A Fiddler's Choice: Memoirs 1938 to 1980

Virginia Gillham is Associate Librarian in the Public Service Library at
the University of Guelph.

Well-known Canadian violinist Harry Adaskin is a multi-talented, broadly informed artist. His career as a musician and broadcaster, and his avocational interests in art and architecture have led him, for more than 60 years, into myriad situations involving fascinating and world-renowned people.

Adaskin has been described as having a “personal serenity,” a fact that appears to be supported by the more unorthodox aspects of his lifestyle. He has devoted much of his life to supporting and encouraging contemporary music and art, demonstrating a highly developed instinct for promising new talent. His memoirs have an enormous potential for absorbing reading.

How disappointing, therefore, to discover instead a volume weighted heavily toward negative criticism of both individuals and groups of people; in-depth descriptions of those closest to the author are virtually non-existent.

Mr. Adaskin’s wife, pianist Frances Mann, and their son Gordon, both accomplished artists in their own right, remain one-dimensional on the page. Mrs. Adaskin, in particular, is always present, not unlike her husband’s bow arm, but the author breathes no life into her character. We are treated instead to detailed analyses of the character flaws of such well-known personalities as Arthur Hartmann, Kathleen Parlow and Adolf Busch. Even Fritz Kreisler does not escape unscathed (he did not share Mr. Adaskin’s views on modern music).

Mr. Adaskin has an unsettling habit of sketching events in his life briefly, then using them as springboards for lengthy, negative philosophical discourses. Similarly, anyone venturing to buy a piece of art by an artist not to Mr. Adaskin’s liking is subject to considerable negative commentary, as are “most performers the world over (who) play only the established classics.”

Mr. Adaskin has lived a life to be admired, and there is much interesting detail in his memoirs, particularly for readers already aware of the Canadian and world music scenes. It is unfortunate that because of the prevalence of random negative criticism, to the exclusion of total character development, this work fails to be absorbing reading for the wider audience.