully prepared for the Performers LRSM.
Although Christchurch between the years of 1934 and 1936 was not
the most exciting cultural city in the world it nevertheless, in
comparison with Wanganui and Oamaru, must have seemed to the young
Lilburn a veritable Vienna of the South Pacific. Lilburn regularly
attended as many concerts as he could, as well as consuming as much of
the repertoire on gramophone recordings as possible. He recalls his
first hearing of a piece by Bartok -
the String Quartet No.1:
" ••• as a student in Christchurch I heard a
scratchy' limited realisation of his sounds in
1935 •••
••• it was a shattering experience to hear a work
by this renowned composer and realise that the
music was quite unintelligible to me. I'd been
studying my Kitson harmony, had heard a smattering
of the classics, some Bach in the Cathedral,·had
discovered Gershwin and Duke Ellington as well as
Vaughan Williams and Sibelius and Walton.
But this quartet was music of a totally new kind,
and after several hearings I was still baffled
by the strangeness of the language and form, but
fascinated too, and conscious of the challenge
it was."30
The performing organisations in Christchurch (and indeed, the
whole of New Zealand) at this time, were largely amateur.
However, they
were many, and in Christchurch the choral groups such as the Royal
Christchurch Musical Society, the Christchurch Harmonic Society, the
Christchurch Liedertafel, the Christchurch Male Voice Choir and the choir
of the Christchurch Cathedral were of a standard that reflected the long
29 "Sweet Thames ••• " and "Unreal city ••• " from The Waste Land (1922) and
the ninth chorus from The Rock (1934).
30 Douglas Lilburn, Text of address given at the inaugural meeting of
the Christchurch Society for Contemporary Music, University Hall,
Christchurch, 20 April 1967. Unpublished typescript, pp.12-13.