1982
1982 73 7 february 1982 Dear George, It is a day to be happy and celebrate: I got back a friend. You! Or, to put it better we proved it to each other that we have never lost our mutual friendship, which just slumbered during all these years while we went on in our separate trajectories (let’s be more modest, at least for myself, and say: paths …). It will, of course be of no surprise for me to find out that we have moved in parallel directions, at least to some extent, and during some of the time … the discovery of our respective operas might be a first instance for such “aha” experiences … I shall resist the urge to launch into a 100+ page thing describing in detail the topography of our ups and downs during the years while we did not communicate in any other way but through thoughts. A few highlights will do for the moment, awaiting the day when we’ll pull up to your driveway, ring the bell and embrace you … Then will come the cups of coffee, feet up on something and gabbing in any order we can only fancy … [ … ] I do not even know if you are up-to-date with our removal from Montreal to Kingston in 1971, chiefly on account of the political climate in Quebec, which you know well about. When the bombs started to explode and political murders committed, we started to get uneasy. For us it was more difficult to take (and was more effective as an agent of influence) that some of our French-Canadian friends found it quite in order that certain unfair practices against non-French-Canadian persons are being proposed , prepared, and put into effect. This has clinched it for us, and made| 121 the difficult decision to leave more bearable. When Queen’s U[niversity] in Kingston offered the headship of the Mus[ic] Dept. to me early in 1971, Bea was rather desperate, and when we finally got here was unhappy for at least 2 years. Only when we moved into our own home here (very nice, across the street from the R.C. Cathedral), she started to find her equilibrium again. It was much easier for me as I came into a ready-made situation with things to do and contacts waiting to play ball with. The compositional work just continued here. It does not depend on locus as far as I am concerned. Queen’s U[niversity] is a fine place to work in, a mature institution with lots of excellent minds around and a good atmosphere for human contact in a measure one wants to have. I shall tell you about the Department in April. In fact it was an ideal move (to come here) from my point of view. I found out I was able to listen better here to my inner voices, and the character of this historical city awoke in me interests that were slumbering for a while before. When we came here I was at the very early stages of working on a dramatic musical tableau, centered on the “life & times” of Marie de l’Incarnation , the French Ursuline, who was an early 17th-c[entury] Canadian pioneer. Why this theme? Why she? Well, there was a CBC commission to write a piece on the theme of “search for order and meaning in life through the focus of religion—the search for God in other words.” I just “wrapped” it around a person: she, who, as it turned out, was a very fascinating woman, living during a fascinating period. The work was premiered in 1975 and the score is about to appear as published by Berandol Ltd. I also hope I shall be able to bring a copy along for you in April next.1 Since that work (entitled La Tourangelle) I am busy with two projects: a book and another dramatic work (I am not certain that I want to call it an opera, for reasons better left to tell about for our viva voce exchanges). First about the book: it is called Alternative Voices and it is a collection of analyses & essays on contemporary “innovative” music (vocal & choral) for the voice. In it I am trying to speak substantively about the techniques that are involved, as well about the interdisciplinary relationships. I am also trying to trace the major recurring surface or “deep” themes that one can identify in this repertoire. The book, to...
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