Abstracts
Abstract
Radio drama was a quintessential source of entertainment for Canadian audiences during the Second World War, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) used the art form to distribute propaganda and garner support for the Canadian war effort. Similarly, CBC radio drama became an essential artistic outlet for artists and composers to articulate their political beliefs to a national audience. This article frames Canadian composer John Weinzweig’s works for the CBC radio drama series New Homes for Old (1941) within the socio-political climate of the 1930s and 1940s and suggests that radio drama provided Weinzweig with a national soapbox for his radical socialist ideals during a time of political upheaval.
My research draws on archival materials from Library and Archives Canada, the CBC Music Library Archives, and Concordia’s Centre for Broadcasting and Journalism Studies to build upon the biographical work of Elaine Keillor and Brian Cherney. I establish Weinzweig’s socialist ties and argue that his political leanings prompted him to simplify his serial language in favour of a simplified modernist aesthetic, which appealed to Canada’s conservative wartime audiences. This study of Weinzweig’s radio works reveals how the composer desired to make serial compositions accessible and palatable, and shows how he incorporated vernacular idioms such as folk songs and national anthems as foils to the elitist European serial aesthetic. In doing so, I show how Weinzweig uses a powerful and pervasive medium to promote his unique compositional style and also to reflect the cultural, political, and aesthetic ideals of leftist socialism.
Résumé
Le drame radiophonique était le divertissement par excellence pour le public canadien pendant la deuxième guerre mondiale. La Société Radio-Canada (SRC) en a profité pour utiliser cette forme d’art à des fins de propagande et pour stimuler le soutien à l’effort de guerre. Semblablement, la dramaturgie radiophonique de la SRC est devenue une tribune essentielle permettant aux artistes et compositeurs d’exprimer à l’échelle nationale leurs convictions politiques. Cet article remet dans son contexte sociopolitique des années 1930 et 1940 le travail du compositeur canadien John Weinzweig pour la série dramatique de la SRC intitulée New Homes for Old (1941). On y propose que le drame radiophonique a offert à Weinzweig une tribune nationale à l’expression de ses idéaux socialistes radicaux pendant une période de bouleversement politique. Notre recherche prend le relais des travaux biographiques d’Elaine Keillor et Brian Cherney et s’appuie sur des documents d’archives de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, des Archives musicales de Radio-Canada et du Concordia Centre for Broadcasting and Journalism Studies. Nous confirmons les liens de Weinzweig avec les milieux socialistes et nous avançons que ses sympathies politiques l’ont amené à simplifier son langage en faveur d’une esthétique moderne simplifiée, plaisant davantage au public conservateur canadien de ce temps de guerre. Notre étude de l’oeuvre radiophonique de Weinzweig montre comment ce dernier a cherché à composer une série d’oeuvres faciles d’accès, et comment il a intégré dans son langage musical des éléments plus courants tirés de chansons traditionnelles et d’hymnes nationaux pour lui donner un vernis davantage en phase avec l’esthétique européenne élitiste. Nous montrons en conséquence comment Weinzweig a utilisé un média puissant et omniprésent afin de promouvoir son style musical original et de diffuser les idéaux culturels, politiques, et esthétiques de la gauche socialiste.
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Appendices
Biographical note
Carolyne Sumner is a PhD student in musicology at the University of Toronto. She completed her MA Musicology at the University of Ottawa in 2016, and obtained her BA in 2014 from the same institution. Her master’s thesis, “John Weinzweig, Leftist Politics, and Radio Drama at the CBC during the Second World War,” explores the rise of radio drama in Canada and critically examines how Weinzweig’s work for CBC radio drama became an outlet for his leftist politics. Carolyne’s current doctoral research investigates the significance of musical networks in Canada during the post-centennial period and is concerned with the role played by cultural policymakers and gatekeepers in the outcomes of these networks.
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