Weinzweig: Essays on His Life and Music

3. The Activist

47 Chapter 3 The Activist brian cherney I’ve always been concerned with the artist’s place in society. I don’t compose for myself only, but for people, and any obstruction which frustrates this communication makes me angry. And I do get angry. Social action is the release. —“Interview! John Weinzweig,” Canadian Composer 100 (April 1975): 32 I’ve been involved in the politics of music. As I look back, I think it has to do with the fact that I don’t like to grumble if something is bothering me, I prefer to do something about it. —“John Weinzweig,” VCJ, 461 T hroughout his long creative life, John Weinzweig campaigned vigorously and relentlessly on behalf of contemporary Canadian composers and their music. He wrote letters, articles, recommendations, and briefs; lobbied organizations such as the CBC; sat on numerous committees of performance royalties societies and arts organizations; and,most importantly , was the key person in the founding of the Canadian League of Composers in 1951.As the above quotations indicate, he was well aware of his role as an activist, that is, someone who makes“use of vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change.”1 The change that Weinzweig was trying to bring about was neither political nor social in a narrow sense (although he later referred to his activism as “social action”).2 He was trying to win recognition for his generation of Canadian composers, the first to show the influences of twentieth-century modernism, arguing that their music deserved to be heard and disseminated to the public through concerts, 48 biographical themes broadcasting, and publication, convinced that these composers were trying to express something unique to their time and place and that they deserved a reasonable income from their creative work. This chapter poses the question: why did he become such an extraordinary“activist,”not only in the early years of his career but throughout his life? From the early 1940s onward, Weinzweig wrote notes in both senses of the word: the notes he wrote in his scores and the notes he wrote as thoughts about music and the situation of the composer in Canada, written out by hand or, more often, on a typewriter. Many of the latter consist of short lectures or articles for publication, but many consist of short paragraphs or even aphorisms, reminding one of how he often expressed himself in speech as well as in his music.3 Some of these occasional writings, ranging from the 1940s until the late 1990s, were still in the possession of the composer’s family after his death in 2006 and many deal with various aspects of being a composer.4 One of these documents consists of handwritten notes comprising two short lists on a small scrap of paper entitled “Political–Music Activist” and this is attached to some pages of notes about being a composer. The first list, under the subheading “statements,” includes six of his compositions which had some sort of political reference (such as the 1943 Fanfare for brass and percussion , dedicated to the “defenders of Stalingrad and Leningrad” and the 1987 choral piece Prisoner of Conscience, dedicated to Amnesty International), but this list begins with (1) “Father jailed in Poland” and (2) “Saco [sic] and Vinzetto [sic] death march age 14.”5 The second list, at the bottom of the page, is entitled“social actions”and lists five arts organizations in which Weinzweig was involved over the years, beginning with“1939 Friends of New Music”and concluding with“1959 CMC.”The fact that his father is mentioned at the top of the first list, followed by the famous Sacco-Vanzetti case is, I think, significant . It suggests that in his own role of activist he identified strongly with his father’s political activities in Poland and also regarded his family’s interest in the Sacco-Vanzetti affair as part of a continuum which led directly to his own quasi-political activities as a composer. As indicated above, several typed pages are attached to the handwritten note. The top half of the first page consists of a three-paragraph note entitled “Composer as activist.” After noting various ways in which his “youthful integrity and high ideals,” associated with his desire “to become an artist,” were challenged by the“harsh realities of the music profession,”6 he concludes that “these frustrations fed my anger and led me into concrete action to bat- [18.116.42.208] Project MUSE (2024-04-24 07...