Weinzweig: Essays on His Life and Music

First comprehensive study of John Weinzweig (1913–2006), the pre-eminent Canadian composer of his generation, with essays by composers, theorists, and musicologists. Includes a CD of extracts.

Influenced by European modernists such as Stravinsky, Berg, and Webern, Weinzweig 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 played a key role in the founding of the Canadian League of Composers and the Canadian Music Centre during a buoyant and expansive period for the arts in Canada. He was an influential force as a teacher of composition, first with the Royal Conservatory of Music and later 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 – in letters, interviews, talks, and writings – plus those of critics and scholars, of listeners, and of 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 in the extensive Weinzweig Fonds at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa.

Included at the end of the book are a List of Works by John Weinzweig by Kathleen McMorrow and a Discography by David Olds. Supplementing the volume is an audio CD of extracts (some in their first public release), ranging from a 1937 student work to a song cycle of 1994. 1

A Self-Made Composer      

John Beckwith and Brian Cherney   

An outline of his life story is followed by an assessment of his achievement and a brief personality sketch.  Original research, some of it based on the extensive collection of Weinzweig’s papers in Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, provides a rounded portrait of the composer.

2

Toronto: The Social and Artistic Context          

Robin Elliott, University of Toronto

Weinzweig grew up in the Jewish immigrant quarter of Toronto in the early decades of the twentieth century.  It was a milieu and a period that saw the expanding city shake off its Victorian veneer, and Weinzweig’s bold early music reflects this context.

3

The Activist

Brian Cherney, McGill University

Over the course of his long career, Weinzweig played a key role in creating a climate in which contemporary Canadian music could flourish, through such organizations as the Canadian League of Composers and the CBC. His activism is traced back to his family background and the conditions he faced as a young 1940s composer.

4

The Teacher

John Rea, McGill University

Weinzweig began teaching theory, orchestration, and composition at the Toronto Conservatory of Music in 1939 and subsequently taught these subjects at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, from 1952 until 1978, becoming the major teacher of composition in the country.  The chapter includes comments on his teaching approach by a number of former students.

5

Music for Radio and Film       

Elaine Keillor, Carleton University

In the early years of World War II, Weinzweig achieved prominence as a composer for CBC Radio dramas and documentaries.  Working rapidly and with a distinctive stylistic touch, he produced a hundred scores, including also assignments for the National Film Board.  Evidence suggests that this experience influenced his later compositional methods. 

6

The First Canadian Serialist

Catherine Nolan, University of Western Ontario

Weinzweig’s use of serialism began with his discovery of Berg and Schoenberg in the late 1930s. His idiosyncratic application of the technique is traced from the early 1940s to major works of the 1960s, such as the concertos for piano and harp. His undogmatic approach aimed to provide coherence and comprehensibility.

7

“Naked and Unashamed”: The Instrumental Practice

Clark Ross, Memorial University of Newfoundland     

Weinzweig’s orchestral preference was for lean, spare textures, with rare but telling use of the full ensemble.  A performer in his youth on piano, mandolin, saxophone, sousaphone (a kind of tuba), and double bass, Weinzweig became noted for an analytical approach to instrumental capacities, as shown in his solo works – especially those for harp and guitar.

8

Works with Texts  
 
John Beckwith, University of Toronto

The powerful Wine of Peace for soprano and orchestra (1957) is based on literary texts, but early and late song-cycles illustrate Weinzweig’s impatience with given lyrics: Of Time and the World (1947) derives an evocative libretto from Roget’s Thesaurus, while Journey Out of Night (1994) is set to the composer’s own words, as were most of his mature vocal works.9

“Jazz Swing” and “Jazz Blues”   

John Beckwith, University of Toronto          

The young Weinzweig was an avid radio listener and played in dance bands.  He retained a strong feeling for the jazz forms of the 1930s.  This strain emerges as an idiosyncratic rhythmic habit in many of his scores, most overtly starting in 1960 with the Divertimento No.3, in which the solo bassoon masquerades as a saxophone.

10

The Story of My Life: The Divertimento Series

Kames K. Wright, Carleton University

Over a span of some fifty years, Weinzweig wrote a series of twelve divertimenti, mostly featuring solo instruments with various types of ensemble, a series which he regarded as central to his output.  A detailed outline of each divertimento is provided, along with its provenance and performance history. Several of the divertimenti remain his most frequently performed works.

11

In His Own Words

Alan Gillmor, Carleton University

Weinzweig’s published and unpublished writings consist of letters, articles, interviews, and addresses to arts organizations, undertaken in his various roles as an advocate for Canadian composers and their music. They reveal a man with a sharp sense of humour and an uncommon ability to focus clearly and  concisely on the matter at hand. Many of the items cited are drawn from newly-researched material at Library and Archives Canada.

12

Critical and Scholarly Views     

J. Drew Stephen, University of Texas at San Antonio

Weinzweig’s music attracted critics and musical analysts starting already in his late twenties. The store of local, national, and international commentary now includes articles, dissertations, a major monograph, mentions in standard references, and blogs. 

13

Ear Dreaming: A Study in Listeners

Eleanor V. Stubley, McGill University

A study of the reception of Weinzweig’s music over a period of some sixty years, examining how various persons heard his music—as a Canadian composer, as a Jewish-Canadian composer, or as a new-music proponent. Particular works serve as focal points for discussion.

14

How to Play Weinzweig     

Robert Aitken, New Music Concerts     

For the performer, Weinzweig’s style presents several challenges: meticulously edited notations, extended idiomatic usages, and recurrent quirky quasi-jazz rhythms.  A proponent and frequent collaborator recommends a classical approach.  

15

Weinzweig as I Knew Him     

John Beckwith

A student, colleague, and longtime friend of the composer recalls favorite comments and shared experiences, illustrating his humour, his at-times volatile temperament, and his deep sense of loyalty and integrity.