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

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Nunc Dimittis,24 Five Bagatelles for Piano~
string orchestra -
an~ three other works for
Concert Overture No.lin D (since retitled Concert
Overture), Concert Overture No.2 in B-flat (since retitled Introduction
and Allegro for Stringsj5 and a work that quickly became one of his
widest-known compositions, the incidental music to Landfall in Unknown
Seas.
Landfall in Unknown Seas was written by Allen Curnow in response
to a request, from Dr J.C. Beaglehole ori behalf of the National
Historical Branch of the Department of Internai Affairs, for a poem to
commemorate the tercentennial of Abel Tasman's discovery of New Zealand
in 1642.
"if the poem was to be worthwhile ••• it needed
a world perspective, to be true for all discoveries
while honouring this one in particular; true also
for our modern New Zealand while honouring the past.
I thought of it in three 'movements'. First, a
kind of recitative, setting the historical scene,
and the setting-forth of the voyagers into the
unknown - likening them too, to the ancient
Polynesian voyagers. Second, a dramatic lyric,
in rapid, short metre and strict pattern, recounting
the Landfall in New Zealand, the bloody clash with
the islanders, and Tasman's departure. Third, a
lyric meditation, harmonising the vision and action
of the first two parts, and offering a possible 26
meaning for the whole to our own age and nation. 1I
To New Zealanders in 1942, living under the shadow of World War II
and the threat of Japanese invasion, the "possible meaning for the whole
to our own age" was obvious:
IIAlways to islanders danger
Is whdt comes over the sea;
Over the yellow sands and the clear
Shallows, the dull filament 27
Flickers, the bloo