Healey Willan: Life and Music by F.R.C. Clarke (review)

HUMANITIES 511 tions are 'authenticated,' as is explained in another chapter, by being embodied in specific, actual things. Colville himself likens this process to the visual immediacy of films, in which an object can have an objective, autonomous aspect as well as being a subjective resonance of the film-maker's values. Otherchapters range from the chiefly biographical to considerations of the artist as a SOCially responsible communicator. Some of this is familiar ground, but the text is studded with smaller insights: there are notes on Colville's attitudes towards horses, aging, and the art of ancient Egypt, Georges Seurat and Henry Moore; and an interesting parallel is made between the artist's home renovations of 1949 and his decision to renovate, or to put in order, his art. His basic themes are described as relationship, communication, and the effects of separation. Most of Burnett's observations are clearly presented and quite reasonable . For example, he maintains, in contrast to Helen Dow (The Art ofAlex Colville, 1972), that an airplane in the background of Woman and Terrier is probably not a symbol of the Holy Ghost, despite the similarity of the composition to the Madonna and Child tondi of artists like Raphael. On the other hand, Burnett occasionally fails to go far enough in his direct observation of a work. For example, the discussion of Athletes draws interesting parallels between physical concentration and spiritual devotion : however, although the triptych format is acknowledged, the unifying effects of the markedly continuous horizontals and orthogonals are overlooked. Marilyn Schiff has contributed to Colville an extensive bibliography and the catalogue raisonne, so entitled somewhat inappropriately, for only 17 of the 156 entries present more than the usual purely documentary information . This is followed by biographical notes and lists of exhibitions and public collections. Of the three books reviewed here, the monograph on Colville is the most Significant contribution to serious art-historical literature in Canada. Its weaknesses are amply outweighed by its merits. (ROBERT J. BELTON) F.R.C. Clarke. Healey Willan: Life and Music University of Toronto Press. xii, 300 folioed, 108 unfolioed. $37.50 When Healey Willan died in 1968, he was certainly the most published and probably the most widely known of any serious composer in Canada, butbecause he devoted himselfmainly to organand religiOUS choral music (and he himself was a lifelong organist and chOirmaster) his fame and his works were something of an anachronism in the modern world, where instrumental music and secular, especially theatrical, vocal music predominates . To be sure, Willan wrote orchestral and chamber music, but 512 LEITERS IN CANADA 1983 his was a conservative temperament in a conservative ecclesiastical environment, and conservatismin the arts does not naturally make a lively subject for a book. Willan forged no new techniques, fought no battles for the acceptance of new ideas, added nothing to the language of contemporary music. Professor Clarke's solution to how to present his subject is simple and direct: he offers detailed but straightforward accounts first of the facts of Willan's life, and then of virtually every piece that Willan wrote. Such an approach covers the ground fully and efficiently, but it leaves little time or space to reflect on how a lifelong Englishman functioned for fifty years in Canada, or how a composer at mid-century could sustain a reputation that was based on a body of works couched in a language that did not advance beyond 1900, or why, exactly, such a composer should be important to us in Canada. There may be no easy answers to these questions, but their consideration might tell much about musical life in Canada and prOvide more insight into Willan's musical personality than mere facts can convey. AlthoughWillan'sorchestraloutputissmall, itcontains someimportant music. Orchestral technique, however, seems to have been areal problem for Willan and it is this aspect of his work that is one of the most intriguing but also most vaguely handled in this book. Early in the study (p 9) is the puzzling remark that Willan's 'first experience with orchestral music' came only in '901, when he was twenty-one and had been studying in London. Could Willan really have had so little...