From 1941-1946, Weinzweig composed incidental music for almost 100 CBC radio drama programs, in contrast to the usual practice of using stock recordings for the musical background. Weinzweig’s schedule was demanding: he would receive a script early in the week; by mid-week the music would be completed, and on Saturday it would be performed “live to air” by a small ensemble of players. The music Weinzweig composed for the 1945-46 CBC radio series The White Empire (a historical-documentary radio drama about the Canadian north) gained a second life as concert music in the single-movement symphonic poem The Edge of the World: Music for Radio No. 2.
Weinzweig was an early champion of the musical value and cultural importance of First Nations’ and Inuit peoples’ musics, and he frequently incorporated specific songs or styles, such as in The Red Ear of Corn, To the Lands Over Yonder, and The Edge of the World. In The Edge of the World, Weinzweig combines a fairly dissonant musical language with the rhythmic and melodic features of Inuit songs and dances. Following a dramatic tutti opening chord, a transparent musical texture emerges, which focuses on short solos, unison and octave doublings, and small instrument groupings. By contrast to the striking opening, The Edge of the World fades away softly over four repetitions of a two-note string motive.
Written by Alexa Woloshyn