Opus: The Making of Musical Instruments in Canada

Desmond Maley is a librarian at the J.W. Tate Library, Laurentian
University.

The search for an “authentic” sound comparable to what medieval,
Renaissance, and baroque audiences would have heard in their day has
stimulated a growing market for custom-built period musical instruments.
This exhibition catalogue from the Canadian Museum of Civilization
testifies to the extent to which Canadian instrument makers have become
internationally recognized for their excellence. Raymond Ayotte’s drum
sets are played in jazz and rock bands and symphony orchestras, while
the cymbals produced by Sabian Ltd. in Meductic, New Brunswick, are
exported worldwide.

Opus brings together illustrations of more than 100 instruments made by
some 60 Canadian artisans, including Yves Beaupré, Michael Dunn,
William Laskin, Franзois Malo, Peter Noy, Ray Nurse, and Dominik
Zuchowicz. Among the period instruments are bows, flutes, guitars,
harpsichords, lutes, oboes, recorders, trumpets, and violins. Folk and
ancient instruments such as Aeolian harp, banjo, Celtic harp, dulcimer,
ocarina, and udu are also represented.

The Canada Council has played a prominent role in providing many of
these artisans with opportunities to visit music-instrument museums in
Europe. Instrument making is not a static art, even when the artisan is
seeking to capture the sound of an earlier era. Technological innovation
continues to the present day. Thus, Jack Goosman’s flutes, with their
patented Butterfly headjoint, are played by such artists as Jeanne
Baxtresser, Robert Cram, and James Galway.

Bégin, curator of the ethnomusicology program at the Canadian Museum
of Civilization, provides succinct descriptions of the instruments as
well as biographies of the artisans. Brief introductions to the history,
aesthetics, and symbolism of instrument making are also provided. The
quality of the photographs, most of which are in black and white, is
excellent. The general and selected bibliographies of Canadian
instrument makers from 1971 to 1991 (the latter compiled by Kevin James)
complete this valuable addition to the literature on Canadian instrument
making.