Volume 24 Issue 7 - April 2019

PERRY WALKER
Jamie Day Fleck with Marjan Mozetich
“He had a lot of courage to
do that,” accordianist Joseph
Petric remarks in the film,
“because it wasn’t a very popular
style. And yet he’s become, in
time, the most performed
composer in the country.”
contemporary composers, and a professor of composition at the
Schulich School of Music at McGill University, listened and was
impressed. Harman remembered the program: “The first sounds I
heard consisted of abrasive scratch tones played by a string quintet;
these eventually gave way to vigorously bowed passages outlining
clustered pitch collections, in turn leading to a plaintive modal
chant and finally, an austere dissonant chorale. When finished, the
work was identified as Serenata del nostro tempo (1973) by Marjan
Mozetich. There followed an interview in which Marjan explained
how he had eschewed such sensibilities to embrace a lighter and
more whimsical style in works such as Fantasia...sul un linguaggio
perduto (1981). I was absolutely intrigued. How does one reinvent
one’s self in such a manner? Is one such ‘self’ more authentic than
another ‘self?’”
In the course of producing that concert recording and broadcast,
I had mentioned to Mozetich that his quartet, Fantasia...sul
un linguaggio perduto (...on a lost language), might work well in
an adaptation for string orchestra. He subsequently did just that,
and his string orchestra adaptation has become one of his most
performed works. Not too many years later, in 1989, CBC Records
accepted my proposal to make a CD of Mozetich’s music on their
Musica Viva sub-label. The CD, titled Procession, included the
Amadeus Ensemble, a string ensemble led by Moshe Hammer,
joined by guest soloists Joseph Petric, accordion, and harpist Erica
Goodman. The recording included several important pieces in
Mozetich’s developing style, such as Dance of the Blind, the string
orchestra version of Fantasia... sul un linguaggio perduto, and his
1981 work for harp and strings, El Dorado.
It was this latter work which revealed the special feeling that
Mozetich had for the harp. As Mozetich told me: “It all started with
El Dorado and my friendship with harpist Erica Goodman. It was
with this work that it all gelled with me and the harp. Over the years
Erica commissioned three other works with harp which have all been
recorded. I think it is the unique resonance and visual allure of the
harp that attracted me to it. Subsequently I wrote four quintessential
harp pieces, Songs of Nymphs, that are performed by numerous
harpists around the world. To date I’ve written seven works with
significant harp parts.” One of those harp pieces, The Passion of
Angels, actually includes two harps: Mozetich wrote the work in
1995 on a commission from CBC Radio Music, for the Edmonton
Symphony Orchestra and harp soloists Nora Bumanis and Julia Shaw.
Mozetich moved to the Kingston, Ontario area in 1990, initially to
find the solitude he needed to compose. The move was just what he
needed, and many of his most successful scores come from the post-
1990 period. In 1992, he wrote the imposed Canadian work for the
Banff International String Quartet Composition, supported again by
a commission from CBC Radio Music. The quartet, Lament in the
Trampled Garden helped the St. Lawrence String Quartet win not
only the Banff competition overall, but also the award for the best
performance of the imposed work that year. In Fleck’s film, Barry
Shiffman, one of the founding members of the St. Lawrence says:
“After winning the competition we went on to share that piece that
he wrote in concerts all over the world.”
All the repertoire on the CD, Affairs of the Heart, was composed
during this period. Besides the violin concerto that gives the CD its
title, there is the double harp concerto, The Passion of Angels, and
a set of short pieces for string orchestra, Postcards from the Sky,
composed in 1996. Vancouver producer Karen Wilson, who was
managing the CBC Radio Orchestra at the time, had met Mozetich
while serving on an arts council jury. They hit it off, became friends,
and when that fateful broadcast of Affairs of the Heart created
scores of “driveway experiences” and CBC switchboards lit up all
over the country, she knew she would have to quickly get a proposal
together for the CBC Records selection committee. The recording
with the radio orchestra under Mario Bernardi, and soloists Juliette
Kang, Nora Burmanis and Julia Shaw, went flawlessly, and by the
summer of 2000, the CDs were being scooped up by the truckload
by thousands of consumers who couldn’t get enough Mozetich
into their listening lives. Randy Barnard, who was the managing
director of CBC Records at the time, said: “A Canadian composition
outpacing core repertoire was a rarity, never mind becoming a
bestseller in the catalogue.” The original CBC Records CD has been
out of stock for years, but it’s now available as Centrediscs catalogue
number CD-CMCCD 21815. For ordering information, see:
cmccanada.org/shop/CD-CMCCD-21815.
Mozetich has made an impact in the Kingston community
since settling there almost 20 years ago. In the film, Glen Fast, the
conductor emeritus of the Kingston Symphony notes: “I think
Kingston knows they’re lucky to have him here, in this position as a
composer, as a real music maker, as a substantial composer with his
own voice.” Mozetich also taught as an adjunct professor of composition
at Queens University most of those years. He retired from
that position last June. John Burge, who, along with his teaching
at Queens, is also in charge of the Queens Faculty Artists Series,
commented in the film: “I know that if I can find a way to integrate
Mozetich’s music into the concerts that we put on in Kingston
it’ll make everyone happy. And I can tell you, that if we present a
concert that has Marjan’s music programmed, there will be people
that will come because they just want to hear Marjan’s music. They
just want to see him walk up onstage and talk about his music.”
As for hearing live performances of Mozetich’s music this month,
the Niagara Symphony Orchestra and music director Bradley
Thachuck will perform his Postcards from the Sky on Saturday,
April 27 at 7:30pm and Sunday, April 28 at 2:30pm in the recital hall
in the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines.
David Jaeger is a composer, producer and broadcaster
based in Toronto.
14 | April 2019 thewholenote.com