Peter Mechen looks at the life and work of Taranaki-born composer Larry Pruden, talks to those who knew him, and learns about the collected edition of Pruden's works published by Promethean Editions.
Larry Pruden Photo: Promethean Editions
Larry Pruden died at the relatively early age of fifty-seven, leaving behind a significant legacy as a composer, along with many memories shared by family and colleagues. Some of those memories are recounted by his wife, Penny, and various of his contemporaries in the music scene. His music remains, of course, and this feature includes contributions by several people who never met him but have got to know him through his music.
Larry Pruden's home town was New Plymouth. John Dobson taught him the piano and Larry learned something of the clarinet at New Plymouth Boys' High School. At thirteen he was organist at the New Plymouth Methodist Church, and two years later, was playing the organ at the Presbyterian Church. By then he'd come under the guidance of an uncle by marriage, Joseph Papysch. Joe Papysch was a very considerable musician and Larry was always warm in his appreciation of Uncle Joe's kindly and imaginative assistance with his music. But when he arrived at the Cambridge Music School in 1947, Larry Pruden had had no formal lessons in composition. His only composing essay had been a waltz modelled on waltzes he'd played on the piano. At Cambridge he met Douglas Lilburn, tutor of the summer school's new composition group, of which Larry became a member.
In London from 1951–1954, he attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied composition, conducting and percussion. In 1952 he joined Benjamin Frankel's composition class which also contained David Farquhar, Edwin Carr and Robert Burch. He returned to New Zealand in 1955, and settled in Wellington. He was employed in various capacities by NZ Broadcasting until 1975, when he went to Dunedin as Mozart Fellow at Otago University. During all of this time he was also involved in tutoring composition at summer music schools, conducting, writing programme notes and introducing radio programmes. Larry Pruden died in 1982.
