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

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for violin and piano, the Sonata in C.
Clare showed interest in
performing the work, and gave it its first hearing at a concert in the
Radiant Hall on 18 December 1943, with Noel Newson at the piano.·
Frederick Page reviewed the concert for The Press, writing:
"The work has four movements; immediate
impressions were of a particularly lovely
opening phrase, a good-humoured scherzo
(scherzi are apt to be wry-faced these days),
a searching andante with a well-managed coda,
and of a skilful piece of uniting for the
last. Mr Lilburn has set his players some
hair-raising things to do in his final
movement. The first movement is quite one
of the most beautiful movements Mr Lilburn
has yet given us. Mr Newson's playing was
marked by clarity and sympathy."39
This sonata was later given a performance by Clare with Frederick Page
at the piano in the first season of concerts organised by the Wellington
Chamber Music Society in 1945.
In 1943, the Otago University College announced the establishment
of a composition competition called the Philip Neill Memorial Prize. 40
This prize was to be awarded annually, and was open for competition to
all past and present students of the New Zealand University Colleges
with the proviso that no winner of the prize in any year would be
eligible to compete again until five years elapsed.
Each year, the
examiners for the award 41 would prescribe the outline of the type of
piece the award was to be offered for.
In its first year, 1944, the
prize was to be offered for a Prelude (or Fantasia) and Fugue for either
42
piano or organ.
Lilburn, putting his understanding of the fugue to the test,
decided to enter. Interestingly, for one who had spent many years
39 The Press 20 December 1943:3.
40 The Philip Neill Memorial Prize for excellence in Original Composition
was founded in memory of Philip Foster Neill by his sister, who, in
1943 settled the sum of £1,000 with the Trustees, Executors and
Agency Co. Ltd, with the instructions to pay the annual income to
the Otago University College Council. Philip Neill was a medical
student at Otago University College, who died in the infantile
paralysis outbreak in 1943. (Otago University College Calendar 1946:
148-9.) For further details of the prize, see Appepdix All.
41 As defined in the rules governing the prize, the examiners are the
Blair Professor of Music at the University of Otago and one other
person appointed by the University Council. (ibid.)