Taking a Stand: Essays in Honour of John Beckwith ed. by Timothy J. McGee (review)

HUMAN1TIES 113 must be emp1.lasized, a far from hegemonic role - in the creation and placement of a national citizenry' seems to be tmdercut by Murray's later insistence on the status and promise of English as 'education for powerthrough -symbolic-controlin our culture, and as more than a "humanizing" face for tedmological study.' Such tensions in her work deserve further _explorationby readers determined to understand the complexbut only too workable connections between education and society. In the meantime, Murray has added her own important thoughts on 'populist and progressive education' to what she calls 'an unbroken legacy of progressive voices in the Canadian university/ a legacy currently in danger of being devalued or squandered in a nwnber of jurisdictions across this country. (LEN FINDLAY) Timothy J. McGee, editor. Taking a Stand: Essays in Honour ofJohn Beckwith University of Toronto Press 1995. x, 315. $70.00 This is an impressive and felicitously assembled collection of essays which not only pays homage to the many-sided contributions ofJohn Beckwith to music in Canada and its representation abroad, but also reflects, like so many resonances, the remarkable diversity and depth of his life-work. Texts on compositions,including two of Beckwith's own, music education, comparisons between American and Canadian approaches to musicmaking , church-practices and popular genres, patronage, as well as historiography and socio-musicology, all Bec.kwithian concerns, are all represented here. Of the four essays on composition three focus on works in which references to other, older, musics, in the form of quotation, constitute an important feature. While one is reluctant to make too much of this in such a smallsample,itnevertheless invites mentioning. Alan M. Gillmor projects an insightful and broad framework for my Simulacrum. One is grateful for his references here to the novelist Theresa de Kerpely as well as for those to Lasz16 Gyopar, the composer, who lost his life in tragic circumstances in the summer of 1944, on the German/Hungarian-Russian front, at the age of twenty-six. In his discussion ofJo1m Hawkins's Remembrances, Don McLean undertakes to explore the device of quotation itself. When is it 'intuitively musical' and when'a type ofWlbidden mental intrusion, or a triggered free association'? When is it 'a homage or parody'? He refers to A. Koestler's notion of bisociation and adds: 'Every juxtaposition, after all, has the potential to be received as revelation, or as nonsense.' All this is useful to be reminded of, yet no 'theory' emerges at the end. Gail Dixon in her painstaking analysis of Beckwith's Etudes focuses primarily on pitch structure, showmg the overall harmony existingbetween 114 LETTERS IN CANADA 1996 a rigorous compositional plan and a musical 'surface' of great aesthetic appeal. In her conceptual vocabulary she follows Milton Babbitt and Allen Forte. Her Set collection clearly shows that all the eight rows are derived from an identica~ six-note aggregate which, moreover, adds up to a six-note diatonic scale containing both major and minor thirds. She is fully justified in stating at the end of her fine study that this work has a 'powerful sense of coherence' as well as complexity which 'springs' from an underlying simplicity. One shares her conclusion when she writes that this work 'is one of the twentieth-century masterpieces of the genre.' JaM Mayo continues here his thorough and patient exploration of Beckwith's musical oeuvre with a probing analysis of Keyboard Practice, one of this composer's most interesting and readily accessible'collage' pieces. For a conceptual field Mayo cites M. Beardsley, J.}. Nattiez, and L. Kramer. But his most helpful assistance comes from Beckwith himself, who, in his very characteristic matter-oE-fact way, refers to his experience as a performer on keyboard instruments and to having taught keyboard literature . Mayo shows subtleness and tact with his reference here to Beckwith's 'humour,' 'irony,' and 'game playing,' all employed in 'an attempt to have the best of two worlds,' that is to quote from works representing the nineteenth-century romantic tradition, 'but at the same time protect the fragile privacy of his expressive life.' Carl Morey's account of 'Musical Education in Nineteenth-Century Toronto' paints a colourful tableau of...