Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

II. Western art music

British sovereignty was proclaimed in New Zealand on 21 May 1840, and systematic colonization, mainly by settlers of English and Scottish origin, began soon afterwards. The country's geographic isolation, exacerbated by its early development as a predominantly agricultural economy with a multitude of far-flung, sparsely populated settlements, bred a climate of musical self-help and a sturdily amateur tradition with a regional rather than national focus. For over a century, professional music-making was provided mainly by visiting artists. It was not until the end of World War II and the gradual emergence of state patronage that a significant number of resident professional musical organizations began to develop.

The circumstances of New Zealand's foundation meant that the musical traditions established were based on Western European models. Indigenous Maori music-making was regarded initially as a curiosity and seldom became a subject of study or a source of inspiration until after the middle of the 20th century. The country's transformation then into a substantially urban, technological society prompted a reappraisal of its position in the world, and the growing importance of Pacific and Asian influences came to be reflected in many aspects of musical life.

1. Before World War I.

2. 1914–45.

3. After 1945.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

New Zealand, §II: Traditional music

1. Before World War I.

New Zealand's early colonists brought with them their folksongs and the popular European art music of the day, particularly opera airs and ballads. They were also encouraged to bring musical instruments: there are several accounts of pianos being transported long distances to remote locations. As settlers strove to recreate for themselves an approximation of the cultural life they had left behind, music quickly became the most valued and practised of the performing arts, and home music-making established itself as a favourite pursuit at all levels of society. Within a short time, music teachers and music shops began to appear in many centres.

At first the only organized music-making was provided by British military bands, which gave concerts of marches and operatic arrangements and accompanied the ‘select’ and ‘popular’ balls that were the focus of early social life outside the home. As the population increased, amateur musical organizations began to emerge in the larger settlements. A short-lived Philharmonic Society was formed in Wellington in 1848, and the first choral society, founded in Lyttelton in 1852, was followed by others in Auckland (1855), Dunedin and New Plymouth (1856), and Wellington and Christchurch (1860). Their programmes were almost indistinguishable in style and content from those of similar institutions in English provincial cities, though a chronic shortage of competent instrumentalists meant that, unlike in England, women were quickly accepted as players in the amateur orchestral societies that grew up as adjuncts to many of the choirs.

The discovery of gold in 1861 galvanized the economy, fuelled rapid population growth and created a demand for professional entertainment of all kinds. Theatres and opera houses were built, and New Zealand became part of a well-defined entertainment circuit that also included Victoria and New South Wales. From the late 1860s, touring artists and ensembles became a feature of musical life. Notable early visitors included Anna Bishop (1869), Arabella Goddard (1874) and Ilma de Murska (1876), and by the turn of the century the country had become a mecca for a wide range of itinerant musicians. Opera was paramount. The first professional performance, an English-language version of La fille du régiment, took place in Dunedin in 1862. Two years later W.S. Lyster's Royal Italian and English Opera Company visited six centres with a repertory of 29 works, and professional opera tours were soon an almost annual event. Specialist light opera companies, most of them working under the auspices of the Australian-based impresario J.C. Williamson, introduced Gilbert and Sullivan and English adaptations of the latest European opéras comiques and operettas with remarkable rapidity, and from the mid-1890s until 1905 a professional light opera troupe, the Pollard Opera Company, operated from a New Zealand base. Heavier operatic fare was initially provided by companies associated with Lyster. Later performer-managers, such as Fanny and Martin Simonsen or Annis Montague and Charles Turner, continued to introduce new works. The Australian impresario George Musgrave brought lavish Wagner productions on tour in 1901 and 1907 – the year New Zealand attained dominion status – and the works of Puccini were introduced by Williamson's Grand Opera Company in 1910.

Apart from teachers, the main resident professional musicians in New Zealand in the 19th and early 20th centuries were associated with the church. The English cathedral tradition was consolidated with the foundation of a choir school in Christchurch (1879), and English organists and choirmasters such as Thomas Tallis Trimnell, Robert Parker and Maughan Barnett had a major influence on the country's musical life. One of the first New Zealand-bred professional musicians to make a mark was Alfred Hill, who returned from training in Leipzig to conduct the largely amateur Wellington Orchestral Society between 1892 and 1896. A professional orchestra of 45 players conducted by Raffaello Squarise was assembled for the Dunedin and South Seas Exhibition (1889–90), and a slightly larger one formed to play under Hill during the Christchurch Exhibition of 1906–7, but both were disbanded after the exhibitions closed.

The vigorous amateur tradition of the colony's founding years went on. As the British regiments were withdrawn, their musical mantle passed to volunteer garrison bands. The 1870s saw the emergence of bands representing local communities and the transition from wind-dominated military-style ensembles to brass. Exceptional levels of skill were displayed in the band contests that began in the 1880s, and a tradition of writing for brass grew up. New Zealand's expertise in the brass band field was demonstrated when the national Hinemoa Band made an acclaimed tour of the United Kingdom in 1903. During the same period choirs and operatic societies continued to proliferate. Musical journalism flourished – particularly in the iconoclastic pages of The Triad, a monthly arts magazine founded by the Dunedin critic C.N. Baeyertz in 1893 – and musical education was in great demand. Pressure for a national conservatory went unheeded, but the first university school of music was set up in Auckland in 1888, and Canterbury University College added music to its curriculum in 1891. A small regional conservatory, the Nelson School of Music, was founded in 1894 with the German conductor Michael Balling as its first director.

Instrument-making also became established. The earliest New Zealand-made instrument still surviving is an organ completed by James Webster in 1850, now in the Auckland Museum. New Zealand-made pianos were displayed at various Australasian exhibitions during the 19th century. One of the earliest was by Charles Begg, an Aberdeen piano-maker who had settled in Dunedin in 1861 and went on to found a chain of music shops throughout the country. There were organ builders and makers of stringed instruments in many centres by the end of the century, the most notable being the Auckland violin-maker Charles Hewitt, whose firm is still active.

Among the first music books were collections of satirical songs set to pre-existing tunes, the work of popular balladeers such as Charles Robert Thatcher. The enthusiasm for domestic music-making spawned a profusion of salon-style songs and piano pieces in the later 19th century. Several composers tried a hand at opera, and the colourful, self-promoting Luscombe Searelle (1853–1907) succeeded in having several works professionally produced at home and overseas. But the only composer to write music combining European tradition with a uniquely New Zealand flavour was Alfred Hill, whose interest in the music and mythology of the Maori was reflected in works such as the cantata Hinemoa (1896) and opera Tapu (1902–03). He had no immediate successors, but his internationally successful songs Waiata poi and Waiata Maori set a fashion for smaller compositions celebrating the country's natural beauty and for romanticized notions of the Maori.

New Zealand, §II: Traditional music

2. 1914–45.

New Zealand suffered a temporary downturn in organized amateur music as a result of the loss of manpower in World War I. At the same time professional music-making was adversely affected by the advent of moving pictures. Cinema orchestras briefly provided employment – until the arrival of the talkies made them redundant – but the cheapness and novelty of film almost destroyed the professional entertainment circuit. Touring ensembles became a rarity. Just four opera troupes visited New Zealand during this period, though the 1919–20 and 1932 Williamson companies were the largest yet seen in the country. Two tours by Henri Verbrugghen's New South Wales State Orchestra showed how far New Zealand had fallen behind its former fellow colony in developing professional institutions. There was an upsurge in the number and quality of overseas soloists visiting, but they merely reinforced a perception that music was an exotic art provided by foreigners. However, music's place in universities and teacher training colleges continued to improve, and musical education in schools was greatly strengthened following the appointment of E. Douglas Taylor as Supervisor in School Music at the Department of Education in 1926, even if it was accepted that New Zealanders wishing to make a musical career in any sphere other than teaching would have to do so abroad.

Change came with the development of broadcasting. Radio had existed in largely experimental form since 1921 but was not formally established until the founding of the national Radio Broadcasting Company in 1925. From the beginning it provided employment opportunities for musicians, and these were increased when small regional broadcasting orchestras were set up in four main centres: Wellington (1928), Auckland (1930), Christchurch (1934) and Dunedin (1935). In 1939 a fully professional National Broadcasting String Orchestra was formed under the leadership of the English violinist Maurice Clare. This provided the nucleus of the 34-strong National Centennial Orchestra, which was founded the following year under the direction of Andersen Tyrer for the country's centennial celebrations. However, the intention to put this orchestra on a permanent footing did not survive the outbreak of World War II, and professional music-making again fell into the doldrums.

New Zealand, §II: Traditional music

3. After 1945.

New Zealand's search for an identity accelerated in the postwar period, and an upsurge of interest in the performing arts led to the establishment of numerous institutions that transformed and enriched the musical scene. The most important of these was a permanent symphony orchestra. Founded in 1946 as part of the newly centralized New Zealand Broadcasting Service, the National Orchestra gave its first public concert on 6 March 1947. An arduous and extensive programme of touring ensured that it quickly became central to New Zealand's musical life. Its standards rose sharply under the resident conductorships of James Robertson (1954–7) and the enterprising John Hopkins (1957–63), and these gains were consolidated by Juan Matteucci (1964–9) and Brian Priestman (1973–5), with whom the orchestra made its first overseas tour (to Australia in 1974). At Hopkins's urging a National Youth Orchestra was founded in 1959 and an orchestral cadet scheme, later known as the Schola Musica, instituted (1961–89). In 1975, the National Orchestra was renamed the New Zealand SO, and the practice of having a resident conductor gave way to a system of principal and guest conductors, but the broadcasting association lasted until 1988, when the orchestra became an independent, crown-owned entity. It gives around 120 public concerts a year, in addition to broadcasting, theatre and commercial recording work. Overseas tours have included visits to the Hong Kong Arts Festival (1980) and Seville Expo 92. The orchestra also tours nationally and provides an organizational umbrella for the New Zealand Chamber Orchestra, founded in 1987.

Other professional orchestras have developed on a regional basis. The Alex Lindsay String Orchestra, which flourished in the capital between 1948 and 1973, provided the nucleus for what became the Wellington Sinfonia. The Dunedin Sinfonia, born from a largely amateur ensemble formed in 1958, achieved professional status in 1965, and the John Ritchie String Orchestra (1958) provided a catalyst for the eventual creation of the Christchurch SO in 1973. The Symphonia of Auckland (1970) expanded from semi-professional beginnings into the country's second orchestra, the innovatory Auckland Philharmonia.

An influx of European migrants, particularly in the 1940s, helped diversify and enrich New Zealand's musical life. Several were active in promoting the growth of professional chamber music, which began with the founding of the Wellington Chamber Music Society in 1945. Similar societies emerged in other centres, leading to the formation of a national organization, the New Zealand Federation of Chamber Music Societies, in 1950. This promoted tours by distinguished overseas groups, fostered resident ensembles and steadily evolved into a stimulating cultural force. Its activities moved beyond concert promotion to embrace educational programmes, the commissioning of music and a composer-in-residence scheme. In 1987 the organization changed from a federation of autonomous societies into a centralized national body, Chamber Music New Zealand. The result of a supportive environment has been the formation of several professional chamber ensembles, notably the New Zealand String Quartet (1987).

Opera took longer to become established after 1945. A visit from a strong Italian company under Williamson auspices in 1949 showed that a demand existed, but a resident professional ensemble only began to emerge in 1954, when Donald Munro formed the New Zealand Opera Company. From shoestring beginnings, this grew into the biggest arts organization in the country. Major seasons were given in metropolitan centres, opera with piano visited smaller towns, and live broadcasts took performances into every home. Important productions included David Farquhar's specially commissioned A Unicorn for Christmas (1962), the New Zealand premières of Die Zauberflöte (1963), Così fan tutte (1963), Porgy and Bess (1965), Albert Herring (1966) and Fidelio (1968), and the Australasian professional première of The Rake’s Progress (1969). The company was at its peak between 1958 and 1966, after which it suffered economic difficulties and went into recession in 1971. A period of semi-professional activity ended with the founding of the short-lived National Opera of New Zealand (1979–83), whose demise was the signal for opera to develop on a regional rather than national basis. Wellington City Opera (now National Opera of Wellington) was launched in 1984 and Canterbury Opera the following year. In Auckland the mantle passed first to the dramatically inventive but musically variable Mercury Opera. Following the building of a new theatre, the Aotea Centre, several semi-professional groups amalgamated to form Auckland Metropolitan Opera in 1990; after a merger with Mercury and several name changes this became Opera New Zealand in 1995.

The scope and quality of musical life in New Zealand has increased dramatically since the 1960s. Many multi-purpose theatres or concert halls have been built to accommodate the increase in performing arts activities (fig.5), accelerated by the growth of festivals, the largest of which is the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts, held biennially in Wellington since 1986. A number of publications, notably Owen Jensen's Music Ho (1941–8) and William Dart's Music in New Zealand (1988–96, 1998–) helped widen horizons and stimulate debate, while the establishment of specialist collections, such as the Alexander Turnbull Library's Archive of New Zealand Music (founded 1974), encouraged the study of New Zealand's musical past. Tertiary musical education has expanded to embrace performance studies, musicology, ethnomusicology, jazz and popular music, music theatre and composition. Improved instrumental training and a steady infusion of overseas players seeking a better life have contributed to enhanced standards, and though some artists, particularly opera singers, still find it necessary to base themselves overseas, most of them also make frequent appearances at home. The country's strong tradition of instrument making continues. The ‘Musical Instruments through the Ages’ exhibition in Auckland (1986) displayed the work of 23 New Zealand makers, including several with international reputations. Amateur organizations such as choirs, bands and operatic societies also still thrive. Of particular note is the National Youth Choir (founded 1979), which has made several acclaimed overseas tours, and the National Band of New Zealand, which won the world title in 1975, 1978 and 1985 and has also toured internationally.

The strongest expression of growing postwar musical self-confidence has been the emergence of a significant number of composers. This is partly the result of increased educational opportunities and new forms of patronage, such as composer residencies and the underwriting of commissions and performances by musical organizations and by the Arts Council of New Zealand/Toi Aotearoa (originally founded as the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council in 1963). Further encouragement and support has come from the New Zealand branch of the ISCM (1949–66), the Composers' Association of New Zealand (founded 1974), the Composers' Foundation (1981) and the New Zealand Music Centre (1991). Radio has been crucial in helping composers reach a wider audience. Four stations modelled on the BBC Third Programme were established in the 1950s and linked as a network from 1963 onwards. This network, known as Concert FM, has consistently championed New Zealand music and performers and has been a major force in the country's cultural development. Recording companies, notably Kiwi/Pacific International (founded 1978), Ode (1968) and Ribbonwood (1989) have also helped propagate New Zealand music, as have publishers such as the Waiteata Music Press, which issued its first scores in 1967, and Nota Bene (1979).

Many composers have also derived inspiration from the example of Douglas Lilburn (b 1915). In 1946 he argued for ‘a living tradition of music created in this country’, and the exactness and economy with which he evoked a sense of place in seminal works such as Landfall in Unknown Seas (1942) was crucially important, particularly to the first postwar generation of composers, which included Edwin Carr, David Farquhar, Larry Pruden, Ronald Tremain and Anthony Watson, several of whom came under Lilburn's tutelage at the summer Cambridge Music School (founded in 1946). Although most subsequently studied in Europe, the majority returned to work in New Zealand. Farquhar, Tremain and John Ritchie emulated Lilburn in holding university posts and were responsible for teaching many of the next generation. Among this younger group, Jack Body, Christopher Blake, Dorothy Buchanan, John Cousins, Lyell Cresswell, Ross Harris, Jenny McLeod, John Rimmer and Gillian Whitehead have adopted a wide variety of musical styles. Lilburn's establishment of an electronic music studio at Victoria University of Wellington in 1966 was the catalyst for some to embrace modern technology, including computer techniques. Others have absorbed the sounds of Asia and the Pacific and combined these with European influences. Though most of these composers chose to live and work in New Zealand, several opted for overseas careers. By contrast, the members of the next, predominantly university-trained generation, born in the 1950s and 1960s, enjoy a greatly enhanced range of opportunities in their own country. Eve de Castro-Robinson, John Elmsley, Gareth Farr, David Hamilton, Nigel Keay, Martin Lodge, Christopher Norton, Anthony Ritchie and John Young are no less eclectic than New Zealand composers of previous generations, but their frame of reference tends to be focussed on the Asia-Pacific region, and their ‘New Zealandness’ no longer involves a search for identity but is a subconscious certainty.

New Zealand, §II: Traditional music

BIBLIOGRAPHY

E.C. Simpson: A Survey of the Arts in New Zealand (Wellington, 1961)

S.P. Newcomb: Music of the People: the Story of the Band Movement in New Zealand, 1845–1963 (Christchurch, 1963)

P. Norman: Bibliography of New Zealand Compositions (Christchurch, 1980, 3/1991)

D. Lilburn: A Search for Tradition (Wellington, 1984)

B.W. Pritchard: Selected Source Readings on Musical Activity in the Canterbury Settlement, 1850–1880 (Christchurch, 1984)

D.R. Harvey: A Bibliography of Writings about New Zealand Music Published to the End of 1983 (Wellington, 1985)

J.M. Thomson: Into a New Key: the Origins and History of the Music Federation of New Zealand 1950–1982 (Wellington, 1985)

J. Tonks: The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra: the First 40 Years (Auckland, 1986)

R.H.B. Hoskins: An Annotated Bibliography of Nineteenth Century New Zealand Songbooks (Christchurch, 1988)

E. Kerr: Our Music (Wellington, 1989)

S. Shieff: ‘Building a Culture: Music in New Zealand in the 1940s’, Music in New Zealand, no.7 (1989–90), 38–45

A. Simpson, ed.: Opera in New Zealand: Aspects of History and Performance (Wellington, 1990)

J.M. Thomson: Biographical Dictionary of New Zealand Composers (Wellington, 1990)

R. Harvey: Music at National Archives: Sources for the Study of Music in New Zealand (Christchurch, 1991)

J.M. Thomson: The Oxford History of New Zealand Music (Auckland, 1991, 2/1992)

J.M. Thomson: ‘Sight and Sound: Exhibitions and New Zealand Music 1865–1940’, Music in New Zealand, no.16 (1992), 34–9, 60

A. Simpson: The Greatest Ornaments of their Profession: the New Zealand Tours by the Simonsen Opera Companies, 1876–1889 (Christchurch, 1993)

P. Day: A History of Broadcasting in New Zealand, i: The Radio Years (Auckland, 1994)

A. Simpson: Opera's Farthest Frontier: a History of Professional Opera in New Zealand (Auckland, 1996)

J. Tonks: Bravo! The NZSO at 50 (Auckland, 1996)

For further bibliography see Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington.