Lilburn on rhythm

Philip Norman in his excellent book on NZ composer Douglas Lilburn quotes him as saying:

...the patterns of our landscape and seacoasts, the changing of our seasons and the flow of light and colour about us, that all these things show patterns of movement and characteristic rhythms. And these things in a subtle way affect our manner of living and I believe that they impress themselves on our minds in a way that will ultimately give rise to forms of musical expression.

Norman continues:

Rhythm, according to Lilburn, was the key to music as it determined the 'shape and vitality of any melodic line', and 'in its larger sense of movement or flow it is in the basis of musical form'.