Category Archives: Music > Violin

Zillah Castle was an acclaimed New Zealand violinist and collector of musical items.
In 1930, Zillah earned 190 out of a possible 200 in her LRSM (Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music) diploma examinations; at the time it was reportedly the highest pass mark awarded to any candidate. Her reward was a violin scholarship to London’s Royal College of Music, where she studied from 1931 to 1934, when she returned to Wellington. Zillah soon earned a reputation as a talented violinist, performing as a soloist, with orchestras and for radio broadcasts. A supporter of modern violin works, she was the first person in New Zealand to perform Vaughan Williams’s The lark ascending. She gave music lessons, teaching hundreds of Wellington children over the years, and mentored pupils who graduated to orchestra ranks. Zillah and her brother Ronald, a bassoonist, also performed in concerts for schools. In the 1930s, with their sister Mona playing viola da gamba, Zillah playing viola d’amore and Ronald on the recorder, they formed what is believed to be New Zealand’s first baroque music ensemble to use instruments of the period.
Neither Ronald nor Zillah ever married married, preferring to continue the musical traditions centred on the family home in Colombo Street, Newtown, which housed their extraordinary collection of early and unusual musical instruments. It has been described as the largest private collection of its type in Oceania, with more than 500 items including every imaginable non-electronic mechanism capable of producing a musical note. Many were gifted to the siblings from people who wanted a good home for an unwanted instrument. The collection, which grew evolved into a private museum, contained functioning examples of every member of the violin family, as well as didgeridoos, a zuffolo, harpsichords and a crwth, harps, tablas, a sáhnāī, horns, trumpets, clarinets, a hurdy-gurdy and hundreds of other pieces. The majority of the collection was purchased by the Auckland Museum in 1998.
The Castles also collected textbooks and volumes of rare music, which are now part of the Alexander Turnbull Library collection, as well as many works of art, and a collection of dolls, toys and children’s books and magazines.