Auckland Town Hall, sixties, National Orchestra.
I’m sitting front row, right-wing balcony,
The program’s safe, trite, easily digested.
The standard fare for summer matinees.
Beethoven, Hadyn, Schubert, all good stuff,
But from the interval things go amiss.
They throw at us a piece by Douglas Lillburn
A work a world away from lolly-pops.
This step beyond the classics and romantics,
Begs close attention, effort on our part.
It’s fresh, rewarding, but just to the few,
And shuffling feet and unrest soon intrude.
Across from me four rocks ignore the ferment.
A mother, three young daughters, Op-shop dressed.
Up from the country, this the years big treat,
A slim budget’s ruptured but it’s justified.
For on those faces. Ecstacy! They’re in the clouds
Like me. In tune with Mr. Lillburn’s alchemy.
Unfairly, I feel smug, one of a small elite.
Admit though, taste is just familiarity.
Car styling, that epitome of modern art,
Bought by the millions, gives us proof of this.
See the gauche excesses of some once-dream cars.
See clearly now the few whose lines were right.
The audience, the music, was one lacking?
In matters so subjective, who can say?
So like what pleases you. The area is gray.
The restless arts push hard for new directions
And effrontery takes guise as inspiration
But if a work has merit time will tell.