Encyclopedia of Music in Canada ed. by Helmut Kallmann, Gilles Potvin, Kenneth Winters (review)

HUMANITIES 501 seen in the top left-hand corner of the print, through the window, a significant tapas in the novel. In fact, the window is here a sort of mise en abyme, for two-thirds of it reflects the pallid snow that surrounds Maria, and that dominates the external scenes. 'Le Norou": perhaps the most impressive of the prints, presents the oblique, snowshoed, reddishbrown , Chagall-like figure of Fran~ois, and suggests the ferocity of the storm through the bending boughs on his left. Although this lithograph is somewhat reminiscent of Clarence Gagnon, it is less representational and more symbolic than Gagnon's depiction of Fran~ois's destruction by the elements. The final print, 'La Visite: again has the tall figure of Maria, now opening the door to welcome her 'futur: Eutrope Gagnon. Lemieux's text is full of questionable judgments on Hernon's Maria Chapdelaine (its alleged 'authenticite' and supposed 'effacement de l'auteur: for example); his endorsement of the myth surrounding the work is seen in the following statement, which underlines a perceived 'contemporaneity' in the novel: 'Pour moi Ie pays de Quebec (du moins au temps ou se situe l'histoire, et je crois qu'elle se poursuit encore) est tres sauvage' (emphasis mine). The 'Notes liminaires' byJean-Noel Tremblay, the minister of cultural affairs in the last Union nationale administration (1966-70), which follow Lemieux's text, are even more aggressively retrograde in their barely veiled attack on Nicole Deschamps and the 'amazones du feminisme exalte: who have dared to analyse the ideological dimensions of Maria Chapdelaine. In spite of the doubtful quality of the text accompanying the prints, Lemieux has added to the substantial iconography of Maria Chapdelaine. His illustrations are not always the best Lemieux, but some have considerable interest. (B.-Z. SHEK) Encyclopedia ofMusic in Canada. Edited by Helmut Kallmann, Gilles Potvin, and Kenneth Winters University of Toronto Press. xxix, 1077, illus. $75.00 Something of the importance for Canada of the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada can be understood by first considering another recently published encyclopedia, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London 1980), the most detailed and comprehensive musical reference work yet published. Its interest for us is that it contains far more entries about Canadian music and musicians than probably all other previously published foreign encyclopedias combined. Nevertheless, The New Grove entry 'Canada' still betrays a bias. It is the tendency in this Grove to give folk music about twice the space that it gives art music in the entries on non-European countries. In the case of Canada folk music wins by almost three to one, in an entry which in total is less than half as long as the entry 502 LETTERS IN CANADA 1981 on Australia. !t seems clear that, however notable may be the attention given to Canada in individual entries, as a musical collective we are seen to be of minor importance, and what interestwe offer is more ethnological than artistic. We have only ourselves to blame. There has been very little work on our musical history, and critical writing about our serious music has been erratic and without the focus of regular journal or monograph publication . It is hardly surprising that there has been no authoritative reference source giving a detailed summary of the facts of our musical life. What we have not known about ourselves we can hardly expect others to know. Now, with the Encyclopedia ofMusic in Canada, all of us suddenly and to an extent hitherto unimagined have access to Canada's musical history. The EMC is virtually beyondcriticism.Thereare errors and omissions of a minor kind, but to point them out would be mere academic nit-picking; I am unaware of any which are essential to a full understanding of the subject, or which could be seriously misleading. Subject headings are mostly straightforward, but the user sometimes needs imagination to think of looking up 'Transportation' or 'Literature in Music: or to realize that church music must be approached denominationally by way of 'Roman Catholic: 'Protestant: and 'Anglican.' These subject byways, though, only enhance the unusual pleasure the EMC has for the casual browser, who may be...