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

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As fellow student Inglis Gundry later wrote of Lilburn's time
as a student at the Royal College of Music:
"He was very anxious to found an independent
national style of music for New Zealand, which
made it inevitable that he would one day
return to the land of his birth."22
Lilburn himself, later elaborated on this 'beckoning':
" ••• it's a different and disconcerting
discovery to find, after living for a year
or two in England, that you are also a
foreigner there - a foreigner speaking the
same language. Their ways of living and
attitudes of mind are so different, and you
feel a stranger to the cities, and to the
countryside as well however beautiful it is,
and how much it has to offer. You come to
realise also, that however much you may like
the music of Elgar, or Vaughan Williams, or
Walton, it cannot mean to you what it means
to the English. In some way you stand
outside it."23
Lilburn returned to New Zealand on a P&O liner in a journey that
took two-and-a-half months.
to detour round the Cape of Good Hope.
Because of threat of U boats, the ship had
It journeyed into the Indian
Ocean, down to Australia, across the Tasman, and completed its 20,000-
mile journey on arrival in Wellington in early August.
On setting foot in New Zealand, Lilburn discovered he had won
three of the four composition prizes offered in the National Centennial
competition.
Drysdale Overture had won the first prize in the orchestral
class and Prodigal Country had won first prize in the choral class. Both
prizes were for £70 each.
£30 in the orchestral class.
Festival Overture had won the second prize of
"Commenting on Mr Lilburn's two prize-winning
works in the orchestral class ••• Anderson Tyrer,
speaking as one of the judges, said that the
composer shows very definite promise of bigger
things to come. 'He must hear more music and
see more life yet' said Mr Tyrer, 'but if the
quality of these works continues, Lilburn
should go far' •
22 Inglis Gundry, A student in London. Douglas Lilburn, op.cit. p.26.
23 Douglas Lilburn, Cambridge Music School address p.2.