Research Catalog

Title

Weinzweig : essays on his life and music / John Beckwith and Brian Cherney, editors.

Publication

Waterloo, Ont. : Wilfrid Laurier University Press, c2011.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Cherney, Brian, 1942-
• Beckwith, John

Description

xiii, 402 p. : ill., music, ports.; 24 cm +

Summary

• John Weinzweig (1913-2006) was the pie eminent Canadian composer of his generation. Influenced by European modernists such as Stravinsky. Berg, and Weber n, he was the first Canadian composer to employ serialism, thereby bringing a spirit of innovation to mid twentieth-century Canadian music. A forceful advocate for modern Canadian composition, Weinzweig won the Silver Medal at the 1948 Cultural Olympiad and played a key role in the founding of the Canadian League of Composers and the Canadian Music Centre during a buoyant period for the arts in Canada. He was an influential force as a teacher of composition, both with the Royal Conservatory of Music and with the University of Toronto's music faculty.
• This first comprehensive study of Weinzweig since his death consists of new essays by composers, theorists, and musicologists. It deals with biographical aspects (the social context of early twentieth century Toronto, his activism, his teaching, his early scores for CBC Radio dramas), analyzes his compositional processes and his output (his approach to serialism, his instrumental practice, the presence of jazz elements, the vocal works, the divertimenti), and examines various evaluations of his music (his own and those of critics and scholars, listeners and performers). The essays are framed by the co editors' portrait/assessment of Weinzweig and a brief personal memoir. Much of the content draws on new research the Weinzweig Fonds at Library and Archives Canada.
• John Beckwith's thirty-eight years with the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, included seven as its dean and five as founding director of its Institute for Canadian Music. Among his compositions are four operas and many orchestral, choral, chamber, and solo works. A frequent contributor to Canadian and foreign music journals, he is the author of Music Papers (1997) and In Search of Alberto Guerrero (WLU Press, 2006).
• Since 1972 Brian Cherney has been on the staff of the Faculty of Music (now the Schulich School of Music) at McGill University, where he teaches composition at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. His extensive compositional output includes orchestral, choral, and instrumental music. His monograph on the Canadian composer Harry Somers was published in 1975. --Book Jacket.

Uniform Title

Project Muse UPCC books

Subject

• Weinzweig, John, 1913-2006
• Weinzweig, John, 1913-
• Composers > Canada > Biography
• Compositeurs > Canada > Biographies

Genre/Form

• Biographies
• Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Note

• Also available in an electronic format.
• "Supplementing the volume is an audio CD of extracts from Weinzweig compositions, ranging from a 1937 student work to a song cycle of 1994"--Cover, p. [4].

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 389-390), discography (p. 373-388) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

A self-made composer / John Beckwith and Brian Cherney -- Toronto : the social and artistic content / Robin Elliot -- The activist / Brian Cherney -- The teacher / John Rea -- Music for radio and film / Elaine Keillor -- The first Canadian serialist / Catherine Nolan -- "Naked and unashamed": the instrumental practice / Clark Ross -- Works with texts ; Jazz swing and jazz blues / John Beckwith -- The story of my life : the divertimento series / James K. Wright -- In his own words / Alan Gillmore -- Critical and scholarly views / J. Drew Stephen -- Ear-dreaming : a study in listeners / Eleanor V. Stubley -- How to play Weinzweig / Robert Aitken -- Wienzweig as I knew him / John Beckwith.

ISBN

• 9781554582563
• 1554582563

OCLC

• 662578475
• SCSB-10364256

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library