Volume 16 Issue 4 - December 2010

Book ShelfPAMELA MARGLESVictor Feldbrill: Canadian Conductor Extraordinaireby Walter Pitman; Dundurn Press; 432 pages, photos; $40 Canadian conductor Victor Feldbrill has leadso many premieres of Canadian compositionsand promoted so many Canadian works aroundthe world that his impact on music in Canadahas been immeasurable, as Walter Pitman showsin this thorough biography. Pitman, who haschronicled the lives of Canadian musicians,takes a close look at what motivated Feldbrill tosupport Canadian composers and performers sofor him. “His position,” writes Pitman, “was that tifthemusicitselfthe itselfhad integrity and was skilfully written, it must be played.”By all accounts, Feldbrill was an accomplished conductor in allkinds of repertoire. “Why then,” asks Pitman, “weren’t orchestrasfrom around the world clamouring for his services?” Placing valueon “competence, reliability and collegiality,” Feldbrill avoidedthe “wildly entertaining, shocking and melodramatic” styles ofconductors who stamp their personalities on their interpretations.But because he was reluctant to impose a personal vision, he didn’tgenerate the kind of charisma that makes a conductor get noticed.What’s more, Feldbrill stayed in Canada. There’s a crop ofyounger Canadian conductors today, like Yves Abel, Kwame Ryan,Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Julian Kuerti, who have achieved remarkablesuccess. But they are all pursuing their careers outside Canada.Pitman has done extensive interviews with Feldbrill, who wasborn in Toronto in 1924, as well as with musicians who worked withhim. He has also made full use of letters and archival documents.He is, however, more concerned with how Feldbrill was able toaccomplish what he did than with matters of musical interpretation.A discography and a list of his premieres would have been usefulto document the “incredible history of composition” that Feldbrill’sperformances and recordings of Canadian music represent, especiallysince many of the recordings are unavailable today. Even whatPitman calls Feldbrill’s “crowning achievement,” his recording ofHarry Somers’ seminal opera, Louis RielPitman’s engaging, detailed biography goes a long way to illuminatethe history of Canadian composition that Felbrill’s premieres andrecordings represent. And it has a particularly lovely back cover– a portrait of Feldbrill, baton in hand, painted by his grandson,Benjamin Koffman.Listen to Thisby Alex Ross; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 381 pages; $31 The Rest Is Noise, musiccritic Alex Ross took an ambitiously sweepingapproach to the whole history of 20 th centuryclassical music. His new book, Listen toThis, is just as ambitious, as the title makesclear. But this time, happy to leave loose endsand open questions, he offers a collection ofTheNew Yorker magazine. They seem to have beenchosen not because they are his best, but because setheyofferasamsamplingof the broad range of music and musicians that Ross feels passionateabout, from Brahms to Björk.Ross’s goal here is to knock down the walls separating differenttypes of music. Discussing Björk, he depicts a musical utopia where“the ideologies, teleologies, style wars, and subdivisions that havethe musicians and music that inspire him. There’s the “free-wheelingspirit” of early-music performers like Richard Egarr, and the joy thatJoin us in celebrating the publication ofWeinzweig: Essays onHis Life and MusicJohn Beckwith and Brian Cherney, editorsThursday, January 13, 201Lobby of Koerner HallRoyal Conservatory of MusicTelus Centre273 Bloor Street West(near Bloor and University)Toronto, ON Theatre Books will be selling books at the eventrsvp clare@press.wlu.caCo-sponsored by Published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press Includes audio CD ALSO OF INTERESTIn Search of Alberto GuerreroJohn Beckwith Music Traditions, Cultures, and Contexts Wilfrid Laurier University Presst oll-free 1-800-565-9523 | www.wlupress.wlu.cafacebook.com/wlupress | twitter.com/wlupressDecember 1, 2010 - February 7, 2011 thewholenote.com 65