Volume 28 Issue 4 | February - March 2023

DISCOVERIES | RECORDINGS REVIEWED
DAVID OLDS
I
received the sad news shortly before Christmas that my friend,
iconic Canadian composer John Beckwith, had died at the age of 95
from complications of a fall. I had seen him some ten days earlier
when I dropped by to have him autograph my copy of his latest book
– his 17th! – MUSIC ANNALS: Research and Critical Writings by a
Canadian Composer 1974-2014 (Institute for Music in Canada 2022)
which you likely read about in last September’s issue of The
WholeNote. You may also have read the many insightful CD reviews
John contributed to this magazine between 2001 and 2016, running
the gamut from early Canadiana (1753 – Livre de Montreal) and
period performance practices (Haydn – Five Sonatas on Fortepiano
performed by Malcolm Bilson), through Beethoven Late String
Quartets (Takács Quartet), Schubert’s Winterreise (Russell Braun) and
Chopin Nocturnes and Impromptus (Angela Hewitt) to 20th-century
American composers (Toch, Persichetti, Bolcom) and his Canadian
contemporaries Harry Somers, Henry Brant and Eldon Rathburn to
name but a few. These can all be found on thewholenote.com website.
Of course, numerous recordings of his own music were also reviewed
in these pages.
John’s career was many faceted, encompassing a range of fields
from music critic, composer, teacher, writer, historian, administrator
– he served as Dean of the Faculty of Music at U of T and Director of
the Institute for Music in Canada – and performer, but he preferred to
refer to himself simply as a musician. His knowledge and breadth of
interest was vast, and his own compositions tended to incorporate and
synthesize several of these at a time. John’s oeuvre spanned virtually
all genres of art music from folk-song arrangements to art songs,
choral works and operas, symphonic works, chamber music, duets
and solo pieces. Although his stage works are strikingly underrepresented,
recordings of a good cross section of his other works can be
found at the Canadian Music Centre (cmccanada.org). Also available
from the CMC is his moving personal autobiography, Unheard Of:
Memoirs of a Canadian Composer, which I highly recommend.
One work that I have particularly enjoyed
revisiting in recent days is Quartet as
recorded by the Orford String Quartet (John
Beckwith Centrediscs CMC-CD 5897). Back
in 1986 I had the pleasure of interviewing
John on my radio program, Transfigured
Night at CKLN-FM. When speaking about
Quartet John mentioned that, like Bartók,
who had drawn on his Hungarian heritage
and had the string instruments mimic the sounds of cimbaloms and
hurdy-gurdies, he wanted to reflect the traditional music of Canada in
his string quartet. Although John was not particularly well versed in
popular music, his father had played the mandolin and his oldest son
played guitar, so he had a bit of a head start and as usual was willing to
do some homework. He began researching fiddling styles and attended
the finals of the Canadian Open Fiddle Championship in Shelburne,
Ontario. The resulting work, while not sounding like fiddle music
per se, draws on gestures and nuances of fiddle technique and adds a
surprising innovation. The two violinists share a third instrument in an
alternate tuning enabling different open string chords and unexpected
harmonics and producing a “distorted fiddle tune at the same time as
the real one” towards the end of the piece. It’s quite a stunning effect.
Hear! Hear! Remembering John Beckwith takes place at 7:30 on
February 28 at Walter Hall, U of T. Performers include Choir 21,
Monica Whicher, New Music Concerts Ensemble, Opus 8, Robert
Aitken, Peter Stoll and others.
As mentioned, Beckwith’s Quartet doesn’t
sound like traditional fiddle music, but I
had no shortage of the “real” (or should that
be “reel”) thing over the past month or so.
I was inundated with folk recordings by
local artists in a variety of styles and from a
variety of traditions. First up, a disc simply
called Fiddle Music by Elise Boeur and
Adam Iredale-Gray (Fiddlehead Recordings
FHR013 eliseandadam.ca). Boeur plays both fiddle and hardingfele
(Norwegian hardanger fiddle) while Iredale-Gray alternates on
fiddle and guitar. They are accompanied by upright bassist Robert
Alan Mackie, who also provides lyrical solos on some of the numbers.
The personal liner notes give the authors and origins of each of the
tunes and how they came to be in the group’s repertoire. The disc
begins with a medley of lively traditional Irish tunes featuring fiddle
and guitar. This is followed by La Coccinelle (ladybug), a bourrée by
French fiddler Jean Blanchard combined with a tune by Norwegian
accordionist Kristoffer Kleiveland, performed on two fiddles with
added bass. The lyrical valse à cinq Evening Glory, penned by
Belgian Toon Van Mierlo, is arranged here for fiddle, guitar and bass.
Other eclectic offerings include more traditional Irish, American
and Swedish tunes and several for hardingfele – a rull and a Setesdal
Gangar – that Boeur learned while studying folk music in Norway.
The disc concludes with a stark tune by the Icelandic jazz band ADHD,
followed by another medley that starts slowly with the melancholic
Frank Thornton, gets moving with Cock and the Hen and finishes
with a rousing rendition of Cottage in the Grove. All in all, a feast for
the ears, with fine playing from all concerned.
46 | February & March, 2023 thewholenote.com