Publications

"New Music in Canada": Book Review by John Brotman

2012, Originally published in the Literary Review of Canada (LRC).

Musician and former Ontario Arts Council director John Brotman reviews Weinzweig: Essays on His Life and Music and John Beckwith's memoir Unheard Of: Memoirs of a Canadian Composer. 

Weinzweig, often characterizing himself as a “romantic radical”, was known as an activist his entire professional life, agitating tirelessly and relentlessly on behalf of Canadian composers. John Beckwith, perhaps more quietly, has been as determined and generous a campaigner. Where did they find time to compose, contributing as much as they have as educators, promoters, policy-makers and musical ambassadors? Each of these informative books affirm that their subjects are men who transformed Canadian classical new music, and that each in his own way had a substantial impact on their own and subsequent generations of musicians and audiences.

John Weinzweig and His Music: The Radical Romantic in Canada

Edited by Elaine Keillor
1994, Scarecrow Press (Metuchen, NJ)

Sounds and Reflections

Edited by John Weinzweig
1990, Poole Hall Press (Grimsby, ON)

A collection of essays and lectures with fragments from the score of Impromptus for piano in the background.

Weinzweig: Essays on His Life and Music

Edited by John Beckwith and Brian Cherney
2011, Wilfrid Laurier University Press (Waterloo, ON)

This first comprehensive study of Weinzweig since his death consists of new essays by composers, theorists, and musicologists. It deals with biographical aspects (the social context of early-twentieth-century Toronto, his activism, his teaching, his early scores for CBC Radio dramas), analyzes his compositional processes and his output (his approach to serialism, his instrumental practice, the presence of jazz elements, the vocal works, the divertimenti), and examines various evaluations of his music (his own – in letters, interviews, talks, and writings – plus those of critics and scholars, of listeners, and of performers).