Abstracts
Abstract
The successful compositional careers of Jean Coulthard, Barbara Pentland, and Violet Archer spanned all but the first three decades of the twentieth century. Entering a compositional career at this time had many challenges: as Western Canadians, these composers had to establish their credibility with a public that could not be counted on to recognize the worth of their work due to sexist bias and a prevailing critical stance: public approval was evidence of a lack of true creativity. This was especially problematic for women, who had to keep to the center of progressive composition, away from the experimental and conservative margins, in order to gain recognition. Following World War II, the pressure of modernism increased, due at least in part to initiatives by the U. S. Government in occupied Germany, countering the stereotype of the unsophisticated American with a new narrative of American experimental tradition.
Résumé
Les carrières couronnées de succès des compositrices Jean Coulthard, Barbara Pentland et Violet Archer couvrent une grande partie du xxe siècle, à partir des années 1930. Embrasser une carrière en composition à cette époque-là comportait de nombreux défis : en tant que Canadiennes de l’Ouest, ces compositrices ont dû établir leur crédibilité with a public who could not be counted upon to recognize the worth of their work due to sexist bias tout en combattant le préjugé selon lequel être compris d’un vaste public démontre automatiquement un déficit de créativité. C’était particulièrement problématique pour des femmes, car elles devaient se maintenir au centre de l’avant-garde, plutôt que dans les franges expérimentales ou conservatrices, afin d’obtenir une certaine reconnaissance. À la suite de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, la pression du modernisme s’est accrue, en partie à cause de l’élaboration, par le gouvernement américain occupant l’Allemagne, d’un nouveau scénario visant à établir une tradition expérimentale américaine afin de contrer le stéréotype de l’Américain mal dégrossi.
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Appendices
Note biographique
Janet Henshaw Danielson
Les oeuvres de Janet Danielson ont été interprétées par l’Orchestre symphonique de Vancouver et le CBC Radio Orchestra. Elle a reçu de nombreuses commandes, dont une de la série Music in the Morning pour son opéra The Marvelous History of Mariken of Nimmigen. Parmi ses projets récents, on compte The Occupation, en collaboration avec le poète Robert Bringhurst, et In the Very Highest Place pour l’Orchid Ensemble, choeur, erhu, zheng et marimba. Ses arrrangements de chants de Noël du xviie siècle des Ursulines canadiennes ont été interprétés à Rome en 2007 et son quatuor à cordes Let Us Wake From This Dream a été créé au colloque de la Société royale du Canada à Ottawa en 2008.
Elle enseigne l’analyse musicale à l’Université Simon Fraser. Ses publications consacrées à la musique expérimentale et à la musique des femmes comptent « The Search for Control : An Interview with Karlheinz Stockhausen » (Synapse Magazine, 1978), et « Five-Sixths of Women Will Stop in the Doll Stage : The Twentieth-Century View » (Musicworks 81, automne 2001).
Notes
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[1]
J. J. Gibson has developed the idea of “affordances” in his studies of animal behavior. Affordances are the characteristics of an environment that make possible the performance of actions or behaviours.
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[2]
A state of affairs discussed, with respect to French-language CBC, in Jean Boivin, “Les musiques classique, moderne et contemporaine larguées par la radio publique. Le cas d’Espace musique”, Circuit, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 95-105; <http://www.revuecircuit.ca/articles/16_3/10-les-musiques-classique-moderne-et/>
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[3]
“The higher education of women may connote a general intellectual progress for the community, or, on the other hand, a physical degradation of the race, owing to prolonged study having ill effects on woman’s child-bearing efficiency […] those who are the most earnest supporters of woman’s independence ought to be the first to recognise that her duty to society is paramount.” (Pearson, 1901, p. 355.)
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[4]
Comments like this must have sustained her through the onslaught of derision that she faced for much of her career. Donald Mitchell’s review of her 1955 concert in London is a choice example of damning by faint praise : “If she could match her welcome crispness of utterance to compelling musical ideas we might find in Miss Pentland a miniaturist of quality.” (Mitchell, 1955, p. 485.)
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