Mather, Bruce (1939--)

Bruce Mather is a Canadian composer. He first studied music at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (1952–57) and at the University of Toronto (1957–59), where he obtained a music degree in 1959, studying piano with Earle Moss, Alexander Uninsky, and Alberto Guerrero, and composition with Godfrey Ridout, Oskar Morawetz, and John Weinzweig. Early in his career, Mather attended the summer festival of the Aspen Music School (1957–58). The festival became the site of a significant encounter for Mather; it was at the festival that he was introduced to Darius Milhaud, whose composition class he later registered in while studying in Paris. In addition to Milhaud’s class, Mather also enrolled in Olivier Messiaen’s class on music analysis. In 1960, Mather attended the Darmstadt summer courses where he met Pierre Boulez, whose orchestra-conducting classes he attended in Bâle (Switzerland) in 1969. Mather continued to alternate his study periods between France and America, until obtaining a masters degree from Stanford, California, in 1962 and a doctorate from the University of Toronto in 1967. In 1974, the composer’s encounter with the franco-Russian composer Ivan Wyschnegradsky (1893–1979) marked a turning point in his career. A prominent pianist, Mather recorded the composer’s piano music with his wife, pianist Pierrette Lepage (b. 1939) and adopted Wyschnegradsky’s microtonal system of composition, which continues to mark his personal style.

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.’’

El sueño dorado de Isabel II: Instauración y declive del Teatro de Palacio (1849-1851)

ABSTRACTThis research focuses mainly on the study of the Palace Theatre founded by Isabella II in 1849, mostly through the analysis of several sources such as unpublished newspapers; advertisements, essays and chronicles disseminated to the general public, complemented by documentary sources from the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid as well as the General Archive of the Royal Palace, that will allow us to study the infrastructure, interpreters, and public performances of this royal "teatrino" in depth until his final closure in 1851. The remains of the institution dreamed by the queen, who wanted to live beyond her possibilities, were transferred to the educational institution founded by her mother, the Royal Conservatory of Music and Declamation María Cristina.RESUMENLa presente investigación centra su interés en el estudio del Teatro de Palacio instaurado por Isabel II en 1849, fundamentalmente a través del análisis de fuentes hemerográficas inéditas; anuncios, ensayos y crónicas difundidas al público general que, complementadas con fuentes docu-mentales tanto del Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid como del Archivo General de Palacio, nos permitirán profundizar en la infraestructura, intérpretes, representaciones y público de este "teatrino" real hasta su desaparición definitiva en 1851, en que los restos de los sueños de una reina que quiso vivir por encima de sus posibilidades serán trasladados a la institución pedagógica fundada por su madre, el Real Conservatorio de Música y Declamación María Cristina.