Pentland, Barbara Lally (1912–2000)

Barbara Pentland was arguably the most rigorously modernist Canadian composer of her generation. During the late 1940s she adopted serial techniques and by the mid-1950s had forged her mature style: spare, elegantly constructed, abstract, yet with a rich timbral palette and surprising lyricism. She made adept use of new techniques throughout her career. She taught at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (1942–1949); then at the University of British Columbia (1949–1963). She received a Diplôme d’honneur from the Canadian Conference for the Arts (1977); honorary doctorates from the University of Manitoba (1976) and Simon Fraser University (1985); the Order of Canada (1989); and the Order of British Columbia (1993). Situated within the confluence of early women’s rights struggles and Canada’s search for identity at the official end of colonial rule in 1931, Pentland’s musical modernism lent authenticity and authority to her artistic voice: her music sounded neither British nor stereotypically feminine. As one reviewer observed, Pentland’s music had ‘‘that cool remoteness which conjures wide-open spaces and is probably as close to a national sound as anything Canadian composers have achieved.’’

Violet Archer, Jean Coulthard, and Barbara Pentland Remembered

In a bizarre coincidence, three important Canadian women composers from the same generation recently died within five weeks of each other: Barbara Pentland on 6 February 2000, Violet Archer on 22 February 2000, and Jean Coulthard on 9 March 2000. As a tribute to their lives and work, this colloquy gathers remembrances of them by friends and colleagues, ranging from brief anecdotes to extended memoirs. It is thus a collection of primary documents, which yield many new insights into the lives of our composers, ranging from personal habits to the way they taught composition.

Representations of Gender in Barbara Pentland's Disasters of the Sun

Barbara Pentland (1912–2000) will be remembered as a leading figure in Canadian music, but she regarded her success as hard won. She viewed her career as a struggle against sexual discrimination, and though an advocate of equal rights and social justice, Pentland nevertheless disliked discussing notions of gender and her vocation, claiming it drew attention away from her compositions: she was a composer first and a woman second. Her reticence has a single exception in her 1976 song cycle Disasters of the Sun. As her only work to explore explicitly gender relations, Disasters provides a step towards gaining greater insight into Pentland's attitudes toward gender difference and identity.

Pierre Mercure, Gilles Tremblay, et quelques autres compositeurs canadiens aux Ferienkurse à Darmstadt dans les années 1950 et 1960

Dans les années 1950 et 1960, décennies cruciales dans l’histoire de la musique contemporaine, plusieurs compositeurs canadiens ont participé aux célèbres cours d’été de musique contemporaine à Darmstadt en Allemagne (les Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik), dont Barbara Pentland, Gilles Tremblay, Norma Beecroft, Bruce Mather et Pierre Mercure. Les conférences, concerts, discussions et rencontres informelles auront un impact significatif sur leurs carrières et parcours respectifs. Le Suédois d’origine Bengt Hambraeus y assiste par exemple à la montée du sérialisme intégral et y côtoie Maderna et Nono. Pentland y découvre la musique de Webern tandis que Beecroft, Tremblay et Mather y entendent des oeuvres et conférences marquantes de Boulez et de Stockhausen. Des oeuvres de Hambraeus, Beecroft et Tremblay y sont jouées. Quant à Mercure, il assiste à Darmstadt aux cours d’analyse de Pierre Boulez, compose sa toute dernière oeuvre (basée sur l’improvisation) et prépare la création de la future Société de musique contemporaine du Québec.

Canadian Women Composers in Modernist Terrain: Violet Archer, Jean Coulthard and Barbara Pentland

The successful compositional careers of Jean Coulthard, Barbara Pentland, and Violet Archer spanned all but the first three decades of the twentieth century. Entering a compositional career at this time had many challenges: as Western Canadians, these composers had to establish their credibility with a public that could not be counted on to recognize the worth of their work due to sexist bias and a prevailing critical stance: public approval was evidence of a lack of true creativity. This was especially problematic for women, who had to keep to the center of progressive composition, away from the experimental and conservative margins, in order to gain recognition. Following World War II, the pressure of modernism increased, due at least in part to initiatives by the U. S. Government in occupied Germany, countering the stereotype of the unsophisticated American with a new narrative of American experimental tradition.