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

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very great gifts, and certainly must take no
discouragement from this unfortunate and
unnecessary publicity."56
The 'scandal' continued into the pages of Music Ho where Antony Alpers,
in his in-depth examination of the affair, to some extent vindicated
Lilburn's behaviour.
Alper's version of the story did not differ to the
one printed in The Star-Sun, except to point out that Lilburn's apology
to the audience had been clearly heard over the air. Alpers took
exception to the ugly rumours and calumnious reports that circulated
about Lilburn:
"How easy it was to make an ugly scandal of
the thing, to talk of concerted action by
musicians to boycott Mr Lilburn's music, and
in general to whip it up as much as possible
in the hope of doing permanent damage,· But
consider a moment what might have happened
if Mr Lilburn had been a true villain and not
a passionate mortal without guile, as the
account suggests he was. Imagine, if he had
made his three attempts to start the music
again, and then had given up with a shrug and
walked off without a glance in either direction.
What then?
He could have had all the sympathy, and
left the alto with all the blame. A little
calculating coolness, and our villain would
have been the martyr •••• lnstead, he behaved
like a human being."57
However, the damage had been done.
Lilburn felt it necessary to
resign from his music reviewing post with The Press in the face of
allegations that The Press had refused to print some of the letters to
the editor decrying Lilburn's part in the affair. The contralto, Miss
Iris Moxley, was, incidentally, given a mayoral farewell a month later on
her impending trip to further her studies in England.
Unfortunately, this incident had far-reaching effects on Lilburn's
career as a performer.
"I'm not naturally a performer, a conductor, not
someone wanting to present myself on a platform,
just not that. The exact opposite. I mean in
childhood if someone arrived at the gate or at
the front door one's first instinct was to
retreat back and disappear into the bush. It
was safer there."58
56 The Press 11 September 1945:2.
57 Antony Alpers, Conduct and conductors. Music Ho vol.4, 1946:3-5.
58 Douglas Lilburn as in Fragments of a stolen conversation, op.cit. p.22.