Country and group of islands in the south Pacific Ocean. It is located about 1900 kms south-east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and comprises two main islands, North Island and South Island, and several much smaller ones, including Stewart Island and the Chatham Islands. The population is highly urbanized: of about 3·8 million people (est. 2000), around 75% live on North Island, most in the cities of Auckland and Wellington.
MERVYN McLEAN (I, 1–2), ANGELA R. ANNABEL (I, 3), ADRIENNE SIMPSON (II)
The original inhabitants of New Zealand, the Maori, are a Polynesian people who migrated to the islands around the 10th century; today Maori comprise about 12% of the population. There are also significant expatriot Maori communities in Australia, the USA and the UK. Most New Zealand families have relatives of Maori descent and thus, in effect, a double cultural heritage. Maori is now an official language of New Zealand, with English.
The most comprehensive collection of Maori music can be found in the Archive of Maori and Pacific Music, which was established in 1970 within the Department of Anthropology at the University of Auckland. Its holdings include commercial and field recordings of vocal and instrumental music, folklore and oral history. In addition to its research and teaching functions, the archive also publishes catalogues and reports on specific music research projects. Repositories of research material are also held by the Alexander Turnbull Library (Wellington), the Hocken Library (Dunedin) and the Sound Archives of Radio New Zealand. The following discussion covers Maori vocal music and instruments; for traditional New Zealand dance, seePolynesia, §I, 3.
3. European traditional music.
There are two forms of indigenous Maori music. The first, known as ‘action song’ (waiata-a-ringa or waiata kori), dates only from the beginning of the 20th century, and although its words and actions are Maori, its melodies are European. The origin of the action song is generally attributed to the east coast Maori leader Sir Apirana Ngata (1874–1950), who with Paraire Tomoana (1868–1946) composed the well-known E te ope tuatahi as a recruiting song during World War I. The person most responsible for bringing action song to its present form was Tuini Ngawai (1910–65), also from the east coast, who composed more than 100 songs during and after World War II, setting original Maori words to the tunes of popular European songs of the day. Her song Arohaina mai, written in 1939 as a farewell for the C Company of the Maori Battalion, has the tune of Love walked In; Te hokowhitu toa, which became a favourite of the C Company, used the tune of Lock My Heart and Throw Away the Key; and her celebrated tribute to the Victoria Cross winner Lieutenant Te Moana-niu-a-Kiwa Ngarimu, E te hokowhitu a tu, was written to the tune of In the Mood. Although the melodies and harmonies of action songs are borrowed, the messages and sentiments expressed by the texts are purely Maori, as are the actions and the manner of performance. Traits such as uniformity of body movement, hand-trembling (wiri) and the use of regular metre appear to be derived from the traditional haka (shouted posture dances) and core hand gestures from extempore actions used in the traditional pātere (occasional songs; see §(i) below).
The other form of Maori music – referred to hereafter as Maori chant – is wholly indigenous in origin and has remained relatively uninfluenced by European music. It serves specific social and ceremonial needs (see McLean, 1965) and reflects its origins in its stylistic and other similarities to traditional music from elsewhere in Polynesia.
Maori chant is classified by the Maori themselves into song-use categories that can be further grouped on musical grounds into sung and recited styles. Recited styles are distinguished primarily by the absence of stable pitch organization and by much more rapid tempos. In both sung and recited styles, tempos once set are invariable. Other points of similarity include the use of additive rather than divisive rhythms (except for haka; see §(i) below) and a continuous style of performance in which breaks of any kind, even for breathing, are avoided. Most types of song are performed in unison by groups of singers who are kept together by a song leader. The leader is responsible for choosing a pitch that will suit most of the singers, and he or she also sets the tempo of the song. Mistakes are regarded as ill omens.
The sung styles have a strong emphasis upon a tonic (the note which occurs most often) in the centre of the range, which is generally limited to a 4th. Melodic intervals are mostly major and minor 2nds and minor 3rds. Form is strophic, usually with two phrases to each strophe. A characteristic device is the terminal glissando, sometimes heard when an individual in a group stops singing; it nearly always occurs at the ends of stanzas, and it almost invariably marks the end of the song itself.
Karakia are rapidly intoned spells or incantations. They include simple charms used by children, spells used by adults to meet the contingencies of daily life and highly esoteric invocations used in numerous rituals by priests. Most karakia are performed in a rapid monotone punctuated by sustained notes and descending glides at the ends of phrases. More than any other type of song, ritual karakia had to be performed word-perfect, for it was believed that any mistake, however trivial, would bring death or disaster upon the performer. To achieve an unbroken flow of sound, longer karakia were performed alternately by two priests. Karakia of the ritual kind are still performed on occasions such as the opening of a meeting-house, where tapu (sacredness) placed upon a house during its construction has to be removed; canoe karakia (those associated with the ancestral canoes that are said to have brought the Maori people to New Zealand) are customarily performed by men as introductions to speeches on the marae (village square).
Pātere are occasional songs, composed mostly by slandered women in reply to gossip. Rather than denying the gossip, the reply typically takes the form of recounting the lineal and lateral kinship connections of the author. Songs recited in the same style as pātere, but distinguishable by their more virulent or abusive texts, are called kaioraora. Like the karakia or incantation, pātere and kaioraora are intoned, but the tempo is not as rapid, and sustained notes are absent. Unlike karakia they are often performed by groups. Most of the recitation is on one note, but a gradual rise of pitch followed by a fall occurs near the ends of stanzas. There is a tendency towards duple metre with characteristic rhythmic groupings, modified by occasional additive combinations that give an effect of apparent syncopation.
Haka are shouted posture dances with compound divisive metres that set them apart from other song types. Contrary to popular belief, the haka was not exclusively a war dance, nor was it performed solely by men. In former times, as today, haka were used for entertainment and to welcome visitors as well as in preparation for battle, and women took part in them. They are characterized by foot-stamping, thrusting and flourishing movements of the arms, quivering of the hands, movements of the body and head, out-thrust tongue, distorted eyes and grimacing (fig.1). The vocal style is one of stylized shouting. Usually there is an alternation between leader solos and shouted responses from the chorus. The tempo is the slowest of all the recited styles, though much faster than in any of the sung forms of chant.
The term waiata is sometimes used loosely as a generic word for all songs. Properly, however, it is a specific type of song. About four-fifths of these are laments for the dead, called waiata tangi (tangi: ‘to weep’). Most of the rest are waiata aroha or waiata whaiāipo (‘love songs’ and ‘sweetheart songs’), but these may also be thought of as laments, as they are usually about lost or unhappy love. Waiata are customarily performed at the tangi, or funeral ceremony, after speeches of praise or farewell to the dead.
Waiata of all kinds are typically performed in unison by groups of singers. A leader, who may be a man or a woman, begins the song and performs short solos, called hīanga, at the end of each line of the text, usually on meaningless syllables.
Pao are topical songs about matters of local interest; the texts are usually in couplets. Many pao are gossip songs about the loves of their subjects, and pao of this kind are sung mostly for entertainment. Others, however, have a serious purpose and may be sung, for example, as aids to speech-making, as answers to taunts or as songs of farewell; in this respect they are similar to waiata. Unlike waiata, pao are typically composed in improvisatory fashion. Each couplet is first sung solo by the composer and is then supposed to be repeated by the chorus while the composer thinks of the next couplet. At subsequent performances, each couplet typically continues to be sung twice. Musically, pao are distinguished by a tendency towards iambic rhythms, an abundance of rapid ornament and a typically descending melodic contour, even for songs whose range is small. In consequence, the tonic tends to be near the bottom of the range instead of in the middle, as in waiata.
Poi are dances with sung accompaniment, in which women swing light decorated balls attached to strings (fig.2). Little is known about the origins of the poi. Early accounts describe it as a game, and it seems probable that formerly the accompanying songs of the poi were recited songs similar to haka and pātere. Most extant poi, however, except for those performed in acculturated style by modern action song groups, belong to a now declining religious movement that flourished in the 1880s and 90s under the leadership of the Maori prophets Te Whiti and Tohu. For these men, who were early believers in ‘passive resistance’, the poi was a symbol of peace. Their followers reworked waiata and karakia and adapted them to the poi. The results were songs in rapid tempo with a very small range, often in additive rhythms running counter to the divisive off-beat slap of the poi balls. As in waiata, a basic melody is repeated again and again, but there is no hīanga, or solo, from the leader to mark the end of each line. Instead, the song is performed from beginning to end by the entire group of singers. Because the hīanga is not used, the meaningless syllables characteristic of waiata are absent.
Oriori are songs, the most important examples of which were composed by parents or grandparents for young children of noble birth or of warrior lineage. These songs are often described as lullabies, but their purpose was to educate children in matters appropriate to their descent, and the texts are correspondingly full of obscure references to myth, legend and tribal history. As in most types of song, performance is continuous, with no pauses or breaks between lines, but there are no leader solos at the end of lines. In this respect oriori are similar to poi; but whereas leader solos are absent altogether in poi, in oriori they tend to occur either at the beginning or at the end of stanzas. These leader solos are more diverse melodically than the rest of the song, which is typically in simple syllabic style. Tempos of oriori are usually fast, and among sung items are second in this respect only to poi.
Maori musical instruments were limited to idiophones and aerophones. There were no membranophones, and except for a single unconfirmed report of an instrument called the kū – which may have been a form of musical bow – there is no evidence of chordophones. If sound-producers used for non-musical purposes such as signalling are excluded, the list of instruments is very small.
The most important idiophone – and the only instrument resembling a drum in New Zealand – was the percussion idiophone that in New Zealand took the name pahu, which elsewhere in Polynesia was applied to the sharkskin drum (pahu in Tahiti; pa’u in the Cook Islands). Most were flat slabs of resonant wood between 1·2 and 9 metres in length, which in favourable conditions could be heard reportedly at distances of up to 20 km. Some slab pahu were unmodified, some apparently had a shallow depression or groove in the centre, and others had an elliptical or oval hole pierced through the centre. Only one specimen (made in 1899) is reported to have resembled the Polynesian slit-drum in being hollowed out. The main use of the pahu was in warfare. By means of ropes tied around the ends, it was either suspended between two trees or, more usually, hung from a crosspiece supported by forked-stick uprights above the platform of a watch-tower, 5 to 6 metres high. This watch-tower was part of the defences of the fortified village or pā. The watchman sat on the platform and beat upon the pahu to assemble the people in times of danger or, if they were safe inside the pā at night, as a signal that the pā was on the alert. From time to time throughout the night he also recited watch-songs (whakaaraara pā) or sounded blasts upon the pūkāea (wooden war trumpet).
Though not a chordophone, the pakuru was, in effect, the Maori equivalent of the musical bow. It took the form of a thin strip of resonant wood about 40 to 50 cm long, 2 to 5 cm wide and about 1 cm thick; one surface was flat and the other convex. According to most authorities, one end was held lightly with the left hand, and the other was placed between the teeth with the flat side down. The instrument was played by tapping it lightly with another rod about 15 cm long held in the fingers of the right hand. The tapping was done in time to special songs called rangi pakuru, and the sound was modified by movements of the lips.
Another instrument that depended upon mouth resonance for its effect was the rōria, or Maori form of the jew’s harp. The pre-European form was made from an elastic piece of supplejack 7 to 10 cm long, one end of which was held in the mouth or against the teeth and twanged with a finger. The player made guttural sounds, and the movement of the lips helped vary the sound. The appeal of the instrument lay in its ability to communicate words; Maori lovers used to sit side by side, each with a rōria, and hold quiet conversations on the instruments. Later, European jew’s harps replaced the native instruments, and the name rōria was transferred to them.
The pūtātara or pū moana (shell trumpet) was simply a large triton shell with the end cut off and a carved wooden mouthpiece lashed on in its place. It was a signalling trumpet that emitted a single note. Chiefs sometimes carried these instruments when travelling and would sound them to warn villagers of their approach. They were also used by some chiefs’ families to announce the birth of a first-born son; by commanding chiefs to direct or rally their forces during a fight; and as a signal to assemble villagers on the marae (village square).
The pūkāea (wooden war trumpet) was from 1 to 2·5 metres long and was formed by splitting a piece of mataī wood longitudinally, hollowing it, and then binding it together again. One end had a wooden mouthpiece and the other was flared out to a diameter of 8 to 12 cm. Inside, near the bell end, were inserted small wooden pegs called tohe; these represented the human tonsils and uvula. Single-note blasts were sounded on the pūkāea by watchmen, and the instrument is said also to have been used as a megaphone through which insults could be hurled at the enemy.
The pūtōrino (fig.3a) is an instrument about 30 to 60 cm long, widest in the middle and tapering at each end. One end is usually not quite closed; the other has a mouth-hole, and in the middle is a figure-of-eight or oval soundhole. The pūtōrino was made in the same manner as the pūkaaea, and the finest specimens are highly polished and intricately carved around the middle and ends. The earliest reports of the instrument describe it as a trumpet that produced a ‘shrill, hoarse’ or ‘harsh, shrill’ sound. It has also, however, been described as a flute, and experiment has shown that although the large specimens are indeed trumpets, the small ones can also be blown as flutes of limited range. The description of the pūtoorino as a ‘bugle-flute’ (Anderson, 1934) may therefore be accepted, though there seems to be little doubt that the instrument was originally a trumpet.
The kōauau (fig.3b) is a simple open-tube flute, 12 to 15 cm long with a bore of 1 to 2 cm and three finger-holes. Some were made of wood and others of bone, and many were beautifully carved. When not in use, they were often worn suspended around the neck as an ornament. Contrary to popular belief, the kōauau was not a nose flute but was played with the mouth. The traditional blowing technique, which is diagonal or oblique rather than vertical or horizontal, can still be found. Recent research has shown that there were three or four standard scales, which are identical to those of many present-day waiata. This provides support for statements by informants that the instrument played waiata melodies and was used principally for unison accompaniment of group singing.
The nguru (fig.4c) is a flute 8 to 10 cm long, made of wood, clay, stone or whale’s tooth. One end is open as on a kōauau, and the other finishes with a small hole in the centre of a tapered, upturned snout. In addition to the snout hole there are usually two finger-holes on top and another one or two beneath the snout. The prototypal shape was probably a gourd. The earliest reports of the instrument describe it as a whistle, worn about the neck and yielding a shrill sound. It was possibly used for signalling, as some writers have suggested, but its primary use was as a flute. Although some nguru flutes can be blown with the nose as well as the mouth, this method is unlikely to have been much used. The normal method of blowing was probably from the wide end with the mouth, in the same manner as the kōauau. This produces normal kōauau scales except for an extension downwards – usually by a major 2nd or minor 3rd – of one or two extra notes in the case of instruments with extra finger-holes underneath the snout, duplicating the ability of the kōauau to produce these notes by portamento. The nguru can therefore be regarded as simply a variety of kōauau, though its shape was different.
Of less importance than the instruments discussed above are the tētere (‘flax trumpet’), the kōrorohū (‘whizzer’) and the pūrorohū (bullroarer). The tētere was in fact not a trumpet. It was made by winding a split half-blade of flax in overlapping turns to a wider distal end. It was played with as a toy by children and was sometimes used by adults as a makeshift instrument to announce their approach to a village.
There is confusion in the terminology of the whizzer and the bullroarer. Both had numerous alternative names, and several of these are applied by different authorities to both instruments. The term preferred here for the whizzer is that used today by members of the Tūhoe tribe; Buck’s usage is followed for the bullroarer.
The kōrorohū (‘whizzer’ or ‘cutwater’) was a children’s toy made from a small piece of thin, flat wood or pumpkin rind pointed at both ends. Two holes were pierced near the centre through which the two ends of a piece of string were threaded and then tied, one thumb was inserted in the tied end and the other in the loop end; the disc was next swung towards the operator to twist the string; when it was sufficiently wound up an outward pull on the string caused it first to unwind rapidly and then, by its own momentum, to wind up again in the opposite direction. By timing the outward pull on the strings, the player could keep the instrument revolving rapidly in alternate directions, producing a whizzing noise during the unwinding parts of the cycle. Songs in pao style were sung to the accompaniment of the sound.
The pūrorohū (bullroarer) was made of a thin, flat piece of board of similar shape to the kōrorohū, but about 30 to 45 cm long. A cord about 120 cm long was tied to one end, and the other end of the cord was attached to a wooden handle about 90 cm long. By means of the handle, the operator swung the instrument until it produced a deep booming sound. In the Cook Islands and Hawaii, and perhaps elsewhere in Polynesia, the bullroarer was apparently used as a children’s toy, but in New Zealand it is believed to have been used ceremonially to produce rain.
Prior to colonization in the mid-19th century, European contact with the indigenous Maori through the activities of traders, sealers, whalers and missionaries had already laid the groundwork for the development of a distinctive song ethos. The British colonization schemes that began in 1840 did not result in any large-scale importation of folksong, but there was some transit of English, Scottish, and Irish folksong material and a resultant acculturation of such material in the new environment. Variants of traditional British songs such as Rattlin’ Roarin’ Willie, The Fox and The Foolish Boy developed, and children’s games and songs, some of ancient European origin, also entered the song milieu. British nursery rhymes even found their way into the Maori language: words such as ‘cow’ and ‘spoon’ (in Hey Diddle Diddle) became transliterated as ‘kau’ and ‘pune’. Popular songs such as Home, Boys, Home, with strong ‘I would I were in my own country’ folk sentiments, derived indirectly from 17th-century British broadside balladry. Large influxes of Californian and Australian miners during the gold rush periods of the 1860s and 70s, and a periodic inflow of Australian shearers, harvesters and other workers, introduced further new elements. In the early 20th century the existence of a folksong subculture was highlighted by the writer James Cowan. I’ve Traded with the Maoris (a local adaption of a British sea shanty and sung today in restored and amended form as Across the Line) is one of a few old songs collected by Cowan.
The worldwide folksong revival movement of the 1950s and 60s, typified by groups such as the Weavers in America and the Ewan MacColl-Peggy Seeger duo in Britain, saw the emergence of local collectors and folk-singing groups, the recording of songs for the commercial market, and the nationwide development of folk clubs and organizations. Pioneer collectors of the 1950s included Rona Bailey, who undertook field trips (one government-assisted) in the South Island; Neil Colquhoun, leader of the Song Spinners, who produced locally-made recordings of whalers', gumdiggers' and goldminers' songs; and Les Cleveland, whose Black Billy Tea, based on a ballad by the Canterbury farmer and folk poet Joe Charles, is a classic in today’s repertory. The song corpus was added to by new compositions depicting historical and contemporary aspects of the New Zealand scene (the songwriter Willow Macky had already composed the New Zealand Christmas carol Te Harinui and The Ballad of Captain Cook in the 1950s) and musical arrangements of the balladry of indigenous folk poets, such as The Shearing’s Coming Round, a setting of David McKee Wright’s verse of the 1890s. Some songs in the repertory approach the traditional ideal of folksong as the product of oral circulation and transmission: The New Chumor I’m a Young Man, for instance, originating as an entertainer’s song in the 1860s, survived largely by these means over an extended period. Due to the fragmentary nature of much collected material, other songs are the result of extensive restoration and amendment processes. For instance, Bright Fine Gold, reconstructed around an Otago goldfield’s nursery ditty, adapts the street cry of the English rhyme Hot Cross Buns to its chorus opening and further turns to advantage the ‘one-a-pecker, two-a-pecker’ doggerel of British nursery literature in the substitution of a New Zealand goldfield’s place name (ex.1).
Harding’s discographic and bibliographic research (1992) classifies New Zealand traditional song as it has developed since the first European contacts under the major headings of ‘folk’ and ‘popular’. The 1500 or so titles listed bring into focus the bicultural nature, in social and economic terms, of such song. Te Rangi Hikiroa’s World War I song Ka Mate! Ka Mate!, Maewa Kaihau’s Now is the Hour, Karaitiana’s Blue Smoke and rock star Tim Finn’s Parihaka are a few examples of titles illustrating this cultural blend.
Musical instruments included fiddles, flutes, concertinas, mouth organs, jew’s harps and penny whistles, used in colonial times on the goldfields, gumfields or on such occasions as end-of-season woolshed dances on sheep stations to accompany jigs, reels, polkas and popular dances. The Kokatahi Band of Westland, formed in 1910 as a ‘goldfields’ band, has incorporated in its mix of folk instruments improvised items such as sheep-bone castanets (fig.4). Among home-made instruments popular at various periods have been a kerosene-tin fiddle (an entire ‘tin band’ has been reported as active in the lower North Island) and the flagonophone (also called the beer bottle saxophone), intricately cut from large bottles. A revivalist upsurge of interest in colonial dancing saw the development of ‘bush bands’ such as the Canterbury Crutchings Bush and Ceilidh Band in 1976 and the Pioneer Pog’n'Scroggin Bush Band (1980). Such bands today might include any number or variety of bush or country-style instruments: banjo, mandolin, guitar, piano accordion, dulcimer, autoharp, bush (or tea chest) bass, spoons and the showpiece-style lagerphone (a pole loosely hung with bottle tops), to name a few.
A variety of minority communities have perpetuated their folk music through clubs and associations. In the North Island popular performers at local events are descendants of 19th-century Bohemian settlers at Puhoi, who maintain a fiddle, accordion and dudelsack (bagpipe) band and perform dances such as the Egerlander polka. Similarly, descendants of Dalmatian kauri gumfield workers have a tamburica orchestra and perform the kolo, a traditional circle dance. The cultural activities of other groups, for example Chinese, Indian, Scandinavian, Dutch and Greek communities, and those of British descent (of which the Scots, long associated with pipe bands and Highland dancing, have strongly asserted a musical identity) are currently experiencing revitalization in the wake of a large inflow of new Asian residents. In Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, popularly dubbed ‘the multicultural capital’, an annual Maori and Pacific Islands Secondary Schools’ Cultural Festival is expanding to accommodate countries such as China, India, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
Traditional music in New Zealand in its various forms is featured also in film, radio and television programmes. A late-1990s performance of the haka Ka Mate! by Britain’s pop group the Spice Girls indicated the spread of one aspect of the genre.
and other resources
E. Best: Games and Pastimes of the Maori (Wellington, 1925/R)
J.C. Andersen: Maori Music with its Polynesian Background (New Plymouth, 1934/R)
P. Buck: The Coming of the Maori (Christchurch, 1949, 2/1950)
M. McLean: ‘Oral Transmission in Maori Music’, JIFMC, xiii (1961), 59–63
M. McLean: ‘Song Loss and Social Context amongst the New Zealand Maori’, EthM, ix (1965), 296–304
M. McLean: ‘A New Method of Melodic Interval Analysis as Applied to Maori Chant’, EthM, x (1966), 174–90
M. McLean: ‘Cueing as a Formal Device in Maori Chant’, EthM, xii (1968), 1–10
M. McLean: ‘An Investigation of the Open Tube Maori Flute or kooauau’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, lxxvii (1968), 213–41
M. McLean: ‘An Analysis of 651 Maori Scales’, YIFMC, i (1969), 123–64
M. McLean: ‘Song Types of the New Zealand Maori’, SMA, iii (1969), 53–69
M. McLean: ‘The New Zealand Nose Flute: Fact or Fallacy?’, GSJ, xxvii (1974), 79–94
M. McLean and M. Orbell: Traditional Songs of the Maori (Wellington, 1975, 2/1990)
M. McLean: ‘Innovations in Waiata Style’, YIFMC, ix (1977), 27–37
M. McLean: ‘A Chronological and Geographical Sequence of Maori Flute Scales’, Man, xvii (1982), 123–57
M. McLean, ed.: Catalogue of Maori Purposes Fund Board Recordings (Auckland, 1983) [recordings made 1953–8]
J. Shennan: The Maori Action Song (Wellington, 1984)
M. McLean, ed.: Catalogue of Radio New Zealand Recordings of Maori Events 1938–1950, RNZ 1–60 (Auckland, 1991)
M. McLean and J. Curnow, eds.: Catalogue of McLean Collection of Recordings of Traditional Maori Songs 1958–1979, McL 1–1283 (Auckland, 1992)
R. Moyle: ‘Music Archives in the University of Auckland: the Archive of Maori and Pacific Music’, FAM, xxxix (1992), 220–24
M. McLean, ed.: Catalogue of National Museum Cylinder Collection (Auckland, 1993) [recordings made 1919–34]
M. McLean: Maori Music (Auckland, 1996)
R. Bailey and H. Roth: Shanties by the Way: a Selection of New Zealand Popular Songs and Ballads (Christchurch, 1967)
F. Fyfe: A ‘Shanties’ or Two: a Study of a Bush Song (Wellington, 1970)
Songs of a Young Country: New Zealand Folksongs, Kiwi Pacific Records SLC 101–2 (1972)
N. Colquhoun, ed.: New Zealand Folksongs: Songs of a Young Country (Wellington, 1972) [documents songs on Kiwi SLC 101–2]
A. Annabell: Aspects of the New Zealand Folk Song Ethos (diss., U. of Auckland, 1975)
Music for Colonial Dancing, perf. Canterbury Bush Orchestra, Kiwi Pacific Records TC SLC-182 (1985)
P. Garland: Hunger in the Air: Songs of Old New Zealand, Kiwi Pacific Records TC LRF-191 (1986)
A. Annabell: ‘The Australian Influence on New Zealand Folk-Song’, Music in New Zealand, no.7 (1989–90), 34–7
L. Cleveland, ed.: The Great New Zealand Songbook (Auckland, 1991)
M. Harding: When the Pakeha Sings of Home: a Source Guide to the Folk and Popular Songs of New Zealand (Auckland, 1992)
A. Annabell: ‘New Zealand Folk Song: an Update with Reference to Resources in New Zealand Libraries’, FAM, xxxix (1992), 225–6
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.
New Zealand, §II: Traditional music
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
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
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
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.