scholarly journals Writing for CBC Wartime Radio Drama: John Weinzweig, Socialism, and the Twelve-Tone Dilemma

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyne Sumner
Keyword(s):  
Compositional Style ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Radio Drama ◽  
Twelve Tone ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Library And Archives Canada

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.

‘The future welfare of the Empire will depend more largely on our women and girls’: Southern Loyalist Women and the British War Effort in Ireland, 1914–1922

2020 ◽  
pp. 137-154
Author(s):  
Fionnuala Walsh
Keyword(s):  
War Of Independence ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
The First World War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Post War ◽  
War Experience ◽  
The Great War ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
First World

This chapter examines the participation of Irish women in the war effort during the First World War, exploring the role of war service as an outlet and focus for southern loyalist identity. It analyses the motivations behind women’s war service and the relationship between religion and loyalism, examining for instance the wartime actions of Anglican organisations such as the Mothers’ Union and Girls Friendly Society, together with the partitionist arrangement of war work. The chapter subsequently discusses the post-war experience of southern loyalist women during the War of Independence and Civil War. Drawing upon applications to the Irish Grants Committee, it explores women’s everyday experiences of trauma during the political upheaval and the links between service in the Great War and isolation and intimidation in the war’s aftermath.

Lulu

Berg ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 317-366
Author(s):  
Simms Bryan
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Twelve Tone ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
The Subject ◽  
A Performance ◽  
Musical Forms

Berg had several early ideas for a text for his second opera, and his choice finally fell on Frank Wedekind’s plays Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. Berg adapted the plays into a single three-act structure and made other changes in the names of characters and their attributes, and he titled his opera Lulu, after the central figure. The subject matter of the opera was highly controversial, with a perverse eroticism and sordid violence. Given the political climate of the early 1930s, prospects for a performance of the work were dim. The chronology by which Berg created the libretto for Lulu and its music reveals many delays that suggest a struggle on the composer’s part in grappling with the subject and with his relatively new twelve-tone method of composing. Berg completed the basic compositional work for the opera in spring 1934, and he then created a concert suite from the work, much as he had done with Wozzeck, which he titled Symphonic Pieces from the Opera “Lulu.” The necessary revisions to the opera that Berg foresaw and most of the orchestration of Act 3 remained incomplete at the time of his death in December 1935, and the opera was performed in its entirety only in 1979. In Lulu Berg fully developed his own distinctive twelve-tone method of composing but continued to invoke traditional musical forms.

scholarly journals Lucas Galon’s Concerto for Violin, Percussion and Strings (2018)

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Alex Palmezano
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Compositional Style ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Specific Method ◽  
Twelve Tone ◽  
Violin Concerto ◽  
Second Viennese School ◽  
Other Hand

In this paper, I investigate how the composer searches for his own voice in his violin concerto while using a blend of influences such as Bartok, twelve-tone and Brazilian popular music. Galon argues that composers such as Bartok, Stravinsky and Villa-Lobos followed an independent, more varied compositional style without subscribing to any specific method.[1]On the other hand, the self-proclaimed mainstream of the Second Viennese School established a very structured, particular way of writing music. The composer seems to put into question the mechanization of composition of the dodecaphonic method, but validates its use as a way of refraining his creative impulse.[2]While Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2provides a framework for his piece; the tools he uses to manipulate the musical material are drawn from a free use of serialism and Brazilian contemporary music philosophy and aesthetic.    

Making Radio Drama

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shawn VanCour
Keyword(s):  
Radio Drama ◽  
Sound Effects ◽  
Art Form

This chapter analyzes methods of sonic storytelling and radio acting used in early broadcast drama. While accounting for a small percentage of period programming, dramatic productions formed a rich site for vernacular theorization of radio’s purportedly medium-specific properties and aesthetic possibilities. Dismissed by stage competitors as a hindrance to effective storytelling, radio’s aurality was embraced by proponents as the basis for a new dramatic art form that would be governed by five core principles: (1) emphasis on “natural” acting styles, (2) dialogue reduction through use of music and sound effects, (4) thinning the mix to ensure narrative clarity, and (5) privileging intelligibility of dialogue over alternative forms of aural realism. Echoing strategies from an earlier generation of descriptive discs and presaging those for sound cinema, methods for rendering radio’s invisible fictions worked to demonstrate the medium’s own aesthetic potential while also contributing to larger developments in techniques of sonic storytelling.

scholarly journals Sustaining Mak Yong – Main Puteri in Raman: A Discussion of its Existence in Cultural Evolutionary Thread

Jurai Sembah ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Syafiq Faliq Alfan
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
The Past ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Southern Thailand ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Islamic Values

Mak Yong, a traditional Malay dance-theatre recognised by UNESCO as one of the intangible cultural heritage of Malaysia has indeed seen its progress since its revival in the 1970s by some of its prominent artists such as Khatijah Awang of the Sri Temenggung troupe fame. Sadly, although Mak Yong belongs to the region of Kelantan-Pattani of the Malay Peninsula, the art form has seen its greater decline in its southern Thailand counterpart. This could be as a result of the political climate aside from the inclination of the local towards Sunni Islamic values that forbid some of its ritualistic elements. This is apparent especially in the neighbouring state of Kelantan where Mak Yong has already been banned to be performed in public since the early 1990s unless it adheres to the Syariah law. However, in the context of the forms' existence in Pattani, despite its resilience towards the test of time, it has not gained as much attention compared to the Kelantan counterpart. Most extensive case studies in the past were based on the Kelantanese group (Sheppard, 1974; Yousof, 1976 & 1992; Nasuruddin, 1995). To extend our understanding of the study of Mak Yong of the Malay world, this paper aims to discuss the forms existence in Southern Thailand, particularly in the district of Raman, Yala Province. Special focus on its discussion will centre around the question of sustaining the tradition in the region through the relationship with Main Puteri, another ritualistic dance-theatre closely related to Mak Yong. Through the epistemological approach of Cultural Evolution, this paper intends to preliminarily explore the importance of this relationship in the bigger picture of Mak Yong as part of the cultural evolution in the Malay world. By identifying its natural phenomena, it is hoped that more exploration can be done in the future on the realm of Southeast Asian traditional performing arts.

scholarly journals MALĒCIYA TAMIḺ EḺUTTĀḶARKAḶ MATTIYIL, MIṈṈAL PAṆPALAI VĀṈOLI ILAKKIYA NĀṬAKAṄKAḶ EḺUTUVATIL TŌYVU: ŌR ĀYVU [A LACK OF TAMIL LITERARY DRAMA ON RADIO MINNALFM AMONG MALAYSIAN TAMIL WRITERS: A STUDY]

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-46
Author(s):  
RAVINDARAN MARAYA ◽  
KAVITHA KANEAPA
Keyword(s):  
Radio Drama ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
Question Mark ◽  
Tamil Literature ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Art Works ◽  
Ancient Literature ◽  
To Come ◽  
Stage Play ◽  
Data Analytic

The Tamil language is primarily comprised of three elements, namely poetry, music and drama. Dubbed the mother of art, the drama element has been through so much of developments over the years. Initially, it was in a street theatre form, which then found its way to stage play and eventually becoming an integral part in the Tamil literature, widely knows as drama in literature. Drama in literature is said to be very significant as it bears the identity of the Tamil community. However, the fate and future of radio drama (or also known as audio theatre) seem to be a question mark. Apparently, there seems to be only a handful who could pen scripts for this art form. Having that said, most writers these days choose only to write about the society, mainly focusing on love, friendship and domestic life. 85% of today’s works are based on social dramas and unfortunately, only 15% consists of radio drama. The lack of knowledge and understanding in epics or ancient literature amongst young writers as well as the scarcity ot such art works are being said to be the two main reasons for this upsetting scenario. In addition, audio theatre requires a special diction which sadly not known to many and as a matter or fact, there aren’t enough writers who could provide guidance on writing this genre. These are findings from a data analytic, which also concluded that Malaysian Tamil writers, not only lack interest and guidance, but also hesitate to come up with such scripts as they feel that it is outdated.

Lyric Cousins

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Sampson
Keyword(s):  
Art Music ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Early History ◽  
Sight Reading ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
Art Form ◽  
The Way

Today, poetry and art music occupy similar cultural positions: each has a tendency to be regarded as problematic, ‘difficult’, and therefore ‘elitist’. Despite this, the audiences and numbers of participants for each are substantial: yet they tend not to overlap. This is odd, because the forms share early history in song and saga, and have some striking similarities, often summed up in the word ‘lyric’? These similarities include much that is most significant to the experience of each, and so of most interest to practitioners and audiences. They encompass, at the very least: the way each art-form is aural, and takes place in time; a shared reliance on temporal, rather than spatial, forms; an engagement with sensory experience and pleasure; availability for both shared public performance and private reading, sight-reading, and hearing in memory; and scope for non-denotative meaning. In other words, looking at these elements in music is a way to look at them in poetry, and vice versa. This is a study of these two formal craft traditions that is concerned with the similarities in their roles, structures, projects, and capacities.

Beckett's Watt and Monastic Tradition

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-109
Author(s):  
Kristen Marangoni
Keyword(s):  
Boarding School ◽  
Illuminated Manuscripts ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Geometric Shapes ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Book Of Kells ◽  
The Face ◽  
Choral Arrangements ◽  
Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts

The enigmatic setting of Beckett's novel Watt has been compared to places as diverse as an insane asylum, a boarding school, a womb, and a concentration camp. Watt's experience at Knott's house does seem suggestive of all of these, and yet it may more readily conform to the setting of a monastery. The novel is filled with chants, meditations, choral arrangements, hierarchical classifications, and even silence, all highly evocative of a monastic lifestyle. Some of Watt's dialogue (such as his requests for forgiveness or reflections on the nature of mankind) further echoes various Catholic liturgies. Watt finds little solace in these activities, however. He feels that they are largely rote and purposeless as they are focused on Knott, a figure who in many ways defies linguistic description and physical know-ability. Watt's meditations and rituals become, then, empty catechisms without answers, something that is reflected in the extreme difficulty that Watt has communicating. In the face of linguistic and liturgical instability, the Watt notebooks present a counter reading that can be found in the thousand plus doodles that line its pages. The drawings reinforce as well as subvert their textual counterpart, and they function in many ways as the images in medieval illuminated manuscripts. The doodles in Watt often take the form of decorative letters, elaborate marginal drawings, and depictions of a variety of people and animals, and many of its doodles offer uncanny resemblances in form or theme to those in illuminated manuscripts like The Book of Kells. Doodles of saints, monks, crosses, and scribes even give an occasional pictorial nod to the monastic setting in which illuminated manuscripts were usually produced (and remind us of the monastic conditions in which Beckett found himself writing much of Watt). Beckett's doodles not only channel this medium of illuminated manuscripts, they also modernize its application. Instead of neat geometric shapes extending down the page, his geometric doodle sequences are often abstracted, fragmented, and nonlinear. Beckett also occasionally modernized the content of illuminated manuscripts: instead of the traditional sacramental communion table filled with candles, bread and wine, Beckett doodles a science lab table where Bunsen burners replaces candles and wine glasses function as beakers. It is through these modernized images that Watt attempts to draw contemporary relevance from a classic art form and to restore (at least partial) meaning to rote traditions.

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