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

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so Lilburn decided to return to the city of his years as a university
student, and eke out a living as a free-lance composer.
He had a little
capital saved from his farming work, and from the Centennial Competition
prizes and he hoped to supplement that by arranging music (for string
orchestra and piano duets) for broadcasting.
Professor James Shelley,
then Director of the National Broadcasting Service, had devised a scheme
to assist Lilburn, whereby the National Broadcasting Service would pay, on
condition of acceptance, £1 for every minute of Lilburn's arrangements.
As a temporary measure, it provided Lilburn with a small income, but the
scheme had its shortcomings, particularly with regard to payment for use
of the arrangements subsequent to the first broadcast. 4
In November of 1941, Lilburn moved back into his old 'digs' -
private boarding with the Vincent family at 175 Cambridge Terrace (now
part of the site of the Christchurch Town Hall) - and began work as a
free-lance composer, supplementing his income by giving occasional
lessons. His pupils, sporadic in their attendance, included Gerald
Christeller, Gwyneth Brown and Maisy Kilkelly - " ••• my best ever student,
who would come for a harmony lesson, would arrive in a taxi and rush in
with a cheque and say I'm terribly busy I can't come today!,,5
Gradually Lilburn rediscovered the old Christchurch context he had
left five years earlier, and made new friends amongst the many artists
practising there. Members of this 'artistic circle' included Leo
Bensemann, Rita Angus,6 Douglas MacDiarmid, Denis Glover, Allen Curnow,
Ursula Bethel and Lawrence Baigent.
The interaction between these
artists proved to be perhaps the greatest influence on, and stimulus to,
Lilburn during his residence in Christchurch.
"All those writers and .painters I knew listened
readily to music and could talk very intelligently
about it and in fact they gave me a lot of
encouragement at that time and of course I was
learning a tremendous amount from them."7
Much of his association with these 'writers and painters' was
centred around the Caxton Press -
a small but enterprising publishing
4 Douglas Lilburn in conversation with author March 1983.
5 Douglas Lilburn as in Jack Body, Fragments of a stolen conversation.
Douglas Lilburn W(~l1ington, Com.posers Association of New Zealand,
1980:20.
6 In 1945 Rita Angus painted a watercolour portrait of Lilburn.
7 Jack Body interviewing Douglas Lilburn October 1975. Unpublished
typescript of taped interview, pl. Copy at Alexander Turnbull Library.