Sacred Choral Music III

Desmond Maley is the music librarian at the J.W. Tate Library,
Huntington College, Laurentian University, and the editor of Newsletter
of the Canadian Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and
Documentation Centres.

The Canadian Musical Heritage Society series draws to a triumphant close
with this 25th and final volume. Editor Clifford Ford has assembled a
wealth of choral music that testifies to the importance of Canadian
religious observance in the first half of the 20th century.

The most prominent Protestant composer is Healey Willan. His artistic
maturity is amply illustrated in motets such as “Rise Up, My Love, My
Fair One” (possibly the most famous Canadian choral piece ever
written), Christmas carols, and the lengthy concert work “An
Apostrophe to the Heavenly Hosts.” Also attractive are the pieces by
W.H. Anderson, Hugh Bancroft, Alfred Whitehead, and Gena Branscombe. I
was especially taken with Branscombe’s “Thou Shalt Not be Afraid,”
a rousing and colorful setting of the 91st Psalm that was previously
unpublished.

Representing the francophone contingent, mainly in settings of the
Latin motet, are Henri Mirу, Roméo-Clément Lariviиre, and
Georges-Йmile Tanguay. Most of the pieces are of brief duration, such
as Maurice Blackburn’s elegant and limpid “Notre Pиre.” The
rising generation of young composers is also represented, including
Oskar Morawetz whose “Keep Us Free” (1942) shows the influence of
the war years.

Ford’s introduction, critical notes, and bibliography are at the
level of his three previous volumes in the series, with only a couple of
small slips in editing. The depth of the research is shown particularly
in the richly expressive music drawn from the synagogue and Ukrainian
Church traditions. Included are pieces by Olexander Koshetz, Bernard
Wladowski, Jacob Rosemarin, and Nathan Mendelson, none of whom are
listed in the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (2nd ed., 1992).

In this era of globalization and musical electicism, Canadians must
understand their past in order to better their future. The Canadian
Musical Heritage Society has made a seminal contribution to our cultural
heritage. Let us hope the Society will be successful in its current
quest to secure government funding for recordings to complement this
outstanding collection.