Newfoundland Rhapsody: Frederick R. Emerson and the Musical Culture of the Island 9780773589377

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N e w f o u n d l a nd Rhapsody

Newfoundland Rhapsody Frederick R. Emerson and the Musical Culture of the Island

G L E N N D A V ID C OLTON

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2014 ISBN 978-0-7735-4251-8 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-7735-8937-7 (ePDF) ISBN 978-0-7735-8938-4 (ePUB) Legal deposit first quarter 2014 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities. This book has been published with the help of grants from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic) at Lakehead University, as well as from the Stewart McKelvey law firm.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Colton, Glenn David, 1968–, author   Newfoundland rhapsody : Frederick R. Emerson and the musical culture of the Island / Glenn David Colton. Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-0-7735-4251-8 (bound). – ISBN 978-0-7735-8937-7 (ePDF). – ISBN 978-0-7735-8938-4 (ePUB)   1. Emerson, Frederick Rennie, 1895–1972. 2. Musicians – Newfoundland and Labrador – Biography. 3. Lawyers – Newfoundland and Labrador – Biography. 4. Newfoundland and Labrador – Biography. I. Title. ML429.E535C72 2014   780.92

C2013-908240-9 C2013-908241-7

Typeset by Jay Tee Graphics Ltd. in 10.5/13 Sabon

To Carla Emerson Furlong

In loving memory of my father, C. David Colton

Contents

Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xiii Prelude: Toward a “Newfoundland Renaissance”: Frederick Emerson and the Mediation of Culture  3 1 The Early Years: Family Life, Bishop Feild College, and the “Ode to Newfoundland” 23 2 Across the Pond and Back Again: Framlingham College, Early Musical Works, the Practice of Law, and Marriage to Isabel Jameson  55 3 At Home in “Quinnipiac”: Family Life, Foreign Guests, and Newfoundland’s “Cultural Ambassador”  74 4 Cultural Awakenings and Kindred Spirits: Queen’s College, the “Voice of Newfoundland,” and Eleanor Mews Jerrett  92 5 “She’s Like the Swallow”: Maud Karpeles, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Emerson, and the Preservation of Newfoundland Folksongs 110 6 Of Folk Schools and Folk Theatre: The Markland Settlement and Proud Kate Sullivan 139 7 For the Love of Music: Memorial University College and the Newfoundland Folk Music Lectures  167 8 “I just arrived in Canada”: Emerson, the Canada Council, and the Canadian Folk Music Society  190

viii Contents

9 Final Opus  218 appendices 1 Selected Works of Frederick R. Emerson  239 2 Frederick R. Emerson, “Newfoundland Folk Music”  243 3 Selected Lectures of Frederick R. Emerson  247 4 Selected Correspondence (1934-1970)  265 5 Proud Kate Sullivan (A Drama in One Act)  276 6 Selected Musical Works of Frederick R. Emerson  292 Notes 303 References 349 Index 391

Illustrations



Table 1: The Family Lineage of Frederick R. Emerson.  24

f ig ures 1.1 Georgina Stirling (Marie Toulinguet) (1867–1935). (Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland.)  26 1.2 Convention of the Newfoundland Teachers Association at Bishop Feild College, 13 July 1899, with William W. Blackall seated second row, centre. (Courtesy of the Rooms Provincial Archives Division, A 62-73.)  31 1.3 Church Lads Brigade Avalon Battalion Band at the Colonel Grey Inter-colonial Music Competition, Ottawa, 1907. (Courtesy of the Church Lads Brigade Archive.)  34 1.4 Title page of E.R. Krippner, “Newfoundland.” (Courtesy of the Rooms Provincial Archives Division, MG 956.110 / Boyle and Krippner.) 40 1.5 William Walker Blackall, “Newfoundland, Isle of the Free!” (Courtesy of the Rooms Provincial Archives Division, MG 354.10 / Blackall and Blackall.)  44 1.6 Sister Josephine O’Sullivan, “The Flag of Newfoundland,” mm. 1–16. (Courtesy of the Rooms Provincial Archives Division, MG 956.109.) 47 1.7 Charles Hutton, “Newfoundland” (Courtesy of the Rooms Provincial Archives Division, Newfoundland Folio of Over Fifty Old Favorite Songs / Hutton, 4.)  49

x Illustrations

1.8 Alfred Allen, “Newfoundland,” mm. 25–36. (Courtesy of the Rooms Provincial Archives Division, MG 354.7.)  50 1.9 C. Hubert Parry, “Newfoundland, An Ode.” (Courtesy of the Rooms Provincial Archives Division, MG 354.9 / Boyle.)  52 2.1 Framlingham College, Framlingham, Suffolk, England. (Courtesy of Framlingham College.)  56 2.2 Frederick Emerson, autograph manuscript of “Mein Herz wie ein Hündlein,” mm. 16-27. (Private collection.)  62 2.3 John McCrae, handwritten text of “In Flanders Fields.” (Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada/Edward Whipple Bancroft Morrison fonds/C-026561.)  63 2.4 Frederick Emerson, “In Flanders Fields,” for solo voice and piano, mm. 1-13. (Transcribed and edited by Glenn D. Colton.)  65 2.5 Hunt, Emerson, Stirling, and Higgins Law Office sign. (Private collection.) 68 2.6 Isabel (Jameson) Emerson (1892–1981). (Private collection.)  70 2.7 The Jameson family home, Sunninghill, Berkshire, at the turn of the century. (Private collection.)  71 3.1 The Emerson family home, Winter Avenue, St John’s, Newfoundland. (Private collection.)  75 3.2 Frederick Emerson, untitled Newfoundland scene (original painting). (Private collection.)  76 3.3 Healey Willan with Isabel Emerson (seated), Dorothy Geehan (standing), and the Emerson family dogs Jumbo and Rover, “Quinnipiac,” St John’s, Newfoundland, May 1942. (Private collection.) 84 3.4 Bogedar (“Dan”) Nowosielski peering through the strings of Carla Emerson’s harp during his time with the Emerson family in Newfoundland. (Private collection.)  89 3.5 Italo Balbo (centre) with Frederick Emerson to his immediate left, Shoal Harbour, Newfoundland, 1933. (Private collection.)  91 4.1 “The Singing Lawyer”: Emerson had become a stalwart of the local arts community by the late 1920s. (Private collection.)  93 4.2 Eleanor Mews as “Carmen” from Bizet’s opera, c. 1923. (Private collection.) 103 4.3 Eleanor Mews Jerrett (with dark dress and bouquet, front, centre), following a performance of the St John’s Glee Club under her direction, early 1950s. (Private collection.)  107 5.1 Maud Karpeles (1885–1976). (Courtesy of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.)  111



Illustrations xi

5.2 Ralph Vaughan Williams, arr., manuscript sketches of “The Lover’s Ghost,” showing the composer’s revisions. (Private collection.) 122 5.3 Vaughan Williams, arr., “Young Floro,” Verse 2 (mm. 10–18). (From Karpeles, ed., Fifteen Folksongs from Newfoundland, Oxford University Press, 1934.)  124 5.4 Vaughan Williams, arr., “The Bloody Gardener,” Verses 3-5 (mm. 10–17). (From Karpeles, ed., Fifteen Folksongs from Newfoundland, Oxford University Press, 1934.)  125 5.5 Vaughan Williams, arr., “The Maiden’s Lament,” Verse 1 (mm. 1–13). (From Karpeles, ed., Fifteen Folksongs from Newfoundland, Oxford University Press, 1934.)  128 5.6 Vaughan Williams, arr., “She’s Like the Swallow.” (From Karpeles, ed., Fifteen Folksongs from Newfoundland, Oxford University Press, 1934.)  129 5.7 Francis Forbes, The Banks of Newfoundland (mm. 1–12). (Courtesy of The Rooms Provincial Archives Division, MG 956.134.) 136 6.1 A typical family homestead in the Markland settlement. (Private collection.) 145 6.2 Children at school in the Markland settlement. (Private collection.) 149 6.3 St John’s Players, c. 1940, with founding director Grace Butt in the second row, third from the right. (Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Coll-032.)  156 6.4 The First Newfoundland Drama Festival, St John’s Newfoundland, April 1950, with Frederick Emerson (first festival chair) at the far right. (Private collection.)  158 7.1 Memorial University College, St John’s, Newfoundland, 1948. (Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada.)  169 7.2 St John’s Athenaeum, late nineteenth century. (Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Coll-075.)  173 7.3 Published edition of Arthur Scammell’s “The Squid Jiggin’ Ground” (1944). (Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada/ AMICUS 22932300/Cover/nlc-1691.)  180 8.1 Sir Ernest MacMillan and Frederick Emerson during meetings of the first Canada Council, Ottawa, c. 1957. (Private collection.) 195

xii Illustrations

8.2 Frederick Emerson (third from left) and other Anglican Church officials greet the visiting Bishop Rev. L.J. DeMel of Kuraungula, Ceylon (centre), upon the arrival of the latter in Newfoundland, October 1956. (Private collection.)  202 9.1 Summer scene with family and friends at “Quinnipiac,” Greenfield, Nova Scotia, early 1960s. (Private collection.)  222 9.2 Frederick Emerson, Newfoundland Scene, mm. 1–27. (Transcribed and edited by Glenn D. Colton.)  225 9.3 Frederick Emerson, Newfoundland Rhapsody, mm. 1–4. (Transcribed and edited by Glenn D. Colton.)  232 9.4 Frederick Emerson receiving the degree Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, from Memorial University of Newfoundland, 27 May 1972. (Private collection.)  234 9.5 The last known photograph of Frederick Emerson, taken on 29 November 1972, one day before his death. (Private collection.) 236

Acknowledgments

The idea for this project was born in 2003 during a visit to the St John’s home of Carla Emerson Furlong. I arrived at her door to conduct an interview regarding her father’s contributions to music and music education in Newfoundland and Labrador, part of my ongoing research toward a history of music in the province. I had long been intrigued by Emerson’s vital though largely unheralded contributions to Newfoundland culture, but it was not until that first interview that my intrigue developed into full-blown fascination and awe. During the course of a two-hour “chat” (which felt more like twenty minutes), she not only shared generously her personal insights and recollections but also presented me with a treasure trove of Emerson’s musical manuscripts, lecture texts, and unpublished correspondence (including a previously unknown letter from iconic British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams). From that point onward, the die was cast. This was a life story that simply had to be told. In the ensuing years, Emerson Furlong has kindly consented to numerous interviews and, in the process, provided me with a wealth of invaluable information. She has been, quite simply, an inspiration without whom this project would not be possible. Additional interviews were conducted with other members of the Emerson family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and researchers who offered their unique perspectives on aspects of his life and work. In particular, I am very grateful for the assistance of Anne Holt, David Holt, Linda Fairchild, and Dr Charles Hubley. I also wish to thank Helen Goodridge and the late Ted Goodridge for their insight into Emerson’s law practice and family ties to the Goodridge family; William Abraham for sharing his recollections of Emerson’s contributions to the Anglican Church in Newfoundland; Abraham, Cecil Vivian, and others for their

xiv Acknowledgments

memories of Emerson’s teaching at Memorial University College; ­Walter Learning and William Tilley for their rich recollections of the Church Lads Brigade in Newfoundland and Emerson’s involvement with the CLB Band; Daphne Collins and the late Margaret Halleran for sharing their vivid memories of the Emerson family; the late Grace Sparkes, Nancy Hickman, and Catherine Cornick for information pertaining to Eleanor Mews Jerrett; Phyllis Jones for information pertaining to music at the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in the early years of the twentieth century; Dr Robert MacLeod for granting me access to an archival recording of Robert F. MacLeod’s Newfoundland Rhapsody and sharing much valuable information about his father; the late Betty Barban for information pertaining to her husband, Andreas Barban; Peter Gardner for his insight into the early years of the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra; the late Sr Kathrine Bellamy for sharing her vast expertise regarding the Sisters of Mercy in Newfoundland; Paul O’Neill for his wealth of knowledge on the cultural history of St John’s; the late Douglas Osmond for information pertaining to concert life in St John’s in the mid-twentieth century; Jean Stirling for information pertaining to Emerson’s involvement with the Dominion Drama Festival; Norman Chaytor for his historical perspectives on the Salvation Army bands in Newfoundland; Jim Payne for sharing his rich insights into Newfoundland traditional music; Jim Duff and Clyde Johnston for information pertaining to jazz and popular music traditions in mid-twentieth century Newfoundland; Anna Guigné, Philip Hiscock, Martin Lovelace, and Neil Rosenberg for enriching my understanding of Emerson’s contributions to Newfoundland folk culture; and to other individuals too numerous to mention who helped make this project possible. Much of the primary research for this project was conducted during a sabbatical in Newfoundland from summer 2004 to spring 2005. I am especially grateful for a research grant from the Joseph R. S­ mallwood Foundation for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies to help make this work possible and for additional research funding from the Senate Research Committee, the Office of the Dean of Social Sciences and Humanities, and the Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic) at Lakehead University. I also wish to thank the law firm of Stewart McKelvey, St John’s, Newfoundland, for financial support toward the publication of this book. Thank you to all of the archivists and librarians of the Memorial University Archives and Special Collections, the Centre for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, and the Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive – in p ­ articular Bert



Acknowledgments xv

Riggs, Joan Ritcey, Patricia Fulton, Pauline Cox, and C ­ olleen Quigley – for granting me access to a wealth of primary materials housed in Memorial University’s archival collections. Thank you also to archivist Julia Mathieson for helping me access archival d ­ ocuments pertaining to the history of the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in the church archives and to librarian Ann Hoole of Framlingham College, England, for facilitating access to information pertaining to ­Emerson’s secondary education. Additional archival materials were obtained from Library and Archives Canada, the Canadian Museum of Civilization Archives, the University of Calgary Library Special Collections, the Church Lads ­Brigade Archive in St John’s, Newfoundland, the H ­ oughton Library at Harvard University, Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management, The Rooms Provincial Archives Division (Newfoundland and Labrador), the Provincial Resource Library of Newfound­land and Labrador, and the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge master photographer Sherman Hines for his award-winning portrait of Emerson (depicted on the cover of this volume) and his kind consent to publish the same. A special word of personal thanks goes to Kathleen Parsons (my first music teacher and lifelong friend), my sister Kristann Templeton, my brother-in-law Jim Templeton, and my nephews Sam, Will, and Jacob Templeton for their encouragement throughout this project. Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank my father C. David Colton for photographing many of the archival images contained in the present volume and extend a very special thank you to both my father and mother Carol Colton for their endless support and encouragement in so many ways. Words cannot possibly express my gratitude for all you have done. Glenn David Colton St John’s, Newfoundland

N e w f o u n d l a nd Rhapsody

P r e l ude

Toward a “Newfoundland Renaissance”: Frederick Emerson and the Mediation of Culture “The cultivation in balanced harmony of the infinite capacities of man was an ideal of the ancient philosophers in their search for the good society. This ideal, rarely achieved, found perhaps its finest modern flowering among the citizens of certain Italian cities in the fifteenth century, among whom Leon Battista Alberti may stand as an exemplar of l’uomo universale, the all-sided man ... Musician, lawyer, master of many arts and crafts, eloquent and witty, he brought to everything he touched a passion for mastery and perfection, and a sympathetic intensity in entering the whole life around him.”1 Those words, spoken by literary scholar George Story in 1972, still serve as a fitting tribute to the “allsided man” of more recent memory to whom they were addressed. A musician, lawyer, and, one could add, linguist, diplomat, educator, arts administrator, dramatist, composer, and folklore enthusiast, Frederick Rennie Emerson (1895–1972) was indeed an exemplar of l’uomo universale in a time and place far removed from fifteenth-century Florence. ­Emerson was a prominent member of a generation of Newfoundlanders passionately dedicated to the preservation of Newfoundland culture in the tumultuous decades prior to and following Confederation with Canada in 1949. He found kindred spirits in the businessman and song collector Gerald S. Doyle,2 the songwriter Arthur Scammell,3 the choral director Ignatius Rumboldt, and the musician/broadcaster Robert F. MacLeod4 and made recommendations to Premier Joseph R. Smallwood on matters of cultural import.5 A tireless devotee to the cause of education in Newfoundland, ­Emerson lectured on literature, law, and music (the subject with which he was most closely associated) and authored an influential article on Newfoundland Folk Music in Smallwood’s encyclopedic Book

4

Newfoundland Rhapsody

of ­Newfoundland.6 ­During the 1940s, he played a seminal role in the development of post-secondary music in Newfoundland as honorary lecturer in Music at Memorial University College (the pre-­Confederation ancestor of Memorial University of Newfoundland). His immensely popular music appreciation classes at the college introduced an entire generation of students to the Western art music tradition with an engaging blend of historical insight, critical listening, and live performances, while his pioneering folk music lectures inspired fresh rediscovery of Newfoundland’s rich cultural heritage. In the interrelated capacities of writer, music lecturer, and advisor for visiting folksong collectors, he played a central (although largely unheralded) role in the preservation and dissemination of Newfoundland folksongs. Emerson’s contributions to Newfoundland culture were part of an emerging intellectual discourse that flourished amid the patriotism of the post-World War I era and intensified against the looming backdrop of British influence during the controversial Commission of Government years of the late 1930s and 1940s. Newfoundland folk music, folk arts, literature, and history became the focus of serious scholarly inquiry and, at the same time, a topical subject among the populace at large. This was the era that saw the birth of Doyle’s widely disseminated Old Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland, Scammell’s catchy folk anthem “Squid Jiggin’ Ground,” the imagined outport of Margaret Duley’s novels, the locally inspired radio broadcasts of M ­ acLeod and the Irene B. Mellon and Barrelman programs that filled the airwaves with an eclectic blend of local songs, folklore, and humour. A flood of books on historical topics were written, ranging from the exploits of Sir ­Wilfred Grenfell and Captain Bob Bartlett to the wartime heroism of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, while the poetry of E.J. Pratt was garnering growing international recognition. Visiting scholars such as the American song collector Elisabeth Greenleaf and her British contemporary Maud Karpeles showed that interest in the island’s folk music traditions was by no means restricted to a local audience, and the published results of their findings (Greenleaf’s Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland and Karpeles’s Folk Songs from Newfoundland) made the richness of this heritage known to an international readership. Through his efforts to facilitate Karpeles’s work (and later that of others), ­Emerson helped make such collections possible, and it is a perhaps fitting tribute to his legacy that a set of Newfoundland folksong arrangements by Ralph Vaughan Williams bears an inscription in his name.



Prelude 5

The story of Emerson’s remarkable life can only be told against the backdrop of the Newfoundland society of which he was so intimately acquainted: his early education at Bishop Feild College (the island’s principal Church of England Boys’ School) in the early years of the twentieth century and a lifetime of service to the Anglican Church in the ensuing decades; a career of distinction in the practice of law (following in the footsteps of generations of ancestors); his personal relationship with the last Father of Confederation, Joseph R. Smallwood; his leadership role in the Markland settlement for disadvantaged Newfoundlanders during the 1930s and a lifetime of charitable work in aid of those less fortunate; musical collaborations with a diverse and talented cast of local musicians (among them Charles Hutton, Eleanor Mews Jerrett, Stuart Godfrey, and his musically gifted daughter Carla Emerson Furlong); and his passionate advocacy of Newfoundland culture through a variety of public lectures, published writings, and other educational activities. He was, in short, a dynamic presence in Newfoundland’s social, cultural, and intellectual life for much of the twentieth century. Yet Emerson’s life was by no means bounded by the Atlantic currents encircling the island of his birth. Secondary studies were undertaken at England’s Framlingham College, where the young Frederick won special prizes for piano and violin playing, English, and French, and his profound fascination with European culture would last a lifetime. A talented linguist fluent in multiple languages (including French, Italian, German, Greek, Latin, Hungarian, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian), he travelled extensively abroad and, back home in Newfoundland, cheerfully and dutifully accepted the role of cultural liaison. Official duties included the positions of royal Norwegian consul, Icelandic consul, and vice-­ consul for the Netherlands in Newfoundland, while the Emerson home in St John’s became an unofficial hotel of sorts in which visiting dignitaries – among them Ukrainian-born pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch, Canadian composer Healey Willan, and Italian aviator Italo Balbo – found welcome and stimulating company. He harboured a particularly deep affinity for French culture, a lifelong interest expressed through regular pilgrimages to the city of Paris and a special fascination with the French islands of St Pierre et Miquelon off the South Coast of Newfoundland. In the post-Confederation era, Emerson took his passionate advocacy of Newfoundland culture to a new audience in his “adopted” country of Canada. Composer Ernest MacMillan and folklorists Marius Barbeau and Helen Creighton were some of the eminent associates with whom he worked closely in this regard. In the dual roles of vice-president of

6

Newfoundland Rhapsody

the Canadian Folk Music Society and board member on the first Canada Council, he played an important though largely unheralded role in shaping Canadian culture in the transformative years following the release of the landmark Massey Commission Report and the wave of state-sponsored cultural initiatives that ensued. Emerson’s position in these contexts was unique. MacMillan, with whom he worked closely on the first Canada Council, and Barbeau, co-founder and president of the Canadian Folk Music Society, were influential professionals with high profile institutional positions nationally and widespread international recognition for their creative and scholarly work. Emerson in contrast was a self-confessed “amateur musician” (a claim rich in understatement, although technically accurate) and, to borrow Glenn Gould’s colourful characterization of Newfoundlanders, a “latecomer” to the Canadian party.7 Despite his international connections to Britain and elsewhere (most notably to Karpeles, Vaughan Williams, and the British folk music circle) and assistance to visiting Canadian musicians (such as Healey Willan, Kenneth Peacock, Margaret Sargent, Howard Cable, and Leslie Bell), Emerson was still relatively unknown in Canadian cultural circles compared with the sea of critical adulation in which several of his mainland colleagues swam. Nowhere is his perceived status as an outsider more vividly depicted than in his own account of the inaugural meeting of the first Canada Council in Ottawa, in which he introduced himself (much to the bewilderment of colleagues) by proclaiming that he had “just arrived in Canada today”!8 In just a few short years after his “arrival,” the folksinging lawyer from St John’s was able to negotiate a prominent role for himself (and, as the province’s official representative on the Council, for Newfoundland) within the Canadian cultural establishment. Together with MacMillan, Barbeau, Creighton, and a very select group of influential, institutionally placed “culture brokers,” Emerson helped mediate Canadian culture (including the emergence of Newfoundland cultural traditions on the national and international stage) during an era in which cultural authority in the country was highly concentrated. As recent studies of the lives and contributions of MacMillan, Barbeau, and Creighton have demonstrated, the broader cultural ramifications of their intersecting pathways were profound. In discussing the implications of Barbeau’s work, for example, Lynda Jessup, Andrew Nurse, and Gordon Smith articulate a thought-provoking critical model for the mediation of Canadian culture at mid-century by endeavouring “to work through him as a means of mapping, if only in preliminary terms, the complex individual and



Prelude 7

i­nstitutional relationships, collaborations, and interests that operated in conjunction, through, or sometimes at odds with one another in the field of cultural production within which he worked ... cultural authority in Canada at the time was not diffuse, and it is in this sense that study of a figure such as Barbeau provides insight into its processes.”9 One of my goals in the present volume, therefore, has been to work through ­Emerson to consider the extent to which his contributions may be viewed as an alternative lens through which the cultural history of twentieth-century Newfoundland and, to a degree Canada, may be viewed. No less meaningful are Emerson’s creative responses to the very same cultural heritage he took pride in documenting and preserving. His oneact drama Proud Kate Sullivan (1940) was pioneering in its depiction of Newfoundland life, setting in motion a chain of events that helped pave the way for a modern tradition of locally inspired theatre (see chapter 6). His musical legacy includes the evocative Newfoundland Scene (1963) for solo harp and the folk-inspired Newfoundland Rhapsody (1964) for orchestra (both exceedingly rare examples of art music composed by a native Newfoundlander of his generation). In the case of Proud Kate Sullivan, Emerson explores identity themes that are in many respects as relevant today as they were in 1940: the expatriate Newfoundlander longing for home, the close-knit ties of family and community, and a myriad of locally inspired social customs, speech patterns, and attitudes intended to capture something of the intangible spirit of rural Newfoundland. The musical works, in turn, evoke contrasting textures and moods rooted in Emerson’s lifelong engagement with culture and place. The programmatic Newfoundland Scene is replete with evocative images of Newfoundland life, from a gigue being danced to surging arpeggios suggestive of waves crashing on the rocky coastline, while the folk-inspired Newfoundland Rhapsody may be viewed as a study in folk melodies (all of them derived from the Karpeles collection) and, at the same time, a musical response to Howard Cable’s wind band composition of the same title (the latter based on material from the Doyle songbooks).10 Aside from the musical freedom implied by the title, Newfoundland Rhapsody is perhaps a fitting tribute to an extraordinarily fertile creative life. Emerson’s rhapsodic enthusiasm for everything he touched – firmly rooted in a deeply felt affinity for his native isle  – inspired a cultural awakening as an entire generation of Newfoundlanders embarked upon a journey of intellectual discovery and creative engagement. By the 1970s the tangible impact of this legacy was unmistakable as ­talented

8

Newfoundland Rhapsody

young musicians such as Anita Best, Pamela Morgan, Jim Payne, Kelly Russell, and many others embraced a revival of Newfoundland traditional music through a process of rediscovery and reinvention that paralleled the popular folk-rock movements sweeping North America, Great Britain, and Ireland.11 Ryan’s Fancy, a popular Irish folk trio who came to Newfoundland in the early 1970s via Ontario, personified the Irish influence in the Newfoundland folk revival and contributed to the popularization of local folk traditions both in Newfoundland and the Maritimes.12 The latter achievement, in turn, echoed the efforts of Canadian folksinger/guitarist Omar Blondahl years earlier.13 Folk festivals became dynamic centres of social and cultural interchange in this environment and, following in the wake of earlier events such as the Miramichi Folk Song Festival of New Brunswick (1958), the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island (1959) and Ontario’s Mariposa Folk Festival (1961), the first annual Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival was held in 1977 under the auspices of the St John’s Folk Arts Council.14 Not unlike Emerson’s pioneering contributions decades prior and the song collections he helped facilitate, the younger generation took inspiration from the folk traditions of outport Newfoundland – an idealized, nostalgic interpretation of rural culture and, by extension, an alternative world to that expressed through the popular song tradition preserved in Gerald S. Doyle’s widely disseminated Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland. Retrospectively traditional musicians such as fiddlers Émile Benoît and Rufus Guinchard and accordionist Minnie White were plucked from obscurity and heralded as cultural icons.15 Similar tendencies could be discerned in the music of folk revival groups such as Figgy Duff,16 whose brooding renditions of ancient songs and ballads reveal the influence of the Karpeles, Greenleaf, and Peacock song collections, while the eclectic stylings of rock band/comedy troupe Wonderful Grand Band likewise featured some traditional music.17 More recently, popular bands such as Great Big Sea and others (partly in response to the folk revival of the 1970s and 1980s)18 have rekindled interest in the more spirited idiom of the Doyle songbooks in forging a unique brand of folk-inspired popular music.19 These efforts, moreover, invite revealing comparisons to other Atlantic Canadian popular musicians responding to place with their own hybridized responses to local folk traditions (of which Cape Breton Island affords several notable comparisons).20 In theatre, visual arts, and literature similar movements were quickly gaining momentum. The modernist canvases of David Blackwood and Christopher Pratt (as divergent in their artistic responses to place as the



Prelude 9

contrasting sonic landscapes of Figgy Duff and Great Big Sea), evoked starkly differing interpretations of Newfoundland life, while the satirical musings of Ray Guy, the locally inspired novels of Kevin Major and Bernice Morgan, and the theatrical comedy of the Mummers Troupe, CODCO, and Rising Tide are just some of the many varied examples of renewed interest in local culture expressed through literature and the performing arts. By the mid-1970s journalist Sandra Gwyn had identified a “Newfoundland Renaissance”21 in the locally inspired music, drama, literature, and visual art that proliferated during the era, yet decades prior to that Newfoundland’s “uomo universale” was, in his own understated way, pioneering a cultural revival of his own. Consideration of Emerson’s life prompts us to reconsider fundamental questions about the nature of Newfoundland society and culture in the twentieth century, as well as the evolving complex of relationships linking Newfoundland to Great Britain, Canada, and, to a degree, the United States. The dichotomy between Emerson the Newfoundland nationalist and Emerson the British subject, for example, is one of many interpretive contexts in which aspects of his life may be viewed within a larger critical frame. Like many Newfoundlanders of his generation (particularly those of English ancestry) Emerson retained close ties to Great Britain, a heritage affirmed by the lingering influence of British educational models and the symbolic reminder of the Union Jack as Newfoundland’s official flag.22 From his close family ties to the British Isles and privileged secondary education in the English countryside to his unwavering support of Maud Karpeles and collaboration with the Commission of Government on the Markland settlement, one might be tempted to categorize Emerson as a colonialist, yet closer consideration of aspects of his creative life invites a very different interpretation. His college teaching with its emphasis on Newfoundland folksongs (a decidedly anti-elitist stance at odds with the conservative musical tastes of many colleagues), his published writing with its advocacy for music composed “by Newfoundlanders for Newfoundlanders” (implicitly critiquing Karpeles’s dismissal of “popular” songs of local origin), and his locally inspired musical and theatrical works (adopting the conventions of European models, yet infusing them with his own personalized interpretations of local folk culture) are just some of many aspects of his creative work that may be viewed as acts of resistance against the still dominant influence of British cultural institutions. One could argue, in fact, that, through his social status and the many creative activities he engaged in, Emerson was in an unusually good position to give voice to the sentiments of

10

Newfoundland Rhapsody

many N ­ ewfoundlanders who were, through their own individual acts of resistance, responding to the looming shadow of colonial influence both during and after the turbulent Commission of Government years of the 1930s and 1940s. The Newfoundland cultural context, in turn, while unique in many respects as it was socially and politically, nonetheless resonated with Canadian creative artists’ perceived need to overcome the legacy of British colonialism during the same era, a tendency expressed vividly in Canadian art music with the emergence of modern, self-consciously “Canadian” styles of composition (of which the music of self-described “radical romantic” John Weinzweig of Toronto and the gifted circle of young composers with whom he was affiliated stands as one notable illustration).23 The post-Confederation era in Newfoundland brought with it new creative tensions and competing identities (as discussed in chapter 8). When Canadian nationalists embraced aspects of Newfoundland folk culture, they did so as part of a broader nationwide movement toward the encouragement of music and the arts that followed the release of the Massey Commission Report and the cultural initiatives that ensued (including the founding of the Canada Council, the Canadian League of Composers, and the Canadian Music Centre; see chapter 8). Scholars and creative artists in unprecedented numbers expressed newfound interest in diverse forms of cultural expression, among them the musical traditions of Canada’s First Nations, Anglophone and Francophone folk music traditions, and an array of stylized representations in modern classical and popular music. The overlapping creative spheres of Ernest ­MacMillan and Marius Barbeau, a mutually beneficial collaboration begun in the 1920s with their shared interest in collecting and interpreting Native Canadian and French Canadian traditional music, epitomized the cultural crosscurrents of the era. A virtual army of folklorists and song collectors (among them Creighton, Edith Fowke, M ­ argaret ­Sargent, Kenneth Peacock) set out to mine the nation for its vast reservoir of untapped cultural riches, while folksingers (such as Hélène Baillargeon, Ed McCurdy, Alan Mills, and Tom Kines), publishers, and record producers (notably Sam Gesser of Folkways Records) helped make this heritage accessible to a wider audience. Neo-nationalist composers evoked aspects of the country’s history, landscape, and folklore and in Canada’s 1967 Centennial Year Celebrations alone, no less than 130 new pieces of art music were commissioned to honour the occasion (of which Harry Somers’s operatic portrayal of the Louis Riel story stands as one of the more memorable lasting monuments).24



Prelude 11

Since Newfoundland was, de facto, a part of Canada post-1949, expressions of Newfoundland folk culture came to be viewed within the rubric of Canadian culture, and it was within this context that the work of many song collectors and compilers was informed by a discernibly celebratory pan-Canadian nationalism. So it was that Edith Fowke and Richard Johnston’s 1954 volume Folk Songs of Canada contained no less than twenty songs of Newfoundland origin of a total of seventyseven in the collection, arranged for solo voice and piano with historical notes on each. Included among them, ironically perhaps, was the “AntiConfederation Song,” a defiant nineteenth-century anthem of sorts that appealed to a large demographic in Newfoundland during the Confederation debate of the 1940s. Related constructions of “Newfoundlandized Canadianness” have continued to resonate well into the twenty-first century.25 Despite their local references (or more correctly, because of them) the songs of Ron Hynes have been embraced by Canadian cultural nationalists as the work of an iconic storyteller, while popular groups such as Great Big Sea (a band with its stylistic roots firmly planted in Newfoundland soil) are often described as quintessentially Canadian. In a radical departure from the predominantly American models that have tended to shape the mainstream currents of North American popular music, the group’s creative arrangements offer a compelling fusion of Newfoundland traditional music and the familiar verse-chorus-hook structures of contemporary pop music.26 While Great Big Sea has enjoyed commercial success on both sides of the forty-ninth parallel and beyond (crossing borders both literal and musical), these distinctive qualities are often invoked as cultural markers of difference between Canadian and American popular music and, in that sense, used to reinforce one of the most persistent discourses of Canadian identity. Newfoundland’s own self-image in the post-Confederation era represented more contested terrain. Not unlike the perceived threat of assimilation into the American mainstream that has long captured the imagination of Canadian writers (of which Jody Berland’s North of Empire offers fresh critical perspectives)27 and responses in popular culture (such as the Guess Who’s iconic 1970 protest song “American Woman”), the metaphor of the “Canadian Wolf” in the “Anti-­Confederation Song” expressed lingering resistance to the prospect of Newfoundland as an assimilated entity within its much larger neighbour to the West.28 Just as the lyrics of “American Woman” cautioned an imagined American lover to “stay away from me” (in a metaphorical critique of American society tinged with anti-war sentiment), the strident verses of the “Anti-Confederation

12

Newfoundland Rhapsody

Song” struck a parallel chord of political resistance: “Come near at your peril, Canadian Wolf!”29 With a razor-thin referendum majority, Canada’s newest province was born, although for thousands of Newfoundlanders the event marked the death of a nation. As discussed in chapter 8, the binary event and the social and political turmoil that preceded it precipitated a flurry of creative responses in song (mostly of an antiConfederate bias). Yet beneath the defiant rhetoric the fact remained that the majority of Newfoundlanders embraced Confederation. The myth of the “Canadian Wolf,” as compelling as the image may have been to some, came to be viewed by others as a defense mechanism perpetuated by the merchant class to further their own self-interests. More recently, Newfoundland singers and songwriters of the “Newfoundland Renaissance” have returned to the trope of lost nation with nostalgic affection, perhaps none more provocative than Ron Hynes’s “The Final Breath”: “Out here between time and tide, between tears and elation lies a secret nation.”30 The song was composed for the Genie Award-winning film A Secret Nation (1992), based loosely on the premise that the results of the Confederation referendum were doctored and that Newfoundland had never really joined Canada after all.31 Conspiracy theories aside, it was the song collection of a Canadian composer, Kenneth Peacock, that resonated most strongly with the Newfoundland folk revival of the late twentieth century. Even though the type of local identity most local folksingers sought to express differed fundamentally from the pan-­Canadian nationalism that inspired the collector, it was the songs themselves that counted and in Peacock’s volume, the most extensive published collection of Newfoundland songs to date, revivalists found a compelling record of local melodies and folklore. Peacock’s stated objective of compiling a volume that “Canada, and especially Newfoundland, will be proud of”32 had met with resounding approval. Newfoundland’s cultural identity has been profoundly shaped by its unique social and political history and, within this context, the term “nationalism” (as opposed to “regionalism”) is not misplaced when describing creative responses to place that marked the emergence of a “Newfoundland Renaissance.”33 As Richard Taruskin reminds us, a nation, unlike a state, is not primarily defined by territorial boundaries but by “some negotiation of the relationship between the political status of communities and the basis of their self-description, whether linguistic, ethnic (genetic/biological), religious, cultural, or historical.”34 It is precisely this concept of “imagined nation” that has helped shape the cultural identities of many Newfoundlanders in the pre- and post-­



Prelude 13

Confederation eras. Sectarian differences and class inequities aside, very few members of Emerson’s generation questioned the idea that being a Newfoundlander meant being part of a very unique cultural group. The brand of cultural nationalism Emerson and his contemporaries identified most closely with contrasted sharply to the divergent expressions of religious identity that had coloured the island’s colonial past (although many Newfoundlanders continued to identify strongly with these associations), as well as the polarizing social inequities that divided the merchant and working classes (a stark dichotomy identified by historian John Reeves as early as 1793).35 Rooted in nineteenth-century romanticism and the idea of Newfoundland that evolved concurrently with its emergence as a political entity and society, theirs was a brand of nationalism conditioned by perceptions of shared history and cultural heritage and reinforced through the media (via locally inspired radio programs), the education system (where Parry’s “Ode to Newfoundland” acquired anthem status), and an array of creative responses in the literary, visual, and performing arts. As discussed in chapter 1, Parry’s freshly minted “Ode” (and other similarly inspired songs of the early twentieth century) ushered in a new era of Newfoundland musical nationalism that was of no small consequence during Emerson’s formative years. On at least one occasion, Emerson lectured on the subject of nationalism itself, in which he distinguished between its political and cultural aspects (the latter described from a local and decidedly personal frame of reference): There are two elements of nationalism; (1) its cultural or spiritual aspect and (2) its political aspect. Culturally nationalism is not difficult to understand. We all have an affection for the country in which we are born and in which we grow up. These facts seem to be its raison d’être. To the outsider, the island of St Pierre possesses no outstanding attractions nor has its climate any amenities that cannot be found elsewhere, yet the St Pierrais is quite confident that, at any rate as far as he is concerned, he lives in the best place in the best of all possible worlds, and amenable as I myself am to reason, nothing would persuade me that any part of the universe is more delectable than the east coast of the Peninsula of Avalon. This spirit is just as strong in families that have occupied the country for a generation as in those who have occupied it as far as historical memory goes. With this affection for one’s country goes an appreciation of one’s own people and one’s own way of life. This may be called nationalism in its spiritual or cultural form.36

14

Newfoundland Rhapsody

The passage of time has done little to quell an unusually powerful identification with culture and place that is exceedingly rare in North American society today. As recently as 1994, in a nationwide survey, Newfoundlanders identified with their home province more closely than respondents in any other part of Canada. In response to the question “Do you think of yourself as a Canadian first, or a resident of a particular region or province?” 57 percent of Newfoundland respondents answered with the latter option (the highest percentage response of any province, with Québec respondents next at 49 percent).37 While the results of the survey may seem startling to some Canadians, it must be remembered that for Newfoundlanders born prior to 1949, such perceptions were deeply rooted in the collective memory of an independent Newfoundland. The oft-heard expression “I’m a Newfoundlander first” is for these individuals not merely a state of mind but a statement of historical truth. Irrespective of whether one ever lived in an independent Newfoundland, the idea of Newfoundland is for many a communal bond that continues to resonate in the twenty-first century as an ongoing narrative in the negotiation of local and national identities.38 “O Canada” is sung with no less fervour locally than the “Ode to Newfoundland,” although the fact that the latter even exists (and is still widely heard as an official provincial anthem today) speaks volumes. Composer John Beckwith, in addressing aspects of this complex topic, once remarked that patriotism “comes and goes, and also varies from a local to a colonial to a regional to a ‘national’ phenomenon, sometimes creating confusion by mixing up these points of view.”39 It is this very “confusion” – a creative space at the intersection of nationality, regionality, and personality – that offers the potential of casting new light on the many nuances of Newfoundland identities within a pluralistic Canadian society. No less compelling are the many expressions of regional and localized identities within the province itself, a matrix of cultural practices that transcends historical associations with British, Irish, and French folk cultures (although the powerful resonance of those traditions remains). Expressions of Labrador identity, for example, reflect the distinctiveness of the region’s way of life and the centrality of aboriginal cultures within Labrador society. The region is the proud bearer of its own flag, an Ode to Labrador (written by Dr H.L. Paddon in the 1920s with new music composed by Shirley Montague in 1988),40 while contemporary musicians such as the Flummies (an aboriginal music group based in Happy Valley-Goose Bay) have offered fresh new creative responses to



Prelude 15

the musical traditions of the Innu, Inuit, and Métis peoples. Of the many distinctive manifestations of community identities, expressions of place among the families and descendants of communities displaced by the controversial resettlement programs of the mid-twentieth century have proven especially enduring.41 One of the largest resettled communities, Merasheen, Placentia Bay, has been the site of a series of reunions to commemorate its rich history and inspired multiple responses in song. The regional and local contexts may vary, yet an unusually powerful identification with culture and place endures. As a tangible illustration of just how pervasive feelings of local identity remain, we need look no further than one of the most dynamic social spaces that modern society has to offer. In the words of the Wonderful Grand Band, we can find what we’re looking for “at the mall.”42 One of the more popular cultural products found in local shops today is a T-shirt emblazoned with the image of a literal army of musicians (instruments raised militaristically in the air), standing proudly with the pink, white, and green of the historic Newfoundland flag. The image juxtaposes several iconic symbols of history and place – the pink, white, and green, the resilient image of the “Fighting Newfoundlander” (a symbolic reminder of military heroism and defiance in the face of adversity), and the centrality of music in Newfoundland culture (both traditional and non-traditional), all framed in bold by the words “Newfoundland Liberation Army.”43 This type of provocative, tongue-in-cheek statement is of course but one illustration of how local businesses have tapped into public demand for flamboyantly nationalistic products. Yet while the roots of local identity run much deeper than deftly marketed images on T-shirts, the message behind the commercial success of this and other similarly themed products is clear: Newfoundland nationalism is alive and well (even fashionably trendy) in local popular culture and inherently musical. A Newfoundland Liberation Army, if there ever was such a thing, would arm itself with accordions, saxophones, and electric guitars. The image is perhaps an apt reflection of the spirit of cultural revolution driving the latest wave of the “Newfoundland Renaissance” as well as the stylistic diversity of the Newfoundland music scene today. While active engagement with the province’s rich traditional music heritage remains as vibrant as at any time in its history, the misplaced tendency to conflate the terms “Newfoundland music” and “Newfoundland folk music” is no longer tenable in the twenty-first century. From the soulful jazz stylings of the Janet Cull Band to the frenetic energy of alternative

16

Newfoundland Rhapsody

rockers Hey Rosetta!, Newfoundland popular musicians today can trace their musical roots to a myriad of creative pathways and international contexts as part of a global discourse fuelled by the accelerated growth of new media such as YouTube, iTunes, and MySpace. The jazz clubs of New Orleans and the concert halls of New York City are just as likely to inspire as the outport kitchen party, while in the case of St John’s-based world music ensemble Mopaya, it is the musical traditions of Africa that found a new home on the distant shores of the North Atlantic. As folklorist Cory Thorne reminds us, “Newfoundland music is not just jigs and reels.”44 Yet there can be little doubt that the magnetic appeal of the jigs and reels (and that of traditional songs and ballads) remains. In a telling illustration of cultural identity, Hey Rosetta!’s hit recording Into Your Lungs contains a hidden gem buried as a “bonus track” at the end of what is ostensibly an alternative rock album. The surprise coda? The traditional ballad “Who Is at My Window Weeping,” rendered with a lyrical sensitivity and delicately interwoven instrumentals reminiscent of Figgy Duff.45 The folk–rock continuum runs full circle.46 Newfoundland’s vibrant art music scene has likewise been the site of an array of creative synergies rooted in aspects of culture and place. One memorable illustration in recent memory is a collaboration between Kelly Russell, Peter Gardner, and the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra on the creation of a locally inspired fiddle concerto. In what an imaginative impresario might describe as “Vivaldi meets Émile Benoît,” the piece offers a compelling fusion of classical form and folk-inspired improvisation that serves as a useful reminder of just how closely related these seemingly disparate musical worlds really are. A similar impulse may be discerned in diverse forms of cultural expression such as P ­ amela ­Morgan’s “folk opera” A Nobleman’s Wedding and Brian Sexton’s narrated symphony The Newfie Bullet. As discussed in chapters 7 and 9, it was precisely these types of “border crossings” that informed the interdisciplinarity of Emerson’s scholarly discourse and prompted the creation (three decades prior to the Fiddle Concerto) of the folk-inspired Newfoundland Rhapsody (composed for the NSO’s predecessor, the St John’s Symphony Orchestra). More provocative still are the sonic landscapes that have shaped the evolution of Sound Symposium, an international celebration of new music that epitomizes the spirit of stylistic eclecticism and experimentation characteristic of the Newfoundland music scene today.47 In the symposium’s signature event, the Harbour Symphony, music and place merge into one as ship’s horns are transformed into a mammoth nautical “orchestra.”48 The waterfront



Prelude 17

­ olyphony r­everberates off of the surrounding cliffs and throughout p the winding streets of North America’s oldest city, where traditional fiddlers still practice their time-honoured art. The matrix of Newfoundland musical identities continues to evolve. As a staunch advocate of Newfoundland independence who would become Newfoundland’s official representative on the Canada Council and a national presence in the Canadian folksong movement, Emerson personified many of the conflicting cultural allegiances that characterized Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation. On the one hand, he embraced the intellectual camaraderie of his Canadian colleagues (notably that of new friends MacMillan, Barbeau, and Creighton) and worked determinedly to advance the cause of Canadian music and the arts during his tenure on the Canada Council and the Canadian Folk Music Society executive. Indeed his role as a facilitator and builder in both contexts was highly influential in Canada’s developing arts scene at mid-century (see chapter 8). Yet, while Emerson was professionally situated within the Canadian cultural establishment in roles of power and influence and despite the Canadian roots in his own family tree, he still viewed himself as something of an outsider whose role as a cultural ambassador for Newfoundland within Canada was not unlike earlier creative exchanges with the British folksong establishment. Within this context, his seemingly bizarre and almost comical reference to having “just arrived in Canada” to members of the first Canada Council begins to make sense. It also goes a long way to explaining his unusually possessive attitudes toward the cultural “ownership” of Newfoundland folksongs (as expressed with conviction in correspondence to Smallwood) and his passionate advocacy for promoting Newfoundland folk music within the interrelated spheres of the CFMS and the International Folk Music Council. Was Emerson a late convert to the Canadian nationalist cause or a secret agent of the “secret nation”? Somewhere between Ottawa and St John’s, amid shifting poles of cultural identity, the answer may be found. Consideration of Emerson’s cultural contributions within the context of the socioeconomic class with which he was affiliated raises further interpretive questions. From his upper class background with its family tradition of lawyers and the “old boys network” of Feildians of which he was a part, to the league of kindred spirits (most of them ­affluent i­ndividuals in positions of influence) with whom he shared a deep interest in the promotion and dissemination of Newfoundland culture, Emerson was well positioned to become one of Newfoundland’s

18

Newfoundland Rhapsody

leading ­intellectuals and a power player among the island’s cultural elite. Although lacking the political motives of Smallwood or the entrepreneurial interests of Doyle, Emerson was a key figure in the mediation of Newfoundland culture at mid-century and, like his contemporaries, saw in the island’s folk culture a potentially unifying symbol with nationalistic underpinnings. While Doyle’s songbooks were prefaced by the passionate proclamation “Let me make the Songs of my country/And I care not who makes the Laws,”49 Emerson’s discourse was in many respects no less nationalistic: “They (Newfoundland folksongs) are the most living things which we today can share with our earliest Newfoundland forefathers. They are worthy of our study because they are the very heart of our real Newfoundland culture. When we sing these songs we are at one with all the people of our country and one with all the folk of the earliest days of our island history.”50 The implications of this shared vision were clear: Newfoundland culture (at least the Newfoundland culture that was deemed by the cultural elite to be worthy of closer study and wider dissemination) was viewed as inherently beneficial to Newfoundlanders of all religious denominations, geographic origins, and social classes, a universal heritage of which all could be justifiably proud. Conspicuously absent from this discourse were the dissenting voices of history – songs of religious strife, social protest, and other forms of cultural expression that did not conform to the idealized vision of the past perpetuated by the nationalist agenda. That the Newfoundland culture espoused by the culture brokers of Emerson’s generation was selective, romanticized, and nationalistic is hardly surprising, particularly so given the wartime context in which many of their creative acts took place. One can scarcely imagine, for example, Emerson introducing inflammatory songs such as “Croppy Winton” (a nineteenth-century song extolling sectarian violence) to his students, any more than we could imagine such material finding its way into the Doyle songbooks.51 To do so in an era in which Newfoundlanders of all walks of life were marching into battle together would have been unthinkable. On the other hand songs such as Arthur S­ cammell’s “The Squid Jiggin’ Ground,” with its idealized representation of outport life, or Francis Forbes’s “The Banks of Newfoundland,” rich in layers of extra-musical meaning relating to the Newfoundland fishery, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, and the annual St John’s Regatta (where it is known today by the familiar nickname of “Up the Pond”), fit the bill perfectly. Emerson, in his published writings and folk music lectures, referenced both works extensively, as well as traditional songs



Prelude 19

collected by Karpeles and Greenleaf. (Of these, “She’s Like the Swallow,” “The Bloody Gardener,” “The Maiden’s Lament,” and selected others were particular favourites.) Through this process he contributed to the construction of an emerging canon of local repertoire, although one of markedly different orientation than the popular song tradition disseminated through the creative acts of Doyle, MacLeod, and Rumboldt. The dichotomy of Emerson’s and Doyle’s contrasting perspectives on what constituted “the real” Newfoundland folk music, and how these differing visions shaped the interpretation of Newfoundland culture in Canada and abroad in the post-Confederation era, is examined in chapter 9. The tacit implication throughout Emerson’s scholarly work was that readers and students would explore music of the Newfoundland canon as a gateway to further self-discovery and cultural exploration. The promotion of a carefully crafted canon of local repertoire, in other words, was by no means intended to negate or marginalize alternative (noncanonized) expressions of local culture, nor was it exclusively the product of an impulse toward cultural nationalism. (It would be difficult, if not impossible, for example, to construe the graphic violence of “The Bloody Gardener” as nationalistic.) Musical criteria such as modality and melodic style played an important role, as did the content and structure of the poetry, while the constraints of time and space that governed his scholarly activities necessitated a highly selective approach to repertoire. Once exposed to the potential of “our music,” so he thought, Newfoundlanders would feel compelled to go beyond the canon to explore aspects of their own musical past (and that of their respective families and communities) with renewed interest. In the tendency to reshape the past to conform to an essentialized conception of folk culture with nationalistic overtones, Emerson and his generation were in good company. The English folk music revival of the early twentieth century, rooted in romantic nationalism and shaped by the combined efforts of Karpeles, her mentor Cecil Sharp, Vaughan ­Williams (a close Karpeles colleague and acquaintance), and others, was similarly selective in favouring older songs with modal melodies over more recent (popular) songs cast in a tonal idiom. Within this aesthetic framework, it became possible for Karpeles to embrace certain song types as “authentic” and “traditional” and reject scores of others cast in a popular style if they did not conform to her definition of what a f­olksong was (as she did during her song collecting in Newfoundland). In like manner, Vaughan Williams published a far greater number of modal melodies from his song collecting days in England, even

20

Newfoundland Rhapsody

though the vast majority of songs he collected in the field were tonal. As discussed in chapter 5, Vaughan Williams and other leaders in the English folk revival were driven by a shared desire to establish a distinctly English musical style and, in doing so, make a decisive break with the then dominant Austro-Germanic art music tradition. Vaughan Williams wrote eloquently of his ideas in this regard in National Music and Other Essays, a kind of manifesto of English musical nationalism: “The art of music above all the other arts is the expression of the soul of a nation, and by nation I mean not necessarily aggregations of people, artificially divided from each other by political frontiers or economic barriers. What I mean is any community of people who are spiritually bound together by language, environment, history, and common ideals, and above all, a continuity with the past.”52 For Vaughan Williams, Karpeles, Sharp, and their associates, the key to unlocking the potential of an English musical culture was to be found in the folk music of the people and the guardians of this heritage were “the folk” themselves. This movement in turn echoed earlier nationalist expressions of the concept of “the folk,” such as the pioneering work of German writers Johan Gottfried Herder and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As Ian McKay has observed, “the ‘Folk’ came to be regarded as the epitome of simple truth, work, and virtue, the antithesis of all that was over civilized, tired, conventional, and insincere. The Folk were closer to nature (‘wild’ and ‘lacking social organization,’ according to Herder) and could respond more spontaneously to ‘natural music.’ For romantic nationalists, the ‘Folk’ were those whose very existence and culture testified to the possibility and necessity of the nation.”53 Inspired as he was by the English folksong movement and actively engaged in its activities, it is only natural that Emerson’s own discourse would be coloured by similar conceptions of “the folk,” or more specifically “the fisher folk,” a catch-all reference to rural Newfoundlanders that recurs time and again in his writings and lectures. This, in turn, invites comparison to the use of comparable categories by his Canadian contemporaries, notably the song-collecting activities of his friend and colleague Helen Creighton in Nova Scotia. For Creighton, Barbeau, MacMillan, Edith Fowke, and other pioneers in the Canadian folksong movement, folksongs were emblematic of a shared national heritage just as Sharp, Vaughan Williams, and K ­ arpeles saw in the English folksong tradition the potential for unlocking an indigenous musical style. Emerson, with close professional and personal ties to members of both national “schools,” was uniquely situated as a trans-



Prelude 21

Atlantic link in the international folk music community and ideally positioned to advance his own distinctive brand of folk-inspired musical nationalism. While Emerson may have accepted the construction of “the folk” as a useful categorization, he did not accept the implications of the term uncritically, and, in this sense, his views differed sharply from many “professional” song collectors of the era. Implicit in the construction of “the folk” was the belief in an anti-modern, anti-urban social stratum, the imagined existence of which held romantic allure for folklorists and song collectors seeking to discover remnants of a bygone era in an ever-changing world. The folk were “simple, isolated, different: they were Other, and not ‘us.’”54 In practice of course the myth of “the folk” was fraught with difficulty, as Karpeles quickly learned upon arriving in Newfoundland to discover that the isolated fisher folk she believed she was encountering were far more sophisticated, far more connected to the outside world, and far more diverse culturally than she had ever imagined. As discussed in chapter 5, Emerson’s role in correcting misconceptions surrounding the myth of “the folk” in Newfoundland was significant and, in many respects, a much needed counterbalance to the imagined “other” perpetuated by visiting song collectors. As he was careful to point out, “the fisher folk” of Newfoundland were by no means a homogenous group, not nearly so isolated as was widely assumed, and most certainly not a “primitive people” in any sense of the word. They were on the contrary intelligent, creative, unusually talented in some cases, and, in many instances, remarkably attuned to cultural developments elsewhere. It is within this frame of reference that he asserted the value of locally composed music (“not the least of the songs are those composed by the people themselves”) and argued persuasively for further exploration into the island’s latent repertoire of French and Gaelic songs (fields of inquiry largely untouched by visiting song collectors of the early twentieth century). While cultural preservationists often viewed technology as a threat to the continued survival of “the folk” and all they represented,55 Emerson embraced it, participating in an emerging broadcast culture, pioneering the use of phonograph recordings in his music lectures (as discussed in chapter 7), and recognizing that Newfoundlanders’ musical tastes were rapidly evolving in response to the new media (including radio broadcasts of diverse musical styles ­emanating from Canada and the United States). In his discourse, which anticipated more recent scholarship in its recognition of diverse musical styles and cultural contexts, the construction of “other” was replaced by possessive

22

Newfoundland Rhapsody

language of inclusion and kinship (“our music,” “our folk singers”). In short, while many twentieth-century scholars sought to work through the folk as a means of acquiring their cultural resources (the traditional music they “possessed”)56 and/or write about the folk as a field of anthropological inquiry, Emerson’s cultural work was implicitly for the folk and, in a sense, of the folk. In the creative space he inhabited, the folk were not “other” after all, they were “us.” As a coda to my narrative of Emerson’s life and times, separate appendices contain representative samplings of his scholarly and creative work, including his landmark folk music article in the Book of Newfoundland (annotated with new explanatory notes), selected lectures on Newfoundland folk music and music appreciation, selected correspondence with Barbeau, Creighton, Karpeles, Smallwood, and Vaughan ­Williams, the full text of his drama Proud Kate Sullivan, and transcriptions of his unpublished musical compositions In Flanders Fields and Newfoundland Scene, which I have transcribed and edited from E ­ merson’s handwritten manuscripts. The full texts of the article and lectures, building upon themes developed throughout the narrative, will help place his contributions in sharper focus by presenting them in their original contexts, while the letters, in turn, illuminate crucial aspects of his multifaceted relationships with some of the key figures involved in the mediation of Newfoundland and Canadian culture at mid-century. Similarly, it is my hope that the publication of some of Emerson’s little known but historically significant creative works may shed further light on this aspect of his life and, perhaps too, spark the interest of readers and performing artists of today just as Emerson himself inspired generations of ­Newfoundlanders toward their own journeys of cultural discovery.

1 The Early Years: Family Life, Bishop Feild College, and the “Ode to Newfoundland”

Frederick Rennie Emerson was born in St John’s, Newfoundland, on 2 April 1895, son of Helen Louise (Scott) Emerson (b. “Canada,” 1864 – d. Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, 1949) and Charles Henry Grigg Emerson (b. St John’s, 1863 – d. Boston, Massachusetts, 1919), a prominent Newfoundland lawyer and later politician who served as a cabinet minister in the government of Newfoundland Prime Minister Sir Edward ­Morris. The family’s roots can be traced to late eighteenth-century Concord, Massachusetts, raising the intriguing possibility of an ancestral connection to literary icon Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882). One of Frederick Emerson’s early ancestors, John Emerson, RN, (1750–1831) immigrated to Concord from England via Nova Scotia, in the late 1700s, accompanied by an unnamed brother.1 The precise relationship of the brothers to William Emerson,2 grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson and founder of the legendary “Old Manse” at Concord, remains a matter of conjecture, although it is interesting to note that John Emerson’s first two sons were both given the middle name “William” and William Emerson had a brother named John.3 The fact that the brothers chose Concord as their New England destination, then a town of approximately 1,500 with several members of the Emerson family among its religious and civic leaders, further supports the likelihood of an ancestral link with the Massachusetts Emersons. After moving to Concord, John Emerson worked as a gentleman farmer before retiring to Nova Scotia (where he died in 1831). This raises the fascinating likelihood of his presence in Massachusetts during the birth, childhood, and young adulthood of Ralph Waldo Emerson (and by extension the birth of American transcendentalism), although to what extent he may have encountered the latter remains unknown. The distinctive side profile of Frederick

24

Newfoundland Rhapsody

Table 1 The Family Lineage of Frederick R. Emerson John Emerson, RN B. c. 1750, Foxstowe, Norfolk, England M. 17 August 1777, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia D. 28 August 1831, Windsor, Nova Scotia = Catherine Schwartz (of Rosina Schwartz) B. Heidelberg, Germany D. Windsor, Nova Scotia George Henry Emerson B. 21 December 1798, Windsor, Nova Scotia M. 25 January 1827, Nova Scotia D. 3 July 1889, St John’s, Newfoundland = Rebecca Martha McLean (of Martha McLean) B. 5 June 1803 D. 17 February 1875, St John’s, Newfoundland John Archibald Sinclair Emerson B. 27 April 1833, St John’s, Newfoundland M. 12 February 1861, St John’s, Newfoundland D. 31 October 1868, St John’s, Newfoundland = Jessie Bayly (of James Bayly and Frances Maria Cawley) B. c. 1837 M. 25 April 1880, St John’s, Newfoundland = George William Buchan Carter B. 1822 Charles Henry Grigg Emerson B. 27 August 1863, St John’s, Newfoundland M. 18 May 1913, St John’s, Newfoundland D. 18 February 1919, Boston, Massachusetts = Helen Louise Scott (of Elizabeth J. Scott) B. 1864, “Canada” D. 20 April 1949, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Frederick Rennie Emerson B. 2 April 1895, St John’s, Newfoundland M. 8 January 1921, Pau, France D. 30 November 1972, Halifax, Nova Scotia = Isabel Jameson (of Harold William Jameson and Ann Maria Atkinson) B. 6 September 1892, Wrexham, North Wales D. 16 February 1981, Liverpool, Nova Scotia

­ merson, bearing a striking likeness to that of Ralph Waldo Emerson, E does little to dispel theories of an ancestral connection. Charles Emerson was for the young Frederick a powerful role model and mentor whose educational and career paths he would closely



The Early Years

25

e­ mulate. Educated at Bishop Feild College, a prominent Church of England boys’ school in Newfoundland’s longstanding tradition of denominational education, he spent a year in North Dakota before returning to Newfoundland to practice law (the unofficial “family business”) with his uncle Prescott Emerson. He was called to the Newfoundland bar in 1891 and, in 1894, entered politics as the Liberal candidate in a by­election for the district of Burgeo and Lapoile. Although defeated at the polls in his first foray into politics, Emerson was elected in the same district in the general election of 1900 and, in 1908, was elected as the People’s Party candidate in the district of Fortune Bay. He was re-elected in the general elections of 1909 and 1913, serving as a cabinet minister in the Newfoundland government of Prime Minister Edward Morris until 1917. He resigned from the House of Assembly in 1919 to become registrar of the Newfoundland Supreme Court.4 Charles Emerson died in Boston, Massachusetts, on 18 February 1919. While his father’s influence was paramount in his ultimate career path, it was largely due to the women in his life that the young ­Frederick ­Emerson developed an early and enduring attraction to music and the arts. His mother Helen was an accomplished pianist and a close childhood friend of the celebrated opera singer Georgina Stirling during their formative years in the picturesque fishing community of Twillingate, while his Aunt Clara Pinsent (the wife of freemasonry pioneer Charles Pinsent, Emerson’s godfather) was an avid pianist, classical music enthusiast, and organist at one of the oldest churches on the island, St Thomas’s Anglican Church in St John’s.5 In the early years of the twentieth century, that post would be filled by Herbert W. Stirling, one of Newfoundland’s most accomplished church musicians of the era and occasional collaborator with his musically gifted cousin Georgina. It was through Pinsent that Emerson first became acquainted with the music of Mozart: “She would sit down at the piano and play by the hour, from memory, little tunes and snatches of melody from the voluntaries she had played years before. Some of these tunes were special favourites of mine – of course I did not know their names – but sometimes after playing those I liked best she would stop, turn to me and say, smilingly, ‘That is Mozart.’ In this manner I first became acquainted with Mozart’s music and his name became associated in my mind with some of the most pleasant moments of my childhood.”6 All of which helps to explain his aunt’s rather unique choice of gift to celebrate Emerson’s eighth birthday. It seems that in that particular year the occasion had been overlooked; undeterred, the resourceful

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Figure 1.1 Georgina Stirling (Marie Toulinguet) (1867–1935)

woman rifled through a stack of sheet music and handed him a gift that may have seemed more than a little unorthodox for any other child of his age – Mozart’s Twelfth Mass in printed score! Much to everyone’s delight and astonishment, the young Frederick was enraptured by the gift. It was as if that first exposure to Mozart’s music – and all it symbolized – opened up a world of musical discovery and creative space that would last a lifetime. Nearly half a century later, Emerson could still recount the incident fondly: On one occasion, it was that very important day in the life of a child, my birthday – I think I was eight years old – I called at her house, as usual, to receive the present my godfather always had ready for me. On this occasion, however, my birthday had been forgotten; there



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was no present, but my aunt like the elephant in Kipling’s “Jungle Book” was a person “of infinite resource and sagacity” and far too discreet to let me suspect the omission. After the purport of my visit became plain – it probably did not take long to become so – she led me into the drawing room and said mysteriously: “Your godfather did not buy a pencil box or a penknife for you this time because I thought I would give you a special present, something you particularly liked.” She foraged among a big pile of music bound in brown, and said: “Of course, I could have bought you a new copy, but I thought you would rather the one I used to have.” She handed me a well-worn copy of Mozart’s Twelfth Mass. “This,” she said, “has all the nice little tunes in it that you like so much. I am sure you will enjoy picking them out for yourself.” I now suspect that her enthusiasm concealed a certain amount of anxiety as to how the gift would be received. As a matter of fact, her fears were groundless. I ran home delighted and could not get quickly enough to my piano. The Mass stood on it for years until, as was natural in the rough hands of a boy, it fell to pieces and was no more. It was in this friendly and natural way that I first became introduced to Mozart and perhaps it is because it happened to me when I was so very young that his personality and music have always had a special glamour and appeal.7 Emerson maintained a close bond with his younger sister Clara (1899–1981). The siblings shared in a remarkably vibrant cultural upbringing enriched by family members such as James Bayly (Emerson’s great-grandfather) and the eclectic potpourri of talented and intriguing acquaintances with whom he was associated. The study of languages was to become one of Emerson’s greatest passions in adulthood and an early proclivity toward the subject was no doubt conditioned by the recurring presence of foreign guests in the Emerson home. An episode that occurred in 1906 was typical. That year Charles Emerson was campaigning for public office on the South Coast of Newfoundland, where he met an Italian by the name of Dr Sordero and introduced the visitor to young Frederick. From Sordero, Emerson garnered a firsthand knowledge of the Italian language (and Italian culture) that was exceedingly rare in Newfoundland at the time, even more so for a boy of eleven. His fascination with foreign languages and cultures, affirmed by the study of French in his early schooling, would grow exponentially into adulthood, serving as a kind of idée fixe (to borrow Hector Berlioz’s terminology) linking the various “movements” of his life.

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Clara and Frederick were very close during their formative years and remained so into adulthood. Although not sharing her brother’s passion for music, she possessed a keen intellect and was said to have a fantastic memory. After receiving her secondary education at Edgehill, Nova Scotia8, she married Canadian Harold Hubley at age nineteen and thereafter lived in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Their son Charles Hubley (b. 1920) grew up to become a nuclear scientist of renown in Britain and later Canada. An avid music lover and amateur violinist, Hubley would later recount the impact of time spent with “Uncle Fred” during his teenage years and after, especially with regard to music.9 Decades later, Emerson would offer the same unconditional support and encouragement to Hubley’s violin-playing daughters Elizabeth and Katherine, both of whom went on to successful careers as professional musicians.10 In 2005, Hubley gave the following recollection of those early encounters: My first encounter with the Newfoundland side of the family was in the summer of 1932, when I travelled as a twelve-year-old on a Furness Withy vessel from Halifax to St John’s for a one-month visit with the Emersons, travelling under the attentive eye of Charlie Hunt, then my uncle’s senior law partner. I was met on the pier in St John’s by Fred, Carla, Anne, and Harry.11 In the excitement of greeting my brand new extended family I managed to let the lid of my overstuffed suitcase fly open and dump the contents onto the wharf. Uncle Fred immediately assured me that this was not an unusual occurrence and there was really nothing to be concerned about, while quickly organizing the cousins into an efficient retrieval and repacking team. For a sensitive “only child” it was indeed a memorable and invaluable visit ... It was during a business visit to Halifax in the mid-1930s that Uncle Fred learned I was taking violin lessons. He encouraged my interest in music and said that on his next visit he would bring the violin he had acquired as a student in England, and if I could by then play Beethoven’s Spring Sonata to his satisfaction, the violin would be mine for good. In spite of my limitations, by the next visit he saw enough progress to declare the instrument was now mine – a significant step up from the Japanese instrument I had been using. Thereafter, he was always very generous in playing music with me during subsequent visits and later with my two daughters, who became professional musicians with lifetime careers.12



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In one final anecdote to the sibling relationship between Clara and ­Frederick Emerson, it is interesting to note that Clara became a close friend of Helen Creighton during her years in Nova Scotia. It would be through Clara’s introduction decades later that Frederick and Creighton first met, a personal relationship that would develop into a professional one in their collaborative efforts to foster the growth and development of the Canadian Folk Music Society. Like his father before him, Emerson’s early schooling took place at Bishop Feild College in St John’s.13 Founded in 1844 by the Bishop Edward Feild, the school was originally known as the Collegiate School and later the Church of England Academy, before adopting the name of its founder in 1894. The student body was comprised chiefly of boys from middle- to upper-class St John’s families and affluent outport homes, the latter of whom resided at the school’s dormitory. From inception, Bishop Feild College was closely patterned after British organizational and curricular models. Until the twentieth century, all headmasters were British immigrants, students progressed through “forms” rather than grades, and those who completed the final form were eligible to write the London Matriculation Exam to obtain an Associate of Arts diploma. A 1909 article in the college journal The Feildian gave the following comparative assessment of the college and its English counterparts: “The average English school of the same size as the College is in no way superior to our own institution. Our income is smaller, but the work we do is as advanced and as thorough as that of most English schools. We do not specialize to the same extent, but we give our boys a better general education ... The equipment of the College is not on the whole as good as that of the ordinary English school; but the earnestness and efficiency of the staff does much to make up for this defect. Speaking generally we may conclude that Newfoundland is fortunate in possessing colleges which give its boys as good an education as can be obtained in the ordinary English school, and which in many ways do more to prepare them for work in the world.”14 Upon graduation, students of exceptional ability and sufficient means could continue their studies at secondary and occasionally post-­secondary institutions abroad (typically in the British Isles), and by the early twentieth century the college boasted several Rhodes Scholars among its alumni.15 During its history, the college produced bishops, high-ranking politicians, judges, military heroes, creative artists, and academics from its student ranks, including acclaimed Broadway producer John M ­ urray Anderson and decorated World War One ­ veteran Thomas Ricketts,

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among many others. Among the more prominent Bishop Feild alumni of recent memory are former Newfoundland lieutenant governor and federal cabinet minister John Crosbie, former lieutenant governors Sir Leonard Outerbridge and Gordon A. Winter, playwright Edward “Ted” Russell, media mogul Geoffrey Stirling, the voice of the CBC television’s Hockey Night in Canada Bob Cole, literary scholar George Story, university professor and administrator Moses Morgan, and the last father of Confederation, long-time Newfoundland premier Joseph R. Smallwood. In 1861, the school moved from the modest confines of a small schoolhouse on Forest Road to a new, Tudor-style brick building constructed between King’s Road and Colonial Street. An extension was added in 1876 to accommodate the demands of increasing enrollment, while two additional wings added in 1894 contained four large classrooms, a lecture room and library, a practical science laboratory and an ornate assembly hall. As an advertisement for the college in August of that year proudly proclaimed, “the new buildings are most commodious, and everything has been constructed for Scholastic purposes. The Classrooms will be so heated and ventilated that all the air in each will be replaced every twenty minutes. There are rooms set apart for the study and practice of Science, and everything which is needed in a modern School-building has been thought of.”16 The expanded complex (including the structure of 1861) survived until 1928, when a new college campus was erected on Bond Street. That building was for a period the best equipped educational facility in Newfoundland and is still in use today as Bishop Feild Elementary School. A defining moment in the history of the college was the appointment of its first lay headmaster, William Walker Blackall (1864–1943), in 1891; his dynamic presence towered over all aspects of life at the college for close to two decades.17 Born in Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, England, son of the Church of England minister Rev. T. Blackall, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree (in English, Latin, Greek, French, and Mathematics) from the University of London in 1890 and later an honorary doctorate from the University of King’s College, Windsor (1908).18 Blackall taught extensively in England before immigrating to Newfoundland to assume the headmastership of the college, including postings at Schorne College, St John’s College, Eaton House School, Aldeburgh, and Wellington House School, Westgate-on-Lea. In addition to headmastership duties at Bishop Feild College, he was the first President of the Newfoundland Teachers’ Association (1898) and a key figure in the formation of the Council of Higher Education (serving as vice-president in 1905). In



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Figure 1.2 Convention of the Newfoundland Teachers Association at Bishop Feild College, 13 July 1899, with William W. Blackall seated second row, centre

his later years, he served as Superintendent of Education for Church of England Schools in Newfoundland, founder of the St John’s “Normal School” for the upgrading of teacher training (est. 1921), and was one of the driving forces behind the formation of Memorial University College in 1925 (see chapter 7). Blackall would later write a book on the subject, entitled Newfoundland, Memorial College and Normal School.19 In 1918, he was bestowed with the title “Member of the British Empire” (MBE) for his educational work in Newfoundland. Blackall retired to Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, in 1933, where he lived until his death ten years later. A commemorative plaque in his honour stands outside of Bishop Feild College Hall, while a St John’s street, a former elementary school, and a Memorial University of Newfoundland student residence all bear his name. During Blackall’s imposing tenure, Bishop Feild College was transformed from a somewhat staid institution into a progressive centre of learning that became the envy of the island. Such could not be said upon Blackall’s arrival in Newfoundland in 1891 when, following several years of diminishing enrollment, the student body numbered a mere 27 boys and the very future of the institution appeared uncertain at

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best. That number grew exponentially under Blackall and by 1895 more than 140 students were registered. Central to the renewed vitality of the college was Blackall’s revamped curriculum, a three-pronged system founded upon an educational philosophy that emphasized moral, mental, and physical education as requisites for sound training. The “moral” component included daily prayers, hymn singing, and religious instruction aimed at cultivating in the boys “a reverence for God, a kindly disposition to those around them, and a high code of honour, truthfulness and simplicity in all their doings.”20 “Mental” training – the academic core of the curriculum  – included studies in English (grammar, composition, and literature), Arithmetic, Algebra, and French in the lower forms, followed by a range of “Classical” and “Commercial” subjects taught in the higher forms. Subjects falling in the latter two categories included Latin, Greek, German, Shorthand, Book-keeping, Correspondence, Natural Sciences, Euclid, and Mechanics, in addition to advanced studies in subjects introduced in the lower forms. Physical education training, another area of special interest for the headmaster, was expanded to included daily instruction in sports, an annual sports day, and, most notably perhaps, participation in intercollegiate competitions (in sports such as hockey, soccer, rugby, and basketball). These competitions served the additional purpose of boosting school spirit and the collegial rivalries that developed between Bishop Feild College and its Roman Catholic counterpart St Bonaventure’s College persisted well into the twentieth century. With respect to his views on school spirit, Blackall once remarked that “esprit de corps is a most essential factor in the life of any institution and anything that will help it is desirable.”21 In 1896, Blackall became the first president of the newly founded Newfoundland Amateur Athletic Association. The college spirit Blackall advocated is well illustrated by the words of the “College Song,” a piece of music he composed expressly for the occasion of the Bishop Feild College Speech Day in 1904: We love thee, dear old College, We love Thee BFC We love thee for thy founder’s sake, Aye true to thee we’ll be.22 Sung on the school’s speech days, prize days, and other festive occasions, it was the musical embodiment of the school spirit William Blackall so passionately espoused. The poet was the headmaster’s brother (and



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f­requent song collaborator) the Rev. David W. Blackall.23 The newly formed college bugle band frequently added to the pomp and ceremony of such occasions by providing instrumental accompaniment, although on at least one occasion the student percussionists involved in the performance were perhaps a little too spirited for comfort: “Our College Song was sung, at the suggestion of some of the lads, with much vigour, but, unhappily for those seated near the front, the drummers inadvertently placed themselves between the boys and the audience.”24 All boys at the college received ample opportunity to study visual art and music and the latter was a particular source of pride for Blackall, himself a fine musician and accomplished composer. In addition to mandatory studies in vocal music, a college choir was founded as an extracurricular enhancement, while individual instruction in instrumental music could be obtained for an additional fee. Aside from composing music for special occasions (including the Bishop Feild “College Song” quoted above and the similarly inspired “College Football Song”), Blackall directed school operettas and concerts, and in December 1902 established the aforementioned bugle band in conjunction with the newly founded College Corps (1901) (subsequently known as “C-corps”) of the Church Lads Brigade (CLB).25 The Church Lads Brigade cadet movement was founded in England in 1891 and began operations in Newfoundland the following year with the founding of its first overseas company in St John’s. The College Corps was founded in 1901, and by 1905 the C-corps Band numbered six buglers and two drummers. The C-corps Band was closely affiliated with the renowned CLB Avalon Battalion Band and performances by the award-winning ensemble undoubtedly left a lasting impression with many young college cadets. Arguably the most celebrated of the church-affiliated bands established in Newfoundland in the late nineteenth century (a legacy of the British band tradition), the CLB Avalon Battalion Band had its beginnings in the 1890s under the direction of veteran Newfoundland bandmaster David Bennett. In 1907, Nathaniel Snow led the band to international prominence with a prize-winning performance in the Earl Grey Inter-­colonial Music Competition in Ottawa (placing second in the competition to the Québec Symphony Society). The band competed before a capacity crowd at Ottawa’s Russell Theatre, where they were adjudicated by American composer and music critic George W. Chadwick. Lauded by the Ottawa press for their efforts, they received a curtain call for an encore performance of one of Canada’s most popular patriotic songs, Alexander Muir’s iconic “The Maple Leaf Forever.”26 Other music in the band’s

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Figure 1.3 Church Lads Brigade Avalon Battalion Band at the Colonel Grey Inter-colonial Music Competition, Ottawa, 1907. Front row (left–right): Arthur Peters, Ken Adams, Herb. Goudie, Capt N. Snow, Wm. Ryall, Geo. Ivany, Ern. Adams; Second row (L–R): Cp Alex Morris, Sgt Robert Morgan, Claude Noonan, Gus. Stafford, Richard Martin; Third row (L–R): Harry Pope, L/Cpl Charles Southcott, Arch Peet, Sgt Fred Martin; Fourth row (L–R): Sgt Stan Cake, Lieut E.R. Skill, Sgt John Pippy.

broad repertoire during that era included marches by Sousa and opera excerpts from Gounod’s Faust and Wagner’s ­Tannhauser, among other works. Emerson would later join the CLB and, in adulthood, contributed to the ensemble’s tradition of musical excellence by coaching the Battalion Band in preparation for public performances (see chapter 8). In Newfoundland and Labrador today the CLB Band is perhaps best known for its close association with the annual St John’s Regatta, where the group’s annual performances of “The Banks of Newfoundland” (“Up the Pond”) serve as the unmistakable “soundtrack” of North America’s oldest continuing sporting event. In 1893, Blackall organized and directed the college’s first of many annual Speech Days, a festive public display marked by student musical and dramatic performances and the distribution of academic prizes. The first such event took place in July 1893 and, in a model indicative of future programs of its kind, featured songs, choruses, glees, recitations, and selections from Shakespeare’s King Henry VIII rendered by boys of the school. Similar events followed in the ensuing years, such as a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury in March 1894 as a joint fundraiser for the building funds of the college and the Presentation Convent. This ecumenical effort serves as a useful reminder of how



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­ ft-mentioned sectarian differences, though frequently a polarizing force o in Newfoundland’s social and political history, tend to mask the fact that many cooperative efforts did take place, especially in the realm of music and the performing arts. Considered in another light, emergent concert life in late nineteenth-century Newfoundland was integral to the building of a new society in which Protestants and Roman Catholics could, at least momentarily, cast aside historical differences for the common good and celebrate shared forms of cultural expression. Among the cast of the 1894 production were the singing politician George Shea (1851–1932),27 and the dynamic Charles Hutton (1861–1949). Born and raised in St John’s, Newfoundland, Hutton ­ attended St Bonaventure’s College before undertaking supplementary studies in Prince Edward Island and St Pierre. An accomplished pianist, he performed with the legendary Canadian opera diva Emma Albani on at least one occasion and likewise collaborated with ­Georgina ­Stirling. In his native Newfoundland, he was best known as the longtime organist and choirmaster of the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St John the Baptist, an impresario of concerts and operettas, and the proprietor of Hutton’s Music Store.28 In 1906, Hutton published an important yet seldom-explored collection of music entitled the Newfoundland Folio of Over Fifty Old Favorite Songs. The first compilation of its kind in Newfoundland, the Folio is an invaluable record of Newfoundlanders’ popular tastes in the late nineteenth century, preserving for posterity the music that helped define an emerging Newfoundland society. The songs contained therein, while not all of local origin, typified the breadth of musical repertoire that many late-nineteenth-century Newfoundlanders experienced and suggest that the oft-held notion of an isolated, culturally static society is more illusory than real. Included in the collection are a number of songs of British and Irish origin, yet one also finds a substantial body of music imported from continental North America. American songs include Emmet’s “Dixie Land” and Foster’s “My Old Kentucky Home” among others, while Canada is well represented by Thomas Moore’s “Canadian Boat Song” and Muir’s quintessentially nationalistic “Maple Leaf Forever.”29 The folio contains seven pieces of Newfoundland origin, including Forbes’s “The Banks of Newfoundland” (arranged by Hutton),30 William Stacy’s Newfoundland Volunteers Band March and Quick Step,31 Hutton’s settings of Archbishop Michael Howley’s popular nationalistic song “The Flag of Newfoundland” and the landscape-inspired “Dear, Old South-Side Hill,” and no less than three settings of Sir Cavendish Boyle’s “Ode to Newfoundland” (including two contrasting settings by Hutton himself).

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There can be little doubt that Blackall and Hutton shared many stimulating conversations on aspects of music composition, education, and repertoire, a kinship fostered through their shared membership in a local chamber music society known as the Orpheus Club. Although Blackall’s name is synonymous with Bishop Feild College and much of his creative energies were directed toward its music and fine arts programs, membership in the Orpheus Club (an organization comprised of some of the finest singers and instrumentalists in Newfoundland) serves to underscore his broader contributions to the musical community at large. Public performances at the college were enhanced immeasurably by the interior space of the newly constructed assembly hall. Arguably one of the city’s finest auditoriums (if not one of the largest) following the Great Fire of 1892, the hall was one of several civic performance spaces that rose from the ashes of the razed St John’s Athenaeum to mark a new era for the performing arts in the capital city. As the centrepiece for the new college complex, it was a source of notable pride for Blackall and his administration, especially with respect to its potential for hosting concerts and theatrical productions: “The hall is seated with opera seats throughout, and will be of great service for purposes of prayer, vocal music, drill, general assembly and entertainment ... [It] is universally admired, and is certainly a beautiful chamber. It is well proportioned, and its acoustic properties are marvelous.”32 In a happy concurrence of events, Emerson’s early schooling followed in the wake of the Blackall-led Renaissance at Bishop Feild College, an enriched learning environment in which music and the arts occupied a central position. As Blackall once asserted, with words government officials would do well to remember today, “Not only do these activities give the children increased pleasure in their daily routine of lessons, but they strengthen the memory, improve the deportment, give confidence in self, elevate the tastes, and do more than anything else we know of to arouse the intelligence. Reading and writing and adding and subtracting are very useful acquisitions, but those who regard them as the best means of educating young ones are very much mistaken. How many children are taught to read, write and sum with considerable skill, and yet have not an ear to hear with, en eye to see with, a nose to smell with, a finger to feel with, or a mind to reason with!”33 Decades later, in 1934, he offered the following remarks on the central position of traditional music in Newfoundland society and expressed buoyant optimism for the future development of community music making: “How many v­ illage bands



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have we in Newfoundland? How often do the people gather together for community singing? We cannot answer these questions, but the sound of the mouth-organ, accordion and fiddle heard frequently by the traveller and played with surprising skill and perfect rhythm assures us that by nature our people are naturally musical. For organization and community work leaders only are needed. Now parsons, teachers, doctors and others holding positions of responsibility, the appeal goes to you to become leaders in community music. Let the loud chorus resound through the land!”34 The study of languages was another Blackall specialty, and the college’s inclusion of conversational French (in addition to written comprehension) was rare in Newfoundland at that time. Blackall had specialized in French during his studies at the University of London and spent summer 1899 in Versailles engaged in the practical study of the language. A 1904 article in the The Feildian explained the rationale behind his approach: French being a living language, it seems absurd to have it taught, as it is still taught in most schools, almost exclusively from books by written exercises as if it were an ancient classic. We do not mean to say that learning French in this way does no good, but we aver that for practical, conversational and, we might add, for business purposes it is, if not quite useless, yet nearly so ... It is because the authorities of Bishop Feild College have for the past thirteen years felt the absurdity of the old way and the need of the new way in the teaching of French that there has always been employed on the staff a thoroughly competent instructor of French by the living method and that there has been afforded to parents opportunities of having their boys thus taught this language in the formation of special classes in French Conversation, the special fee required for admission to which has always been kept low, i.e., $10 a year. As the perfect acquiring of the manifold new sounds calls for a sensitive ear and a retentive ear-memory, and as these are best cultivated at a young age, it is desirable that boys should join these classes at as young an age as convenient – say between eight and twelve ... The rendering of the French Dramatic Selection on Speech day was the result of the work of these classes. We have always had to thank the French Representative resident here for kind help in this work, and the present consul, Mons. Rigoreau, was good enough to examine the French Conversation classes at the close of the last school year.35

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Emerson entered form 1 of the college (the equivalent of kindergarten) in 1901, the same year that the first of many public cantata performances in the college’s history was presented. The historic cantata King Alfred and the Danes was an ambitious undertaking for a school such as Bishop Feild College. With tenors and basses in scarce supply (not surprisingly given the fact that most students were in their early teens or younger), guest singers from the community were enlisted for vocal support, yet the boys of the college were entirely responsible for the soprano and alto parts throughout. As The Feildian tells us, the performance represented something of a milestone for the fledgling vocal program and, even though “those who have been blessed with good voices [were] almost as scarce as snowflakes in August,” the singing was not without promise: “We were pleased to learn after the performance from ladies and gentlemen who were competent to judge and willing to give an honest opinion, that the choruses (and more particularly the last three) were very well rendered ... We think ... that it was a step in the right direction, for we prize music very highly as a factor in education.”36 Cantatas, operas, part songs and choruses, piano solos and duets, and other instrumental selections formed the nucleus of school concert programs during Emerson’s years at the college, to which dramatized scenes from Shakespeare were often appended. One such event took place on 23 December 1903, when the “historic comic opera” Alfred the Great, the Inventive King was performed under Blackall’s direction.37 The college’s ability to mount ambitious musical productions was further enhanced by the purchase of a grand piano in 1903,38 while a 1904 operetta performance was accompanied by a small chamber orchestra of adult volunteers from the community. Interestingly, the orchestra’s bass violist on that occasion was E.R. Krippner, a German-born bandmaster and music store proprietor living in St John’s.39 Two years prior, Krippner had etched his name indelibly in Newfoundland music history by composing the first musical setting of Governor Sir Cavendish Boyle’s now famous “Ode to Newfoundland,” a piece premiered in spectacular fashion at the Casino Theatre in St John’s with Krippner himself conducting the orchestra. It was there, during a stage production by the visiting W.S. Harkins theatre company on 21 January 1902 that the words of the “Ode” were first sung by actress Daisy Foster.40 The new song was greeted enthusiastically by the large house in attendance, many of whom joined in the singing of the refrain, while critical reception was unequivocal: “Miss Frances Daisy Foster rendered with exquisite feeling a new song entitled ‘Newfoundland.’ It proved a pleasant surprise



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and the general appreciation of it was marked by the audience joining spontaneously in the chorus. It now transpires that the song was composed by our own esteemed and popular Governor, Sir Cavendish Boyle. The music for the Governor’s poem was arranged by Professor E.R. ­Krippner and reflects much credit to his musical ability. The colourful anthem bids fair to become our national anthem.”41 Not surprisingly perhaps given the nature of the event, the world premiere of the “Ode” was marked by all of the pageantry the theatre company could muster: “The climax was reached when at the singing of the last verse, two soldiers, a red coat and a khaki boy, entered from either side of the stage bearing, respectively the Royal standard and the ‘Pink, White and Green.’ Those they crossed behind the singer and enthusiasm ran high. During the chorus, in which the Company all joined with telling effect, the staffs were placed horizontally in front of the singer Miss Foster and the effect as she tenderly gathered up the folds of the two flags, carefully intertwined them and clasped them lovingly to her breast created among the audience an atmosphere of emotionalism charged with patriotic fervor and sentiment.”42 ­Krippner’s “Ode” setting caused something of a sensation, prompting the composer to engage the Leipzig music publisher C.G. Roder to meet the surging demand for sheet music.43 The conscious appeal to nationalist sentiment is vividly illustrated by the lavish cover design of the published version, framed by a Newfoundland sealer and a British naval reservist clasping the Pink, White, and Green and the Union Jack, respectively. Acquiring the talents of a musician of ­Krippner’s calibre to play for a school operetta was no small accomplishment and speaks to the high regard in which Blackall (the conductor of the performance) was held within the Newfoundland music community.44 Blackall, for his part, was no doubt ecstatic at the prospect of mounting a production supported by an accomplished chamber orchestra. Music teachers at the college during Emerson’s school years included Englishman Charles M. Wright and later Newfoundlander and Bishop Feild alumnus Herbert W. Stirling, LLCM (the aforementioned cousin of opera diva Georgina Stirling).45 Wright was employed as music teacher and classroom instructor for form 4 of the college, as well as holding the additional post of organist and choirmaster at the Church of England Cathedral of St John the Baptist in St John’s. Blackall, a headmaster well qualified to pass judgment on musical matters, praised Wright for his “diligence” and saluted his contributions to music education at the college, yet reading not far between the lines of the headmaster’s words,

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Figure 1.4 Title page of E.R. Krippner, “Newfoundland”

Wright’s teaching performance may have been less than stellar or at the very least somewhat erratic on occasion. As Blackall noted with discernible diplomacy in 1901, “Mr Wright is, I am happy to say, not one of that very small class of people who never makes mistakes.”46 Emerson, for his part, would later recall that the music master possessed a rather idiosyncratic style of directing young singers.47 Wright was rarely far



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from controversy and, by 1905, found himself embroiled in a heated dispute with church officials over the state of the Cathedral organ. As an act of protest against the poor condition of the organ, he engaged in a high-stakes gamble of sorts by threatening to resign his post to pressure the parish to act urgently on the matter. Much to his dismay, church officials responded in the opposite manner by abruptly terminating his employment. The termination notice was later rescinded after a carefully crafted letter of retraction by the organist and support from members of the choir; however, the political fallout of the incident was irrevocable. Wright’s tenure at the cathedral and the college were quickly drawing to a tumultuous close. Stirling (1874–1956), a former pupil of Sir C. Hubert Parry at the Royal College of Music in London (where he graduated with academic distinction in 1897), retained close ties with Bishop Feild College while studying abroad, reporting back to Newfoundland on concerts and special events in London and undertaking a successful fundraising campaign at the Royal College of Music in aid of his hometown alma mater. He assumed the role of music teacher at Bishop Feild in November 1908 following a similar appointment at the Presbyterian College in St John’s. Within a few short weeks of his arrival he had mounted a performance in time for the annual Speech Day on 22 December of that year. The Feildian records that “the singing for which Mr H. Stirling was responsible was the result of a very short period of preparation, Mr Stirling not taking up his duties as Singing Master till about three weeks before the performance. The Soldiers Chorus from Faust was especially well rendered. Both the French and English Selections had been carefully prepared and reflected credit upon the performers.”48 Stirling taught singing, violin, and piano at Bishop Feild and its sibling school for girls, Bishop Spencer College, where he produced annual Christmas operettas. Like Wright and many other music teachers in Newfoundland at the time, he held dual school and church postings, serving as music director of St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church during his previous tenure at the Presbyterian College and later, during his Bishop Feild years, as organist and choirmaster at St Thomas’s Anglican Church in St John’s. Following his arrival at Bishop Feild in 1908, music instruction at the college would remain in Stirling’s capable hands for more than two decades, as did the post of music director of St Thomas’s parish. He served dutifully in the latter role until collapsing at the organ during a church service in 1952. He was named Organist Emeritus at St Thomas’s in 1953 and at the time of his death in 1956 had served the parish for more than

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half a century. In addition to playing a central role in Emerson’s early musical training, Stirling would go on to serve as teacher and mentor to generations of Newfoundland music students and the full extent of his contributions to music education in Newfoundland has yet to be fully documented. Among the many later pupils to benefit from his tutelage were the pianist Gordon MacPherson and the singers Stuart Godfrey and Ethel Noonan. In addition to choral singing, private piano instruction was available at the college in accordance with the guidelines of the Trinity College syllabus prescribed by the Council of Higher Education for its examinations.49 Affiliated with the University of London, Trinity College had launched a system of graded music examinations (practical and theoretical) in 1876 and, in the ensuing decades, the Trinity College examination system would spread throughout much of the British Empire. Beginning in 1902 and continuing for much of the twentieth century, the Trinity College music examinations were synonymous with private musical instruction in Newfoundland (aided immeasurably by the pioneering efforts of the nuns of the Presentation and Mercy Orders).50 The first Bishop Feild College student to complete the examinations was F.K. Hutchings, who received his Intermediate Grade Theory and Junior Grade Practical Pianoforte certificates in 1904.51 Emerson followed shortly thereafter, studying piano under the tutelage of Wright and receiving his Junior Grade Piano Diploma in 1905.52 In 1909, during later studies with Stirling, Emerson was awarded a special prize in practical music from the college and became one of four Bishop Feild students that year to receive a music certificate in piano playing from Trinity College.53 While an aptitude for music was clearly evident during Emerson’s early school years, a high level of academic achievement across a range of subject areas foretold of a lifelong quest for knowledge. As early as 1905, he received special prizes for English and Divinity and in the ensuing years received honours for English, French, and other subjects. At the college’s annual Speech Day in 1909, he received awards for music, English, and French, and performed on the program as solo pianist. Of particular interest here is his participation in the college’s newly founded Concert and Debating Club, a student organization operated by senior students. The club presented a series of public performances from March to May 1909. Included among the programs were poetry readings and recitations, operettas, songs, piano and violin pieces, gramophone selections, and staged debates on topical subjects, all performed by members



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of the club. Emerson closed the musical portion of the first performance with an unspecified pianoforte solo. Among the topics hotly contested in the club’s inaugural public debates were “That women have the same right as men to vote at all elections” and the generations-old question “Would Confederation with Canada benefit Newfoundland?” The following year, in an intriguing turn of events, Bishop Feild College opened its doors to a thin, awkward-looking ten-year-old by the name of Joseph R. Smallwood. One clubmate of note was Robert Holland Tait (1891–1964), a prizewinning student and athletics captain who in 1910 achieved distinction as the college’s second Rhodes Scholar. Tait joined the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in World War I and was awarded a Military Cross in 1917. He founded the Newfoundland Weekly and wrote several historical and poetical works on Newfoundland, including The Trail of the Caribou (1933), a book of poetry about the experiences of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.54 The tandem of Tait and Emerson must have made for an unusually gifted pair of adolescents, yet one wonders in retrospect whether the young Emerson may have felt somewhat overshadowed at the time by the accolades heaped upon his elder schoolmate. What is clear is that both possessed outstanding academic potential that would flower fully in adulthood with intellectual lives of distinction. The advent of the Concert and Debating Club, the intermingling of music, drama, and scholarship it permitted, and the creative space and intellectual curiosity it represented were both timely and influential in ­Emerson’s formative development. In addition to his appearance as a solo pianist, the presence of gramophone selections on the programs is especially interesting in light of his pioneering role decades later in developing a music appreciation program at Memorial University College. Having William Blackall as a role model and mentor could not have been more fortuitous for the young Frederick Emerson. In addition to his progressive views on the importance of music in the curriculum, Blackall was a singer who composed the aforementioned “College Football Song” and Bishop Feild “College Song,” as well as a wartime patriotic song entitled “Churchill is the Lad” and the widely heard “Newfoundland, Isle of the Free.” Less influential, it seems, was Blackall’s passionate advocacy of athletics. In a gesture that speaks volumes, Emerson astonished everyone by crafting a homemade violin from a cricket wicket he had been given! Blackall’s most popular piece of music, the fervently nationalistic “Newfoundland, Isle of the Free,” was composed for the occasion of the

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Figure 1.5 William Walker Blackall, “Newfoundland, Isle of the Free!”

Bishop Feild College Speech Day, on 19 December 1907, and premiered by the college choir. Following in the wake of popular patriotic songs such as “The Flag of Newfoundland” (with text by Roman Catholic Archbishop Michael Howley) and Newfoundland Governor Cavendish Boyle’s now famous “Ode to Newfoundland,” the song was emphatically the product of an era of renewed musical nationalism in N ­ ewfoundland



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that echoed the golden age of Canadian patriotic songs decades earlier. In both contexts expressions of musical nationalism paralleled evolving concepts of nation and identity. Just as a flurry of nineteenth-­century English and French Canadian songs served as “soundtracks” to the birth of a nation, emergent expressions of musical nationalism in Newfoundland were fuelled by a spirit of independence that informed government policy and permeated the social consciousness as the twentieth century dawned. “The Flag of Newfoundland” and the “Ode to Newfoundland” spawned multiple musical settings, the former set to music by Charles Hutton and Sister Josephine O’Sullivan, the latter by ­Hutton, ­Krippner, Alfred Allen, and, of course, the “official” version by Sir C. Hubert Parry. In the case of Hutton’s popular choral setting of “The Flag of Newfoundland,” we are reminded that the cultural crosscurrents linking expressions of Canadian and Newfoundland identity were at times stronger than is generally acknowledged. A buoyantly nationalistic piece in the tradition of James Paton Clarke’s “Lays of the Maple Leaf,” ­Alexander Muir’s “The Maple Leaf Forever” and Calixa Lavallée’s “O Canada,” the song culminates with unmistakable allusions to “O Canada” in the chorus.55 In the “Ode to Newfoundland,” the poetically inclined governor was no doubt expressing a genuine affinity for his newly adopted home, yet the verses of the “Ode” – a romantic hybrid of landscape imagery (“When sun rays crown thy pine-clad hills”), generational connectedness (“Where once they stood we stand”), spirituality (“Their prayer we raise to Heaven above”), and unconditional patriotism (“We love thee, Newfoundland”), were deftly molded to trigger feelings of identity and national pride.56 Balladeer James Murphy, with inimitable flair, exclaimed that Boyle possessed “the poetical talent which marks the sons of Erin,” adding somewhat prophetically that “his poem, ‘Newfoundland,’ will live in the hearts of future generations of my countrymen.”57 An article that appeared in The Feildian in March 1904 provides a fascinating contemporary glimpse into critical reception of the governor’s poem and its multiple musical settings: “Full of the real spirit of poetry, patriotic in sentiment and elegant in diction, it is far too good to be lost ... Several musical settings have been furnished – some of them really beautiful, but so far as we know none has yet been furnished which is at the same time sufficiently stately and tuneful to be accepted as the people’s tune for it.”58 Of particular interest here is the fact that Boyle himself was present at Bishop Feild College for the premiere of Blackall’s “Newfoundland, Isle of the Free” and that within months of

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the above call for a “sufficiently stately” people’s tune for the “Ode,” Parry’s definitive version became known. A spirited marchlike setting with image-laden poetry by his brother, the Rev. D.W. Blackall, “Newfoundland, Isle of the Free” evokes striking connections to the romantic landscape of Boyle’s Newfoundland: “What land like thee, our island home, Strong amidst the ocean foam  ...” As the premiere of Blackall’s song suggests, Newfoundlanders were becoming increasingly cognoscente of an emerging canon of national songs. The event, which also featured the choir performing Blackall’s “Bishop Feild College Song” and “The College Football Song,” was described by the critic of the St John’s Evening Herald thus: “The program of Bishop Feild College Speech Day, which was rendered in the British Hall last night, was very interesting and enjoyable. His Excellency the Governor, Lady and Miss MacGregor and the Bishop of Newfoundland were present. The program opened with a new addition to our national air repertoire, ‘Isle of the Free,’ composed by Prof. Blackall for the occasion and appropriately set to music. We hope Mr Blackall will soon have this song published. It will be a patriotic addition to our meager repertoire of national hymns. The sentiments contained in it are so full of the real Newfoundland spirit, that it will take its place beside Governor Boyle’s ‘Ode’ and Archbishop Howley’s ‘Flag of Newfoundland.’59 Collectively, songs such as these marked the beginning of a new era as local composers lent their voices to the creation of an emerging canon of nationalistic songs. An elaborate setting of the “Flag of Newfoundland” was composed by Sister Josephine O’Sullivan, an Irish-born Sister of Mercy in St John’s.60 The principal melody from that version was later included in the fourth edition of the Doyle songbooks, suggesting that it may have been considered the more definitive of the two “Flag” settings. Howley’s text, which appeared earlier in Murphy’s Songs and Ballads of Newfoundland, heralded the unifying symbolism of the Pink, White, and Green tricolour flag (an emblem rich in history that resonated with supporters of Newfoundland independence generations later): Then hail the pink, the white, the green, Our patriot flag long may it stand; Our Sire-lands twine their emblems trine, To form the flag of Newfoundland.61 Since the late twentieth century, interest in the flag has been revived anew with the emergence of the “Newfoundland Renaissance,” while the Pink,



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Figure 1.6 Sister Josephine O’Sullivan, “The Flag of Newfoundland,” mm. 1–16

White, and Green may be found adorning merchandise ranging from coffee mugs and license plates to T-shirts.62 Ostensibly a song about a national symbol, “The Flag of Newfoundland” invokes a dialogue with the past that links words and music to the mid-nineteenth century and the formative stages of a Newfoundland national consciousness. Inspired by Krippner’s example, Charles Hutton and the English-born choral director Alfred Allen composed their own musical settings of the “Ode to Newfoundland,” a patriotic response that may be partly attributed to collegial rivalry among the small coterie of local composers as well as a growing perception that Krippner’s lively setting (despite its flashy premiere) had failed to capture the true sentiments of the text.63

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Boyle, in a letter to Newfoundland Prime Minister Sir Robert Bond dated 20 February 1904, refers to a setting by a second English ­composer, however there is no musical manuscript extant nor any other documentary evidence that would suggest authorship. While the identity of this composer remains something of a mystery, it may well have been St John’sbased music teacher Peter LeSueur, a theory supported by the existence of another LeSueur setting of Boyle’s poetry entitled “Newfoundland Is Calling, Welcome Home Again” (see chapter 6). Two versions of Hutton’s “Newfoundland” were composed: the first for vocal quartet or unaccompanied chorus, and a simpler accompanied setting “dedicated to the children.” Both settings were published in the Newfoundland Folio, although the second version is more accessible to non-music specialists and likely in wider usage at the time. Critics might argue that the closing line, with its echoes of “Auld Lang Syne,” is derivative, yet unlike the more theatrical setting of Krippner, the music possesses a poignant simplicity not inconsistent with the style of a national anthem. As expressions of musical nationalism at the turn of the century, Hutton’s versions are the first and only “Ode” settings composed by a native Newfoundlander. The most elaborate setting of the “Ode” is that of Allen, choir director at the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in the early years of the last century and founder and director of the Newfoundland Bach Choir. Written for four-part chorus and piano, it has a richness of texture, harmonic interest, and dramatic intensity that is conspicuously absent in the other versions. Note, for example, Allen’s use of word painting for dramatic effect at the beginning of the second verse that stands in stark contrast to Krippner’s treatment. Fortissimo triplets in the piano part evoke the “blinding storm gusts,” while bass tremolos accompany the words “wild waves lash thy strand.” At seventy-five measures in length, Allen’s version is longer than the Krippner and Hutton settings combined. Allen’s “Ode” was published in 1907 and premiered in a Bach Choir concert in April of that year at the Methodist College Hall in St John’s. The “Ode” was the closing work on the program, which also included selections from Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Handel’s Messiah, and several madrigals and part songs. Critical response was warmly receptive: “The ode ‘Newfoundland’ which came last on the programme had a most enthusiastic reception. The music was composed by Mr A.H. Allen, and this was the first time that it had been performed. The setting is stately and dignified and there is an air in it which will very likely become popular. The general opinion seems to be that this is the best music to which the words have been set.”64 The reviewer’s final sentence is especially inter-



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Figure 1.7 Charles Hutton, “Newfoundland” (Courtesy of the Rooms Provincial Archives Division, Newfoundland Folio of Over Fifty Old Favorite Songs / Hutton, 4.)

esting since, by 1907, Hubert Parry’s definitive version of the “Ode” was well known. Ultimately, however, none of the local settings were deemed suitable to be endowed with official anthem status. But unsuitable for whom? Wasn’t Krippner’s original version, despite its flaws, widely popular with

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Figure 1.8 Alfred Allen, “Newfoundland,” mm. 25–36

the Newfoundland public? Couldn’t the well-crafted setting of native son Hutton or the sophisticated treatment of Allen fit the bill? Complicating matters further is the fact that Allen’s “Ode” was published and premiered more than three years after Boyle had departed Newfoundland, raising the question of whether the governor even knew of his version at all. And if Allen was not one of the two English c­ omposers



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to whom Boyle referred in his 1904 letter to Bond, who was? While mysteries remain, it appears that a decisive figure in the intriguing history of the “Ode” to Newfoundland was Boyle’s musically gifted niece, ­Adelaide Lane. As Boyle’s biographer Frank Graham tells us, Lane was in her late twenties when she arrived in St John’s from England to visit her uncle in July 1903. Although her stay in Newfoundland lasted only ten months, she revolutionized life at Government House by organizing a house orchestra and convincing her uncle to purchase a new grand piano, which was imported from London.65 As her opinions on musical matters were valued highly, Boyle consented to her suggestion to seek out a new musical setting for the “Ode,” one that conformed to her conception of what an anthem should be. Finding a suitably “dignified” tune was apparently the main criterion, a feature she found lacking in the existing settings, however it remains to be seen if any setting cast in a popular style would have satisfied her. Fresh from the concert halls of London, Lane’s musical background and social status precluded the possibility of accepting a “popular air” by a local composer. On the advice of his niece, Boyle called upon noted English composer Sir Hubert Parry, a boyhood friend, to seek an appropriate composer to set the words to music. It is worth noting here that none of this would have been possible without the consent of Herr Krippner, who, with Boyle’s permission, had obtained the copyright to the “Ode” in 1902. Had Krippner not relinquished ownership, the “Ode” as we know it may never have come into existence. Parry’s response exceeded all expectations. Accompanying a letter of reply to Boyle in April 1904 were two new versions of the “Ode” composed by Parry himself, the first of which was presented in separate unison and four-part settings. The composer writes: “The first has more masculinity about it, the second more sentiment. The first treats the words better in the refrain; but if the extra reiteration in the second is not objectionable, I fancy that may seem the more possible of the two. It has been assumed that a sort of four part hymn tune was not wanted but something direct that people could shout in unison. But an alternative version of Number One for four voices is given. I hope one of the tunes will turn out to your liking.”66 In hindsight, it is a little difficult to fathom Parry’s characterization of the first setting as “treating the words better in the refrain.” The sequential repetition at the close of the definitive second version is arguably the emotional climax of the “Ode,” and one can scarcely imagine it being replaced today by the simple scale pattern that closes version 1. As for the alleged “masculine” qualities of the first version, it is unclear

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Figure 1.9 C. Hubert Parry, “Newfoundland, An Ode”

­ recisely what Parry had in mind, although he may have been referring p to its somewhat more militaristic rhythm and/or angular melodic contour. With Lane seated at the Government House piano and Boyle listening intently, both versions were performed. Consistent with Parry’s judgment, the second version was proclaimed the unanimous winner,67 a verdict with which history has concurred. With promotional efforts in the schools and support from organizations such as the local Rotary clubs, Parry’s “Ode to Newfoundland”



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gradually supplanted Forbes’s “The Banks of Newfoundland” as a Newfoundland anthem, although the former still invoked strong feelings of identity and served as the official marching tune of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment during the First World War. The “Ode” was further popularized through its inclusion in the third edition of Doyle’s OldTime Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland. However, unlike most songs in the collection by known composers, Parry’s name is conspicuously absent, raising the question of whether Doyle may have purposefully omitted the name of a British composer to enhance public perception of the piece as “native” to Newfoundland.68 One of the more meaningful performance contexts in which the “Ode” was disseminated was a BBC radio program broadcast to Newfoundland listeners during the Second World War. Calling Newfoundland was hosted by Margot Davies and gave Newfoundland military personnel overseas the opportunity to read messages to loved ones back home. The “Ode to Newfoundland” was given a stirring rendition by the soldiers at the opening and close of each broadcast, serving as a unifying gesture of musical nationalism framing the spoken portion of the broadcast. In one final bizarre note to the story of the “Ode,” government legislation that would have given official recognition to the piece was inexplicably overlooked for over seventy years. While a full explanation of the omission remains elusive, Boyle is known to have initially declined a request to formally approve a minute of the Executive Council that would have given official recognition to the “Ode” in 1902 (no doubt acutely aware of the obvious conflict of interest and dubious about how the matter may have been perceived by the public).69 The governor’s departure from Newfoundland in 1904 and Bond’s subsequent retirement from politics years later, in turn, may well have contributed to a political climate in which official recognition of the “Ode” was r­ elegated to a low priority among their successors. With the passage of time and the emergence of the “Ode” as an iconic national symbol, most Newfoundlanders naturally assumed that it had long been accorded ­official status. Remarkably, it was not until 1979, with the intervention of then Lieutenant-Governor Gordon A. Winter, that the piece was officially adopted as Newfoundland’s anthem. More than a century after its illustrious premiere, the “Ode” continues to evoke strong feelings of identity for generations of Newfoundlanders in a manner exceedingly rare in North American society today. It is played at concerts, sporting events, and a variety of civic and festive occasions, where it occupies a place of honour next to “O Canada” and, on occasion, “God Save the Queen.”

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One Newfoundland television station, NTV, has gone so far as to include an electronically synthesized motive from the “Ode” as theme music for its nightly Evening News Hour. For writer Kevin Major, the “Ode” today has “additional significance, because it’s a remnant of our independence ... It holds us together as a people,”70 while Bernice M ­ organ adds with discernible nostalgia that “it seems to evoke a feeling of lost aspirations.”71 Powerful, nostalgic, and emphatically nationalistic, the “Ode” is the musical embodiment of the spirit of communality that continues to shape Newfoundlanders’ shared identification with culture, history, and place. The intertwining of Newfoundland nationalism and musical creativity in Emerson’s formative years would prove highly influential in later life, planting seeds of imagination and identity that would flower fully in adulthood.

2 Across the Pond and Back Again: Framlingham College, Early Musical Works, the Practice of Law, and Marriage to Isabel Jameson Emerson left Bishop Feild College and Newfoundland in 1910 to pursue secondary studies at England’s majestic Framlingham College. Located in rural Framlingham, Suffolk, the college was situated approximately ninety miles from the city of London, not far from the family’s ancestral roots in Norfolk.1 Founded under Royal Charter in 1865 as the Suffolk Memorial to Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, Framlingham College stands in close proximity to a twelfth-century castle and, owing to a seventeenth-century legacy that links Framlingham with Pembroke College, Cambridge, comprises a complex of buildings situated on an expansive country estate.2 A statue of Prince Albert by Joseph Durham – not unlike another Durham statue found between the Royal Albert Hall and the Royal College of Music in London – adorns the entranceway. Much like the evolution of Bishop Feild College, the infrastructure of Framlingham College underwent a number of expansions during its history with the original 1865 Gothic revival building – the work of architect Frederick Peck – subject to a series of additions and alterations. The existing building and adjacent chapel were expanded in the mid-1870s – the latter fitted with an organ to replace the previous harmonium – and by 1891 a new science laboratory was constructed. By the early twentieth century, Framlingham could likewise boast a carpenter’s shop, a modern gymnasium, and a cricket field and pavilion among its facilities. A pivotal event in the history of the college – and one of no small consequence for Emerson – was the founding of the Berners Memorial Library in 1898.3 Well stocked with an extensive collection of reference materials and with windows “filled with cathedral glass,”4 the library

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Figure 2.1 Framlingham College, Framlingham, Suffolk, England

provided an ornate setting in which the teenage Emerson could fully explore his natural proclivity for intellectual pursuits. No less significant were the frequent exhibitions of flora held at the college museum, the legacy of which helped foster a love of gardening that remained with him throughout adulthood. During its early years both junior and senior pupils were educated at the college, however in 1948 the junior school was moved a few miles away to the neo-Tudor setting of Brandeston Hall. Brandeston Hall was given to the school by the Society of Old Framlinghamians as a memorial to colleagues who lost their lives in the Second World War. In 1992 a pre-preparatory department was established, enabling the college to offer a comprehensive education for students ages four through eighteen. No longer a school for boys, Framlingham College today is a fully coeducational facility of approximately 750 day and boarding pupils.5 The prospect of studying in the English countryside was undoubtedly an exhilarating one, and any “culture shock” there might have been was tempered by familiar curricular and organizational models r­ eminiscent



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of his early schooling. Given the British orientation of Bishop Feild ­College and the background of its faculty, this is hardly surprising. Yet like the Blackall-led renaissance at his Newfoundland alma mater, ­Emerson was fortunate to study at Framlingham during an invigorating period of academic enrichment spearheaded by Headmaster Rev. Dr ­Oliver Digby Inskip, MA, LLD. Born in Hertford, England in 1852, Inskip was the son of the former mayor of Hertford and a graduate of Trinity College, ­Dublin, Ireland. During his sixteen-year tenure at Framlingham (1887–1913), more than 2,100 graduates passed through its doors, a number easily surpassing that of the previous three headmasters combined. During his first year as headmaster alone, the number of students at the college more than doubled, as did the number of graduates successfully completing the Cambridge University examinations. Nearby Cambridge furnished Framlingham College with a large percentage of its faculty as well, many of whom possessed Master’s degrees or higher. The student body, although largely comprised of British boys, included students from many parts of the Commonwealth, including India, ­Canada, and Newfoundland. One of the first Newfoundlanders to attend the college was Bishop Feild alumnus – and later lawyer, Supreme Court justice, and Newfoundland prime minister  – William Robertson ­Warren (1879–1927). A number of curricular changes were instituted during Inskip’s headmastership, including expanded courses of study in English Language and Literature and in French. The latter was apparently an area of particular strength for the college, as strong student results in the Cambridge University examinations in French attest. Athletics and music were heartily encouraged, a college debating society flourished, an annual Speech Day marked the culmination of the academic year and, in yet another striking resemblance to the Blackall era at Bishop Feild, school spirit received a high priority with the headmaster. Following in the wake of his early schooling, Emerson could not have felt more at home. The music program at Framlingham was a natural complement to Emerson’s early schooling. Four-part choral singing, operettas (such as those of Offenbach), and orchestral performances were frequent, and, under the leadership of Inskip, musical life at the college was remarkably rich. The headmaster, an accomplished singer known for his love of music, conducted the college choir and sang as a soloist in many college concerts. One such event took place at the college’s Speech Day in 1887, during which “Dr Inskip, whose love of music had already introduced a fresh element into the School, conducted the choir, and he and Mr.

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Brunger both sang, to the great delight of the boys. The Headmaster’s song was that very popular old ballad, “My sweetheart when a boy.”6 Music specialists at the college included the violinist/composer Arthur C. Cooke and Bernard Johnson, MA, MusBac, FRCO,7 a noted organist and composer of vocal music.8 Another staff member, a Mr Barnicott, was an amateur composer who wrote music to accompany college operettas and furnished the college with its own school song. Musical life at the college – and indeed the community of Framlingham in general – was further enriched by guest performances from visiting ensembles. As John Booth tells us, “Dr Inskip twice brought down the Band of the Scots Guards – the wind instruments on the first occasion, and the string band on the second – and their visits to Framlingham at a time when concerts by first-rate military bands could be only very rarely enjoyed by most people were red-letter days for the whole district.”9 During his three years at Framlingham Emerson excelled in his musical studies, receiving special prizes for piano and violin playing (in 1911 and 1912, respectively) and performing as a featured soloist and chamber musician in college concerts. One such concert took place on 16 March 1911, in which he and two other Framlingham students played a selection of Hungarian and Russian dances, followed by orchestral selections from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance. In addition to his music prizes – among them a set of musical scores of the complete works of Schumann for the senior piano award – he received the senior Mr R.W. Allars (O.F.) Prize in 1911 and the Mantle Prize for English Essays in 1912.10 His linguistic abilities, a childhood interest cultivated at Bishop Feild College and furthered at Framlingham, were recognized in a special certificate awarded for successfully completing the Cambridge University examinations in spoken French. Emerson graduated from Framlingham College in spring 1913 after completing form 6 (the close equivalent of the modern grade 12). He bid farewell to Framlingham and England for the time being, although it would prove to be just the first of many European excursions during his lifetime. With his secondary education complete, the native son returned home to Newfoundland intimately acquainted with European culture and instilled with newfound confidence in his musical and intellectual abilities. These were turbulent times for the Newfoundland he had left behind, an uneasy mixture of achievement and promise set against a backdrop of horrific tragedy and the looming threat of war. During his absence, William Coaker’s Fisherman’s Protective Union emerged as a central force in Newfoundland politics, the newly founded Grand



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Falls pulp and paper mill ramped up production, and Newfoundland’s first old-age pension scheme was enacted (albeit a gendered plan that only benefited males over the age of seventy-five). In 1912, the infamous Titanic disaster off the island’s coast brought Newfoundland unwittingly into the international spotlight, while just two years later the nation mourned a pair of devastating sealing tragedies – the sinking of the SS Southern Cross and SS Newfoundland and the loss of more than 250 lives. With the outbreak of war in 1914, the island’s war effort was administered by an appointed committee of citizens known as the Newfoundland Patriotic Association, and Newfoundlanders of all walks of life rallied to the cause. On 1 July 1916, just two years after the Southern Cross and Newfoundland disasters, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment suffered catastrophic losses in the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel, a day of remembrance still etched indelibly in Newfoundlanders’ collective memories. During the First World War, Emerson – like so many Newfoundlanders of his generation – volunteered for military service with the Regiment. While a tour of duty in war-torn Europe seemed like a very real possibility at the time, fate would intervene to prevent the young patriot from assuming active military service. Medical examiners denied his application for health reasons, finding him too thin and fragile as a result of a severe bout of rheumatic fever. Following his recovery, Emerson went on a short excursion to the French islands of St Pierre et Miquelon in 1918. The lasting legacy of that trip was twofold: firstly his deep affinity for the French language and French culture  – developed throughout his schooling and enhanced through European travel – was further strengthened; secondly, he developed close ties to the people of St Pierre et Miquelon that would last a lifetime. During the Second World War, Emerson was actively involved in the region by chairing the Free French Committee in St John’s, an organization dedicated to assisting citizens of St Pierre et Miquelon who wished to join the forces of General Charles de Gaulle. The Forces Françaises libres (FFL) continued fighting against Axis forces after the German occupation of France. Citizens of St Pierre et Miquelon joined other French territories – including those in Africa, the South Pacific, the West Indies, and South America – in supporting the cause. By the time of the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Free French Forces numbered over 300,000 regular troops.11 Emerson came to be viewed as a vital liaison for Canadian and French forces in the region and was frequently called upon to deliver supplies to French vessels docked at Newfoundland ports.

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With a heartfelt affinity for French culture clearly evident, his lasting memories of that first St Pierre excursion were later expressed with acuity and nostalgia: I remember in 1918 having recovered from a rather protracted attack of rheumatic fever, a friend and I decided to go to St Pierre. We knew nobody there when we arrived. By chance my friend met the American Consul, while having his hair cut at the barber shop; and the Consul invited him to his house for bridge. We were both very surprised to find that the guests whom we had been asked to meet felt quite keenly the fact that we had not called on them; and when we explained that we had not previously known they existed, I am afraid it did not help very much. I spent two months in St Pierre, it is really a very delightful little place; and if you are interested in French life, it is well worth a visit. While there is much that looks French to the North American, yet there is certainly much that looks North American to the Frenchman. Yet when you are in the house in the evening, chatting with the people, you might be back in some French town, a thousand miles away from North America. They have retained all the customs of the French life; food is cooked in the French fashion, and the laws of France are faithfully observed. I am always surprised at the small number of Newfoundlanders who really know St Pierre. It is not only historically interesting as the last one of the great possessions of France in North America, but it is interesting in itself, being a little centre of French life. It has a steady population of about five thousand, and had a large floating population at one time of people from France who were chiefly engaged in the fishery. The floating population is now quite small. When I visited St Pierre during the war years the life of the Islanders was charming in its simplicity. Prohibition in the United States brought a certain amount of temporary prosperity and many of the Islanders made quite a lot of money, but it seems to me that the amount of wealth did not add to the charm of their lives. Perhaps in a way Miquelon is more interesting than St Pierre itself. St Pierre is about ten square miles, but Miquelon consists of two very much larger islands joined by a neck of sand about three miles long. I remember walking from Miquelon village, which is in the northern part of the northern Island, down to the southern island – a distance of some twenty-one miles. It was a two day jaunt. We spent the night



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at a farm house owned by a Basque. I do not think I have ever taken a more attractive walk. The brilliance of the sunshine on the yellow sand, and the blue sea all around wherein one could see what we call bay seals sporting in the clear water. The southern Island had some rather nice country houses to which the wealthier people from St Pierre repair for the fine weather. The Miquelon people being much more cut off from the mainland than the people of St Pierre are, if more primitive, naturally less spoiled by contact with North America than the people of the capital. There seemed to me something curiously toughing about this community, the life of which centres around its church and parish priest. It reminded one of what life must have been three or four centuries ago in so many places in Europe. There is no close season there for fishing or shooting. In the fine summer weather when there is not a cloud in the sky there is probably no nicer place in the world to spend a holiday. You climb the hills – the sea lies all around like a blue sapphire, and in the distance northward the white houses on the Newfoundland Coast gleam in the sun.12 By October 1915, Emerson had completed his first musical composition, the art song “Mein Herz wie ein Hündlein” (“My Heart Like a ­Little Dog”) for solo voice and piano.13 Inspired by the songs of S­ chubert (whose influence may be discerned in both vocal style and piano figuration), it is a through-composed setting in a folklike idiom in which the poet’s mood swing from hope to angst is mirrored by a momentary shift from the tonic key of D major to the parallel minor. It was to be his only setting of German text, followed shortly thereafter by a series of English songs – the reflective “In Flanders Fields” (1919), the brooding “Grey Thoughts for Grey Weather” (1920), and, from the same year, “Two Songs in D.”14 Collectively, this series of songs signalled Emerson’s emergence as a composer. “In Flanders Fields,” for solo voice and piano, occupies a special place among Emerson’s musical works. Composed in 1919, it was conceived as not only a memorial to the victims of war but also a personal homage to his father, who passed away earlier that year. The song was premiered in a 1921 BBC broadcast by Scottish tenor Hugh ­Campbell, but for reasons unknown very few subsequent performances have taken place. More than a half century later, an arrangement for harp was performed by Carla Emerson Furlong in a concert commemorating the 275th anniversary of the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in

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Figure 2.2 Frederick Emerson, autograph manuscript of “Mein Herz wie ein Hündlein,” mm. 16-27

St John’s on 20 October 1974 (where it was performed together with ­ Emerson’s Newfoundland Scene for solo harp).15 Three decades after that, in June 2005, it was performed by tenor Jonathan Reed and the present author as part of a lecture by the latter at the Phenomenon of Singing International Symposium V.16 A performance at Framlingham College was mounted to coincide with the college’s 2009 Remembrance Day ceremonies. The song’s now famous words were penned by a Canadian medical officer, Lt-Col John McCrae (1872–1918), who reportedly composed the text in 1915 outside of a Belgian field hospital while stationed there during the First World War.17 Written to “pass away the time between



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Figure 2.3 John McCrae, handwritten text of “In Flanders Fields”

the arrivals of batches of wounded and partly as an experiment with several varieties of poetic metre,”18 the poem was published by the British magazine Punch in December of that year, although the poet died of pneumonia during the last year of the war and never lived to see its subsequent popularity as a song of remembrance.19 In a variety of musical settings, “In Flanders Fields” has become a traditional part of ceremonies commemorating the armistices of the Great Wars throughout much of the Western World. Notable settings include those of J. Deane Wells (1917), John Philip Sousa (1918), Frank E. Tours (1918), W.H. Leib (1918), Harold Eustace Key (1921), Charles Ives (1921), W.H. Hewlett (1934), Joseph Roff (1948), and more recently Greta G. Hurley (1972), Derek Healey (1976), Alexander Tilley (1986), Ruth Watson Henderson (1993), Stephen Chatman (1998), Paul Aitken (1999), David McIntyre (1999), Evelyn Stroobach (2006), and John Burge’s Juno Award-winning “Flanders Fields Reflections” for string orchestra (2006). Emerson’s song, one of the earlier settings of McCrae’s text, displays a characteristic sensitivity as the verses, each entirely different in concept, are expressed through contrasting textures and moods. In this sense,

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Emerson’s setting stands in stark contrast to the strophic treatment of many of the aforementioned composers. A Lento piano introduction sets a mood of solemnity appropriate to the poem with a descending chord progression that simply but effectively establishes the tonic key of E minor. A modified repeat of the introduction accompanies the beginning of the first verse and recurs as a unifying gesture of closure at the end of each subsequent verse. The opening vocal line, echoing the piano melody, affirms the plaintive mood while a change of metre on the words “row on row” (m. 11) underscores the poignant portion of the poem that refers to the magnitude of the grave site.20 As the fallen soldiers are remembered (“That mark our place ...”), the emotional intensity builds through an ascending melodic line accompanied by oscillating sixteenth note figuration. The nostalgic second verse (“We are the Dead  ...”) is marked by appropriate changes in mode, metre, rhythm, and vocal style, as the lives of the dead are revisited in a hymnlike tribute.21 The song culminates at the climax of the emotionally charged third verse (“Be yours to hold it high ...”), as an increasingly rich harmonic texture and shifting tempo heighten the emotional tension. The song serves as a moving elegy to the victims of war, a personal tribute to the composer’s father, and a fitting testament to Emerson’s songwriting abilities. While thoughts of a career in music were entertained, Emerson eventually bowed to the wishes of his father and entered the legal profession. He became a solicitor in 1918, was called to the Newfoundland Bar the following year, and in 1920 became a partner in the renamed lawfirm of Higgins, Hunt and Emerson. Senior partners of the firm at the time were future Supreme Court Justice William John Higgins ­(1880–1943) and Charles Edward Hunt (1886–1954). The former became a solicitor in 1909 and was called to the Newfoundland Bar on 13 January 1910; in politics, he was first elected as one of three members for St John’s East in 1913 in support of Sir Edward Morris and the People’s Party. He would later serve as minister of Justice and attorney general in the government of W.S. Monroe (1924) and, in 1926, argued Newfoundland’s case before the Imperial Privy Council in London in the dispute between Canada and Newfoundland over the Labrador Boundary. An avid sports enthusiast, he rowed in the St John’s Regatta (1901–08) and from 1920 to 1928 served as president of the Benevolent Irish Society. After his retirement from politics in 1928, he was appointed a judge of the ­Newfoundland Supreme Court.22 Hunt was called to the Newfoundland Bar in 1912 and, although not sharing the lengthy political career of his elder colleague, he did make one foray into local politics with a

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65

In Flanders Fields Words by John McCrae

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successful bid as the Liberal-Labour-Progressive Party candidate for St John’s West in the election of 1923. Hunt shared Emerson’s dual ­interests in broadcasting and higher education, serving on the Board of Governors of the Newfoundland Broadcasting Corporation, the Board of Directors of Bishop Feild College, the Queen’s College Council, and the first Board of Governors of Memorial University College. In 1921 he co-founded the Rotary Club of St John’s (serving as its first vice-­president and later president). Hunt remained at the firm until his death in 1954.23 Later partners included Gordon Francis Higgins (1905–1957), son of William Higgins; Gordon McKenzie Stirling (1907–1985), nephew of

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Newfoundland Rhapsody

Charles Hunt; and Noel Goodridge (1930–1997) and his younger cousin Avalon M. (Ted) Goodridge (1935–2008). The younger Higgins joined the firm in 1931 and, years later, followed his father’s path into politics as a delegate elected to represent St John’s East in the National Convention on Newfoundland’s political future (1946). An ardent opponent of Confederation with Canada, he campaigned for Responsible Government during the 1948 referendums, yet ironically became one of the first seven Newfoundland members elected to represent the province in the House of Commons as the Progressive Conservative candidate for St John’s East. With a combative fervour that presaged the political style of Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams a half-century later, he once threatened to resign his seat in the House of Commons and launch a movement to have Newfoundland secede from Canada if the federal government refused to honour its obligations to the province with respect to transportation freight rates. In recognition of his contributions to an array of community organizations (among them the St John’s Tuberculosis Association), he was awarded an Order of the British Empire on 26 March 1949.24 Stirling was admitted to the Newfoundland Bar in 1930 and later served as president of the Governing Bodies of the Legal Profession in Canada. He was also athletically inclined and, more than a half century prior to the gold-medal winning exploits of Team Gushue at the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics,25 competed as part of the first Newfoundland team to enter the Canadian Curling Championships in 1951.26 Stirling was awarded a Centennial Medal in 1967 and, in 1980, was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada. In 1984, he received an honorary doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland.27 The youngest of the law partners with whom Emerson was affiliated, Avalon M. (Ted) Goodridge was a nephew of the geographer/visual artist Harold Goodridge (Emerson’s intellectual comrade and lifelong friend). Together with wife Helen, he frequently accompanied the Emersons and Uncle Harold on European family excursions during the 1960s. He joined the firm in the 1950s and, following Emerson’s retirement, took over a sizeable portion of his mentor’s client portfolio.28 Joining him in the firm was his elder cousin Noel Goodridge. After a twenty-year tenure in the practice of criminal and commercial law, the elder G ­ oodridge was appointed a judge of the Newfoundland Supreme Court on 14 November 1975. In the latter capacity, he presided over what was then the longest trial in Newfoundland history: the case of the attorney general versus Churchill Falls (Labrador) Company Limited, Hydro Québec, and others pertaining to the prospective recall of electricity from the



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generating plant at Churchill Fall by the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.29 Goodridge was appointed Chief Justice of the Newfoundland Court of Appeal on 17 November 1986, a position he held until resigning due to illness in 1996.30 Collectively, the composition of the firm from the early to mid-­ twentieth century offers a revealing glimpse into a stratum of Newfoundland society that exerted enormous influence over the island’s political, social, and cultural affairs: a concentrated network of professionals with close denominational ties to the Bishop Feild College and St Bonaventure’s College alumni communities, the close-knit fraternity of the Newfoundland legal profession, and an intricate web of family ties that spanned generations. Many of the partners occupied leadership positions among the island’s dominant social and educational institutions; in the case of the father and son tandem of Higgins and Higgins, that influence extended into politics with prominent roles in local and federal governance. While by no means speaking with a unified voice politically, the various members of the firm nonetheless typified the attitudes of many urban upper-class Newfoundlanders in their tendency to support Responsible Government during the referendum debate of the 1940s. In contrast to the political ambitions of the Higgins family or the judiciary career of William Higgins or Noel Goodridge, the full extent of ­Emerson’s influence was manifest in the cultural arena. In this respect, his lasting influence on Newfoundland society was no less significant and perhaps more universally felt among Newfoundlanders of all walks of life for generations to come. In its early years the firm was located on Duckworth Street in St John’s in the building that currently houses the Ship Pub, a long-time social hub of the Newfoundland arts community and site of a weekly Folk Night hosted by the Folk Arts Society of Newfoundland and Labrador. As time wore on, Emerson’s personable nature and good humour at the firm became well known – perhaps a little too well known. A city bus stop was situated directly in front of the building, and it was not uncommon for casual acquaintances (some of whom appeared oblivious to the work schedule of a busy lawyer) to step inside for a “chat” with Mr Emerson. Emerson frequently walked to work from his Winter Avenue home (sometimes making several return trips a day), a reflection of his affinity for long walks and, perhaps too, a need to escape periodically from the unrelenting demands of his position. The firm subsequently relocated to a new Duckworth Street location in a building adjacent to the former Newfoundland Museum, and a version of it still thrives today

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Newfoundland Rhapsody

Figure 2.5 Hunt, Emerson, Stirling, and Higgins Law Office sign

on New Gower Street in the Newfoundland capital. The name of the firm evolved over time to become Hunt, Emerson, Stirling and H ­ iggins (c. 1937); later Emerson, Stirling, and Goodridge (c.  1961); and into the twenty-first century as Stewart, McKelvey, Stirling, and Scales. The firm’s St John’s office today is part of Atlantic Canada’s first and largest regional lawfirm. With a network of more than 200 lawyers at its offices in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, it is one of the twenty largest lawfirms in Canada.31 That he should choose a career path seemingly contrary to his musical aspirations is hardly surprising given the dearth of professional opportunities for musicians in postwar Newfoundland and the tacit assumption that a man of his education and class would pursue a more prestigious and lucrative line of work. The practice of law, moreover, had deep roots in the Emerson family, dating back to the early nineteenth century and the brother tandem of Hugh Alexander Emerson (1793– 1860) and George Henry Emerson (1798–1889). With only a handful of practicing lawyers in Newfoundland in the 1830s and 1840s, the prospect of two siblings in the profession was virtually unheard of, yet both men did so with distinction. Hugh Alexander Emerson was called to the Newfoundland Bar in 1829 and, following the granting of Representative Government (1832), was elected as member for Bonavista Bay in



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1837. From 1837 to 1854 he served as solicitor general of Newfoundland and, in 1849, was appointed master in chancery of the Newfoundland Supreme Court by Governor John LeMarchant.32 George Henry Emerson, F ­ rederick Emerson’s great-grandfather, was born and raised in Windsor, Nova Scotia, before coming to Newfoundland in 1830 and establishing a reputation as one of the island’s most successful lawyers. At two junctures, in 1856 and 1867, he served as an acting judge of the Newfoundland Supreme Court. As a politician, he was somewhat of an enigmatic figure who swam against the tide of Newfoundland politics – a supporter of Responsible Government (unlike most of his profession) and a Liberal (unlike most Protestant politicians of his era). First elected to the House of Assembly as the member for Twillingate and Fogo in 1848, he was re-elected in 1852 and, with the granting of Responsible Government in 1855, was one of the first members appointed to the Legislative Council by Prime Minster P.F. Little.33 His sons Lewis ­Wilkins Emerson (1830–1883) and Prescott Emerson (1840–1889) served as chief clerk and registrar of the Northern Circuit Court and lawyer/politician, respectively. The latter, a supporter of Confederation with Canada, was called to the Newfoundland Bar in 1864 and elected to the House of Assembly in 1869 for the district of Burgeo and Lapoile. From 1874 to 1878 he served as speaker of the Newfoundland House of Assembly.34 Lewis Emerson’s son George Henry Emerson II (1853–1916), in turn, worked as a lawyer, politician and later a Judge of the Newfoundland Supreme Court. During an active political career, he was a member of delegations sent to London to represent Newfoundland’s interests regarding fishing rights on the island’s French Shore (in 1890 and 1891, respectively) and later joined a delegation sent to Ottawa to reopen talks on the prospect of Confederation with Canada.35 Given his ancestors’ stance on the issue, it is perhaps ironic that Frederick Emerson would become a staunch opponent of Confederation in the referendum debate of the 1940s. Suffice it to say that the practice of law was the “family business,” and to break with tradition (not to mention the adamant wishes of his father) would have been unthinkable. With his marriage to Isabel J­ameson in 1921, Frederick Emerson, lawyer, stepped solidly into the role of husband and provider. Yet there can be no doubt that music remained his true passion, a fact convincingly affirmed by the gift of a grand piano from his father upon passing the Bar. Isabel Jameson (1892–1981) was born in Wrexham, North Wales, daughter of Irishman Harold William Jameson (an army officer and,

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Figure 2.6 Isabel (Jameson) Emerson (1892–1981)

in his retirement years, a designer of golf courses) and Canadian Anna Maria Atkinson of Hamilton, Ontario. The family lived in Sunninghill, Berkshire. Much like her husband, Jameson came from an exceptionally cultured family in which her mother’s aptitude for music was ­particularly remarkable. Anna Maria Atkinson (1865–1936), the youngest of eight children, was born into a poor family and subsequently adopted by ­English stepparents, the Davies, with whom she lived in Liverpool, England. Atkinson developed into an accomplished harpist, although later in life was forced to discontinue playing due to the onset of phlebitis. She died of cancer at age seventy-three. Although her daughter did not play the instrument, the Atkinson legacy was twofold: Isabel Jameson, from a very young age, was exposed to a wide range of musical repertoire and music-making of high calibre in the home; and secondly the



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Figure 2.7 The Jameson family home, Sunninghill, Berkshire, at the turn of the century. The harp of Anna (Atkinson) Jameson is standing in the corner of the room.

family tradition of harp playing endured in the distinguished musical career of Atkinson’s granddaughter (Frederick Emerson’s daughter) Carla ­Emerson Furlong, of whom more will be said presently. Emerson Furlong, in a recent interview, acknowledged the influence the woman she affectionately remembers as her “harping grandmother.”36 Much like her sister Ruth, Isabel Jameson loved to travel and by her teens had already toured widely throughout Europe (including many extended winter excursions with her parents). The legacy of those early travels was a well-cultivated fluency in the French, German, and Italian languages, to which she would later add Spanish. She first visited Newfoundland for several months in 1914, on the invitation of her friend Madeline Winter. Although she did not meet Emerson during her first Newfoundland excursion, she embarked on a salmon-fishing expedition and was present at the ceremony marking the opening of Bowring Park in St John’s on 15 July of that year. Founded on the initiative of Bowring Brothers Limited of St John’s and developed under the direction of landscape architect Rudolph Cochius (see chapter 6), the park was officially opened by HRH Prince Arthur, duke of Connaught, and soon became an

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iconic civic space.37 Jameson returned to Britain shortly thereafter and, as with many women of her generation, devoted herself to the war effort by serving as a nurse and translator. It was not until 1919, following the end of the war, that fate would intervene to bring her back to Newfoundland for a second time and into the life of the young lawyer and bachelor. Once again it was Madeline Winter who initiated the trip, visiting Jameson in Britain shortly after the war before reciprocating with a trans-Atlantic invitation of her own. It was that year, during a summer holiday in St John’s, that Jameson and Emerson first met. Their relationship blossomed, and the couple remained in close contact after Jameson returned home to Britain later that year. In hindsight it is not difficult to ascertain why they were so eminently well suited for one another. Their shared love of travel, music, and languages undoubtedly played a role, and in Jameson (fluent in French, German, Italian, and Spanish) Emerson had met his linguistic match. The mutual love they shared for one another, in turn, was mirrored – perhaps even accentuated – by a deeply felt attachment to each other’s native soil. With memories of Framlingham still fresh in his memory, Emerson was no doubt captivated by the prospect of courting a cultured young British woman every bit his intellectual equal while Jameson, for her part, developed an immediate affinity for Newfoundland. She was especially appreciative of the gift of humour she found in the Newfoundland people and, owing in no small measure to her Irish ancestry, felt very much at home in a land where expressions of Irish culture could be found in ample supply. Not surprisingly perhaps, the Emersons would take numerous European excursions during married life together. On 8 January 1921, Isabel Jameson and Frederick Emerson were married in the town of Pau, France. As was customary for foreigners wedding in France at that time, the couple was actually married twice (first by the town mayor in the morning and again at a church wedding in the afternoon). From that point onward, Isabel Emerson was to be a pivotal (though largely unsung) figure in the Frederick Emerson story. Though ­possessing a keen intellect and aptitude for music (she, like her husband, was an accomplished pianist), she willingly stepped into the role of wife, mother, and homemaker. She seldom played the piano – leaving domestic musicmaking to her husband – and from all accounts generally allowed him to carry the conversation in social gatherings at the Emerson home. Yet it was Isabel who was largely responsible for the success of the many impromptu soirées that Emerson was fond of convening (often on the



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shortest of notice), and she, too, who was faced with additional housework brought on by a number of long-term “guests.” If Emerson, as he often did, spontaneously invited a dozen guests over for dinner, she obliged without hesitation, preparing a sumptuous feast served with a generous helping of elegance and class.38 She actively assisted with Emerson’s concerts, such as those given at Queen’s College, and a variety of church luncheons and special events. Highly skilled in managing her household affairs, she frequently made dresses for daughter Carla to wear in concert and is known to have taught the craft of sewing to many relatives, friends, and acquaintances. It was under her tutelage that granddaughter Linda (Holt) ­Fairchild learned the craft of sewing to the degree that, by age fourteen, she was considered “overqualified” for her home economics class.39 Isabel E ­ merson was from all accounts a superb hostess and, although always it seems mindful of Emerson’s patriarchal position, exuded a regal demeanor coupled with an outgoing personality and warm sense of humour. Maud Karpeles, for one, marvelled at her unusual kindness and generosity, adding at the end of her stay with the Emersons in 1929 that she was “awfully sorry to leave” and that “they are some of the nicest people I have met.”40 Isabel Emerson lived for close to a decade after her husband’s death, passing away in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, on 16 February 1981, at the age of eighty-nine.

3 At Home in “Quinnipiac”: Family Life, Foreign Guests, and Newfoundland’s “Cultural Ambassador” The Emersons’ first child, Carla Isabel, was born on 4 March 1922, followed shortly thereafter by Anne Louise (19 March 1924) and Charles Henry Jameson (Harry) (3 May 1926). The family dwelling  – a spacious Victorian home on Winter Avenue in St John’s – was well suited for the purposes of raising a young family and entertaining the frequent guests who visited there. The home was affectionately known by family members as “Quinnipiac,” an apparent derivation of a Native American word meaning “people of the long water land.” Emerson had bestowed the name in keeping with a family tradition of sorts. Generations earlier, his great uncle Prescott Emerson had endowed his country estate with the name “Eskasoni,” a derivation of the Mi’kmaq word “We’kwistoqnik” (“where the fir trees are plentiful”). In Newfoundland today, the word Eskasoni lives on in the name of a senior citizens home constructed on the site of the former Prescott Emerson property not far from the Newfoundland provincial legislature, while in contemporary Mi’kmaq culture it is most closely associated with the world’s largest Mi’kmaq community, the Eskasoni First Nation of Cape Breton Island. Emerson frequently affixed the name “Quinnipiac” to his street address in personal correspondence (even mail sent to distinguished correspondents such as Marius Barbeau). In his retirement years, he carried the name with him to Greenfield, Nova Scotia, where it was adopted as an apt moniker for the Emersons’ riverside country home. To say that family life at Quinnipiac was unusually cultured would be a colossal understatement. The house was filled with literature of all kinds, fine art adorned the rooms and hallways (including some paintings by Emerson himself), and Winter Avenue was in constant reverberation with the sound of music. Emerson’s appreciation of the visual



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Figure 3.1 The Emerson family home, Winter Avenue, St John’s, Newfoundland

arts – a tendency amply displayed in the home – owed a great deal to his European travels, having visited the Louvre and all the major galleries in Europe and cultivating a particular affinity for French artists in the process. While his modest contributions as a visual artist are dwarfed by the scope of his musical and scholarly work, his representational landscape scenes reinforce the breadth of his artistic endeavours (all of them the work of a self-taught “amateur”). Not unlike his locally inspired musical and dramatic works, the paintings likewise serve as a useful reminder of the multifaceted expressions of place that ran as parallel undercurrents throughout his creative life. Personal relationships with the painter Maurice Cullen and especially his close lifelong friendship with Newfoundland visual artist and geographer Harold Goodridge further fuelled his passion for the subject. Born in St John’s and educated in England, Goodridge received a geography degree from Cambridge University before embarking on an international teaching career that took him to colleges in England and India enroute to Newfoundland. During his tenure in India, he was for

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Figure 3.2 Frederick Emerson, untitled Newfoundland scene (original painting)

a ­ten-year period Master and Acting Principal of the Daly College for Indian Princes at Indore. In 1942, he served as official artist and reporter with the Royal Indian Navy. Goodridge returned to Newfoundland in 1944 to accept the position of Secretary to Governor Sir Humphrey Walwyn; however, when the governor and his entourage were replaced by a new administration, he returned to academia once more to assume the position of special lecturer in Geography at Memorial University College. Initially considered for a vacant art instructor position (a suggestion he declined on the grounds that his academic qualifications left him better suited to teach geography), Goodridge founded the college’s Department of Geography in 1946 and served as department chair during the institution’s transition to degree-granting university (a position he maintained until his retirement in 1960). Emerson was at the time vice-chair of the college’s Board of Governors (1945–57) and undoubtedly supported Goodridge’s candidacy for the position.1 As an artist, Goodridge painted a large mural depicting the departure of Giovanni



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Caboto for the New World as part of celebrations commemorating the 450th anniversary of the milestone voyage, while in the early 1950s three of his paintings were purchased by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. In his home province, Goodridge is perhaps best remembered for creating an imposing mural depicting Newfoundland’s history that adorns the main lobby of the provincial legislature, the Confederation Building.2 In 1977, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Memorial University of Newfoundland.3 In a model of intellectual camaraderie, Emerson and Goodridge developed a hobby of jointly researching various historical topics as a leisure activity during the winter months. A topic would be chosen (for example, the American War of Independence) and the pair would set out to acquire books, articles, and other references on the topic that would then be analyzed and debated at length. The practice underscores the recurring presence of Goodridge in Emerson’s creative life and the lasting impact of their friendship cannot be overstated. Not unlike a modern-day Florestan and Eusebius (to invoke the imagined world of Robert Schumann’s Davidsbünd), the pair formed their own league of kindred spirits rooted in a shared passion for intellectual discovery and interdisciplinary thought. Emerson’s broad literary interests included “everything that was good,” as Carla Emerson Furlong succinctly put it. Dante, Dickens, and Shakespeare all found a place of honour in his library, as did a host of titles in Gaelic and Polish, among other languages. The family’s Steinway grand piano (the same one given him by his father) was seemingly always in use by one family member or another, with Emerson’s many performances particularly memorable.4 As a pianist, he played a wide range of music, although he had a particular fondness for Baroque and Classical repertoire (notably the music of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven). Among other composers figuring prominently in his extensive music library were Haydn, Chopin, Liszt, Grieg, Parry, Willan, and, of course Schumann, the prize-winning legacy of his music studies at Framlingham. Equally well represented were folksong collections of diverse origins resulting from years of international travel and a heartfelt affinity for traditional music. Included among these were books of Appalachian, Canadian, Czech, French, German, Italian, Latvian, Norwegian, and Russian folksongs, among others. Emerson frequently sang from his vast repertoire of international folksongs  – no doubt invoking memories of past travels in the process; however, his most stirring renditions were those of his native Newfoundland. By the

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late 1920s, his passionate engagement with the subject culminated in the pioneering Newfoundland expeditions of Maud Karpeles, with whom he worked closely as host, advisor, and folksinger (see chapter 5). While her “harping grandmother” fostered a love of her chosen instrument, it was through her father that the young Carla Emerson (later ­Furlong) first developed an interest in the piano. According to her, Emerson had high expectations as a piano teacher, yet, despite the familiar studio environment and close family relationship, she found her lessons stimulating due to his engaging teaching style and a particular fondness for introducing new repertoire with extra-musical stories of his own invention to kindle the imagination. It was a strategy Emerson would employ to great effect years later in the college classroom, as vivid descriptive analysis brought classical masterworks to life for an entire generation of post-secondary students (many of whom had little or no prior exposure to classical music). Other early music teachers included Elsie Tait, Marjorie Taylor and M. Baptist McDermott (1889–1950) of the Mercy Convent, with whom she studied piano from 1932 to 1936 and subsequently harp in 1939. One of the true pioneers of music education in Newfoundland, M. Baptist was one of the first Newfoundlanders to receive an associate diploma in piano and teaching from the Trinity College of Music in London. Following studies at the Boston Conservatory of Music and the Pius X School of Liturgical Music in Manhattanville, NY, she returned to Newfoundland to found the Mercy Convent String Orchestra (the first of its kind in St John’s). In addition to E ­ merson Furlong, other musicians to train under her guidance included M. Celine Veitch, one of the first Newfoundland musicians to receive a piano fellowship from Trinity College, and Dr David Peters, a long time organist at Cochrane Street United Church in St John’s.5 After graduating from Bishop Spencer College in St John’s, ­Emerson Furlong followed her father’s trans-Atlantic path with two years of training in England at Benenden School, Kent, from 1936 to 1938. While there, she studied music with Mary Owen Jones. Advanced studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto followed (1940–42), where she studied harp with Muriel Donnellan and piano with Viggo Kihl. The onset of war forced an unexpected hiatus in what was quickly becoming a very promising musical career, yet, like her mother before her, she made a valuable contribution to the war effort by serving as a naval cipher for the Canadian navy in St John’s. Following the war, she was accepted into the Juilliard School of Music in New York (the only Newfoundlander at Juilliard at the time), where she studied with



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harpist Marcel Grandjany from 1946 to 1948. Subsequent studies with ­Grandjany were undertaken in Montreal. After a period of freelance work in England, she obtained a position with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1950 for a tour of the United States (under the direction of Sir Thomas Beecham).6 Further freelance and theatrical work in England followed, including performances at the Royal Vic Theatre and vaudeville shows with the English entertainer Vic Oliver, before being drawn back to North America to accept a teaching position at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. She taught there from 1955 to 1962, mentoring a number of future orchestral musicians in the process. By 1962 Newfoundland was calling, to quote Peter LeSueur’s nostalgic song of expatriate longing.7 More precisely, Ignatius Rumboldt was calling. While in Toronto, the indefatigable organist, choir director, and folksong aficionado paid Emerson Furlong a visit to encourage (or more aptly recruit) her to come home. A musical institution in Newfoundland, Rumboldt (1916–1994) was born in the Western Newfoundland community of Curling and studied music with Catherine Ryan (violin) and Charles Hutton (voice, piano, and organ). The latter he succeeded as organist and choirmaster at the Roman Catholic Cathedral (later Basilica) of St John the Baptist and music director at St Bonaventure’s College. Rumboldt is perhaps best known for directing the Memorial University Glee Club, St John’s Extension Choir, and CJON Glee Club during the 1950s and 1960s, and especially for programming arrangements of Newfoundland folksongs in choral concerts and recordings.8 He was instrumental in the creation of the St John’s Symphony Orchestra (later known as the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra) and the Department of Music at Memorial University of Newfoundland (an institution that still awards a scholarship in his name). A member of the Canada Council from 1965 to 1968, Rumboldt became a member of the Order of Canada in 1975 and received the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal in 1978.9 As Emerson Furlong recalls, Rumboldt made his case pointedly: “Why are you wasting your time with foreigners?” he queried. “We really need people back at home. Things are really booming now in the music field.”10 It was all the encouragement she needed. With that Emerson Furlong backed her bags and moved home to Newfoundland, where she met husband-to-be Richard Furlong (whom she married in 1969). Upon Rumboldt’s invitation, she became actively involved with the fledgling St John’s Symphony Orchestra, prompting Emerson (by then retired and living in Nova Scotia) to compose his Newfoundland Rhapsody for the ensemble.

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Having lived a largely urban existence for much of her adult life, the move back to the collegial and closeknit Newfoundland musical community was for Emerson Furlong as invigorating as the salt-sea air. She found warm company in the nuns of the Mercy and Presentation Orders and a host of other colleagues and friends, such as the Germanborn pianist/pedagogue Andreas Barban (1914–1993). Born in Leipzig and educated at the Leipzig Conservatory of Music (where his teachers included Robert Teichmueller and Max Hochkofler), Barban escaped Nazi Germany and taught piano in Shanghai from 1939 to 1947, when he made the dramatic and seemingly unlikely move to St John’s with wife Betty and their infant son Gregory (ignoring the airplane pilot’s “ominous” warning that Newfoundland contained “only fish and black dogs!”)11 In sharp contrast to the pilot’s naivety, Barban was delighted with the vibrant musical culture he found in St John’s and captivated by the people he met there. From the mid to late twentieth century, he was a dynamic presence on the Newfoundland music scene, giving recitals with musicians such as singers Eileen Stanbury, Lynn Channing, and others, performing in radio broadcasts on radio station VONF and later the CBC, serving as music critic for local concerts, conducting the fledgling St John’s Symphony Orchestra (1963–66) and giving instruction in music appreciation, piano, and German lieder at Memorial University of Newfoundland.12 Barban was a pioneer in Newfoundland’s developing music festival movement, serving as an adjudicator, advisor, and accompanist for many years after the inception of the St John’s Kiwanis Music Festival in 1952. Among his former pupils are the concert pianists Edmund Dawe, Derek Parsons, and Karen Quinton, choral director Susan Knight, and flutist Marina Piccinini. In 1985, he received an honorary doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland, an institution that still offers a scholarship in his name. Upon her return to Newfoundland, Emerson Furlong set up a private music studio in her home on Monkstown Road, where she has remained a pillar of the Newfoundland music community ever since. In an impressive career that continues to the present day, she has taught generations of harp students (many of whom have gone on to successful musical careers) and given innumerable concert performances as soloist, chamber musician, and harpist with the St John’s Symphony Orchestra and Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra. Decades after her father’s pioneering lectures at Memorial University College, Emerson Furlong taught at the newly founded Memorial University Department of Music in the 1970s and early 1980s. In recognition of a lifetime of outstanding



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achievement, she was named an honorary member of the Newfoundland and Labrador Registered Music Teachers Association in 1998.13 While not sharing the career aspirations of his elder sister, Harry ­Emerson likewise possessed an early aptitude for music and studied as a child with M. Baptist. Although he did not undertake extensive training, he possessed perfect pitch and is said to have shared his sister’s natural gift for playing by ear. As a young adult, Harry Emerson moved to Toronto to pursue a career in business during the 1940s, founding the advertising company Emerson Special Productions (ESP). The move to Toronto (and away from the long lineage of lawyers in the Emerson family) was a somewhat rebellious one, yet in many respects he was still very much his father’s son. Aside from bearing a striking resemblance to his father, Harry Emerson is said to have shared his father’s imaginative (and at times outrageous) sense of humour and maintained a lifelong interest in music, which he cultivated through the purchase of a new piano in Toronto. After marrying Anne Smith (1922–2002) of Toronto in 1950, he fathered two children, Geoffrey (b. 1951) and Suzanne (b. 1953). Harry Emerson passed away in Toronto in 1999. Anne Emerson was the dancer in the family. With a dual affinity for ballet and folk dancing, she studied dance with Freida Berry at Bishop Spencer College, and it was for Berry and the Bishop Spencer girls that Frederick Emerson composed music to a ballet entitled the The Triumph of Spring (to which Berry supplied the choreography). The piece was performed by girls of the school in a 1938 production that also included a second dance piece he composed for the occasion, entitled The Slave Girl. According to sister Carla, Anne possessed a more practical nature than either of her two siblings and – with no disrespect to Carla and Harry intended – it was Anne whom Grandmother Jameson affectionately dubbed “the brains of the family.”14 Known to possess a special aptitude for English literature and writing her own poetry, Anne ­Emerson would later graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto in 1941. Upon graduation, she returned home to St John’s, where she worked alongside sister Carla as a naval cipher during the Second World War. It was in her native St John’s during the 1940s that fate would intervene to introduce Anne Emerson to a young Norwegian by the name of Leif Holt (b. 1918). More correctly, it was not fate but rather her father who intervened to make the seemingly unlikely union possible. Son of a Norwegian father and Latvian mother, Holt had crossed the Atlantic to accept a position from a Norwegian shipping company to work

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in ­Labrador. It was because of his employer, or one might say in spite of his employer, that Holt made his way to the St John’s office of then Norwegian Consul in Newfoundland Frederick Emerson. Holt, it seems, had not been paid for an entire year’s work and sought ­Emerson’s assistance in seeking restitution. In a chain of events reminiscent of many foreign visitors who made their way to Emerson’s door, Holt was not only given assistance in his contractual dilemma but also welcomed into the E ­ merson home. As Emerson Furlong recalls, the newly invited house guest was introduced very matter-of-factly to the Emerson girls: “Dad said to Anne, I want you to pick up a Norwegian at the Newfoundland Hotel to come and live with us.”15 An initial invitation for “tea” soon evolved into an extended stay and, while Emerson availed of his new acquaintance to sharpen his linguistic skills in Norwegian (Holt also spoke Russian and Latvian), Leif and Anne developed an ever closer bond. Following a brief sojourn in Montreal, where Holt was employed by McGill University, the couple returned to Newfoundland to wed before settling in Greenfield, Nova Scotia, in 1955. Emerson, for his part, had by no means seen the last of Norwegian visitors in St John’s. In the late 1950s, a hospitalized Norwegian national in St John’s was in need of a translator and, in typical fashion, Emerson (still one of a rare few individuals in Newfoundland who spoke Norwegian) answered the most unusual request from hospital staff to attend to “a dead Norwegian”!16 Anne and Leif Holt would go on to have three children together – David Emerson Ian (b. 1953), Linda Astrid (b.1955) and Janet Olga Isabel (b. 1960). Maud Karpeles, one of the Emersons’ closest foreign acquaintances, was by no means the only distinguished guest at “Hotel Quinnipiac” during the childhood years of Carla, Anne, and Harry Emerson. Another European visitor was the eminent Ukrainian-born pianist Benno ­Moiseiwitsch (1890–1963). Moiseiwitsch, who became a British citizen in 1937, won the Rubinstein prize at the age of nine and, by adulthood, had concertized extensively in Europe, the United States, the Far East, Africa, and South America. His interpretations were renowned for being “fiery, effortlessly brilliant and powerful, with singing tone, firmly controlled yet subtle rhythm, and a strong vein of elegant poetic expression. ‘Moiseiwitsch double octaves,’ thumbs louder than fifth fingers, became a household word among pianists.”17 He was a friend and admirer of the legendary Russian composer/pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff, whose music he championed. The latter, for his part, paid him the ultimate compliment by exclaiming that Moiseiwitsch played his works better than he



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did himself. Moiseiwitsch was passing through St John’s following a concert engagement in Boston during the 1930s, and the dulcet tones his fingers coaxed from the Emerson family Steinway no doubt elicited enthusiastic applause from his admiring hosts. Later houseguests included renowned Canadian composer H ­ ealey Willan, who resided at Quinnipiac during a 1942 visit to St John’s. ­Willan was in Newfoundland that year to examine for the Trinity College Music Examinations and also gave a recorded organ recital at Cochrane Street Church in which his own organ works were performed. Included on the program were Willan’s Prelude and Fugue in B minor, Scherzo in B minor, and Chorale Prelude No. 1. The recital took place on 23 May 1942 and was recorded by Newfoundland radio station VONF. Appropriately, Willan’s performance took place on an instrument that he helped design in 1916 when asked by then organist Arthur Mews to suggest a replacement for one that was lost in a fire that destroyed the previous church on the site. According to Emerson Furlong, Emerson and Willan would chat into the early morning hours about musical matters and their conversations could not have failed to make an impression on an aspiring young musician such as herself. Emerson was by this time an accomplished linguist who spoke multiple languages, including French, Italian, German, Greek, Latin, Hungarian, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian. One family friend of Italian heritage, Daphne (Embleton) Collins, recalls that he possessed a remarkable flair for languages and that the two would meet periodically to read Italian (including excerpts from Dante’s Divine Comedy, among other literary works).18 His linguistic skills, inspired by a childhood fascination with the subject and honed through extensive travel throughout Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere, would later enable him to assume the diplomatic posts of Royal Norwegian consul (1945–59), Icelandic consul (1947–58), and vice-consul for the Netherlands in Newfoundland (1940–58). The legacy of his world travels and linguistic abilities was twofold. On the one hand visitors of diverse nationalities frequently enlivened the home with a multitude of foreign languages as Emerson came to be viewed as something of a cultural liaison/translator for Europeans in Newfoundland. Yet no less significant were his vivid firsthand accounts of travel abroad as conveyed through numerous lectures, public addresses, and informal talks to Newfoundlanders at home. In an era in which travel to and from Newfoundland could be costly and arduous, his engaging stories of international travel (all told from a local frame of

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Figure 3.3 Healey Willan with Isabel Emerson (seated), Dorothy Geehan (standing), and the Emerson family dogs Jumbo and Rover, “Quinnipiac,” St John’s, Newfoundland, May 1942

reference) and the customs and folklore of the peoples he encountered (often illustrated with sung examples from his repertoire of international folksongs) opened the eyes and ears of many to a world beyond the North Atlantic. Witness for example the following excerpt from a wartime lecture on the Republic of Columbia, during which some very memorable encounters in the city of Cartagena are relayed with characteristic eloquence and wit. A telling illustration of the spirit of cultural discovery that guided his creative life and the real life adventures that informed his worldview, it is well worth quoting at length:



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I suppose it is the experience of most people who make their first visit to a foreign country to find that it rarely turns out to be in the least as anticipated. However much you read about a country – and there is no doubt that through books you can absorb a lot of curious knowledge, much of which is often unknown to the people there – once you actually arrive you find that the reality is always unexpected and novel. In every country, most people have conventions and customs of their own, and they pursue their way of life in their own fashion, caring little about the rest of the world and often happily quite ignoring it ... This was borne upon me once, when, happening to be in Cuba, I received an invitation to visit friends in Cartagena ... The South American city of Cartagena, on the Atlantic coast of the republic of Colombia, is no less Spanish than the historic Mediterranean port after which it was named. The old town is enclosed within high thick walls built when the city was the home of the pirates of the Spanish Main. Few of its buildings have any pretension to architectural grandeur or beauty but the houses of stucco, with their light pastel colouring, are attractive and cheerful and, if somewhat tawdry by day, at night in the electric light or under the splendour of a tropical moon, they are as romantic and as theatrical as a stage-painter’s dream. It is a city that pleases the eye of the artist rather than the taste of an expert in municipal government and the fresh breeze from the sea suppresses much that might offend the fastidious. Part of the republic lies on the equator itself and the leisurely life of Spain is perfectly suited to its tropical climate. One does not hurry in Colombia; one contemplates rather than acts. Tomorrow is infinitely better for activity than today. “Never perform today what you may tomorrow” is a precept of this sun-baked land, where life is most agreeable when it is least mobile. At midday the city sleeps ... But beneath this slumbering and suave exterior life in Cartagena can be stirring, passionate and exciting. Political feeling can at any moment erupt like a volcano. A quiet, friendly conversation in a restaurant may suddenly flash into a quick and tense quarrel, ending abruptly as it began. But it is when they assemble at the bullfight that they evince an enthusiasm that has no rival in fire and intensity ... Even more fascinating than the city was the forest. There is something overwhelming about a tropical forest. Its growth and vitality are almost terrifying. Trees of every shade of vivid green are laden with flowers of every hue. The air is deafening with the song of

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countless birds. The strange and amazing fruits fascinate one. Yet you are warned that you cannot walk with impunity. Snakes lurk in the branches, the log that lies across your path is the haunt of the deadly tarantula ... It was during my month in Colombia that I saw something of how the Nazis work. My hostess had been educated in Europe and spoke Spanish and German perfectly. Her particular friends were the members of the German colony and, in fact, German was if one might say so the language of her drawing-room. There for example one met the officers of the airline – the Lufthansa. Roads are bad in Colombia and railway communication is extremely limited. The journey to the capital, Bogota, is a matter of some weeks by the river boat but one can fly there in a few hours. Consequently air travel is popular. The personnel of the air line were all German ex-army officers. An habitué of her house was the doctor of the hospital, a highly educated Austrian. Apart from being a doctor and, I believe, an extremely good one, he was an omnivorous reader, a musician and a brilliant conversationalist. He was the head of what was called “the German House.” I was not in Cartagena very long before I learned that every German – and there were quite a number of them – was a member of this institution, the German House. It was a somewhat odd club, in that visitors were not encouraged. It is not difficult to guess why. I am, however, indebted to this club for the use of a piano during my stay. My hostess, under the impression that I was a pianist, had intimated that the German colony was in for a rare treat and the club piano was dispatched to her house before I arrived and placed at my disposal ... I got to know Dr M. quite well and often went motoring with him to his charming estate in the hills. He was very fond of expatiating on the philosophy of Spengler and the future and greatness of the German race. Unfortunately although my German is sufficient to enable me to say things like “the red lady has three cherries and two apples,” the sort of sentences you find in an elementary German grammar book, and perhaps to read some of the jokes at the back of a comic paper, it was quite inadequate for an intelligent understanding of the doctor’s elaborate and complicated dissertations. Consequently I never really learned why it was necessary that the Germans should prove their superiority by exterminating Poles and Czechs and just what was the new order for which obviously all these Germans were working with fanatical zeal. I did remark to the



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doctor one day19 that the members of the German club he had organized were sufficiently numerous to take the city of Cartagena. What I said as a joke he took quite seriously. “Of course we could,” he replied, “but before attempting it I think we should have one of our good German warships outside to assist us.” It was in Colombia that I found that the Germans did not regard our own little island of Newfoundland as quite devoid of interest. I took Spanish lessons from a German lady every morning and at one of my first lessons I asked her if she had any German books. She replied that one could not keep books in that climate – they mildewed. Later when I had progressed a little I happened to write an essay on Newfoundland and she took exception to some fact in it – I forget exactly what it was – and we got into some sort of argument. As a result and to prove her point, she introduced me to her impressive collection of Nazi books and produced a volume that she had received not long before. Several chapters were devoted to Newfoundland and struck me as a remarkably able and careful study. They were, of course, written with a view to proving that this country, like so many parts of the British Empire, was practically uninhabited, undeveloped and completely forgotten and ignored by the mother country, and painted a glowing picture of the development that they claim would follow its annexation by Germany. The author did not touch upon the system by which Germany develops countries under her protection – a system that violates every principal of decency and fair-dealing ... A month in a coastal city like Cartagena obviously gives only a superficial idea of the real Colombia. The few days that I did spend in the small towns in the interior made me regret that I could not see far more. The country people are very charming. They have the dignity and courtesy of the true Spaniard and the politeness of their speech, if elaborate, seems natural and sincere. They are affable to the stranger and delight in hospitality. The potential wealth of a country like Colombia is, of course, enormous. It is famous not only for its emeralds and other precious stones, its forest and fruit, but for its oil supply. The employees of Imperial Oil Limited occupy in Colombia what is practically a town of their own just outside the city of Cartagena. The potentialities of Colombia make one realize the great future of the South American republics. One has only to listen to the radio to realize the growing importance of the Spanish language. Just at

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the present time the shape of things to come can be but vaguely discerned, yet it seems clear that the Latin culture that Spain has made her own is a living and growing force that will be in the days to come of incalculable value to the civilization that will emerge out of the present conflict. The strategic position of Spain, her creative genius, her ties of blood and speech with the Spanish-American republics, inevitably lead her to a place of prominence in the new order that the democracies must found to establish the world peace their evolution demands.20 During the Second World War, the Canadian military availed of ­ merson’s linguistic talents by hiring him to teach German to Canadian E troops awaiting deployment overseas (suggesting that the modest selfassessment of his German comprehension downplayed his true abilities considerably). It was during this time that he first met the Polish teenager Bogedar (“Dan”) Nowosielski, and the telling encounter that resulted underscores his benevolence as a host, benefactor, and cultural liaison for numerous European visitors to Newfoundland. Nowosielski’s family had fled Poland for London during the early stages of the war and, while some family members escaped via Norway, Bogedar made his way to London via France. At age sixteen, Nowosielski went to work for his uncle in the ship business and, through that association, made his way to Botwood, Newfoundland. A bout of appendicitis prompted an emergency medical visit to St John’s, and it was there that Emerson took the youth “under his wing” with an offer of hospitality and guidance. Nowosielski stayed with the Emersons in their Winter Avenue home, and what was initially to be a short visit ended up lasting two years! This was no small gesture, especially given that the Emerson home was already populated with three teenage children. Through Emerson’s intervention, Nowosielski was admitted to Bishop Feild College, where he graduated shortly thereafter. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and later the Polish Air Force, where he achieved a brilliant record of military service.21 Following the war he attended university, excelled at his studies, and became a Professor of Entomology at Dundee University (an intellectual career path of which Emerson would have surely approved). Nowosielski’s inspirational story would prove one of many instances of Emerson’s unusual generosity and humanitarianism. It was a role he dutifully and cheerfully accepted, and one that held special meaning in time of war. In recognition of his contributions in this regard, Emerson was bestowed with the rare honour of the Polish Golden Cross.22 One of



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Figure 3.4 Bogedar (“Dan”) Nowosielski peering through the strings of Carla Emerson’s harp during his time with the Emerson family in Newfoundland

the highest civilian distinctions awarded by the Government of Poland to recognize outstanding service to the state or society, it is normally reserved for Polish nationals and rarely bestowed upon foreigners. The presence of gifted and stimulating foreign guests would become such a regular occurrence in the household (and much later at his retirement residence in Greenfield, Nova Scotia), that it became known in local circles as something of a League of Nations in microcosm. David Holt has gone so far as to liken the Emerson home to a hotel, remarking (with only mild exaggeration) that “people would come for tea and stay for weeks!”23 One foreign visitor of particular intrigue was the famed Italian aviator (and Mussolini’s fascist rival) Italo Balbo (1896–1940), who visited Newfoundland in 1933. Balbo’s visit coincided with the

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second of two trans-Atlantic flights,24 an exhibit of aviation mastery that ultimately took him to the United States and captivated the world. While in New York, he was greeted with a ticker tape parade, a dinner in his honour hosted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and a mammoth reception at Madison Square Garden. 25 Balbo, his crew, and twenty-four Savoia Marchetti flying boats travelled from Orbetello, Italy, to Chicago and New York City before stopping in Shoal Harbour, Trinity Bay, and nearby Clarenville on the return leg of the journey.26 The layover was intended to be brief, however inclement weather forced the indefinite grounding of Balbo and his fleet, making possible an extended visit to the capital of St John’s.27 Evidently captivated by what he saw, Balbo would later describe the city as “a beautiful town with a distinctly Nordic stamp about it. Its houses, made of timber, are for the most part, of dazzling whiteness, and stretch away from the sea along the slopes of the hills.”28 Among Balbo’s activities in St John’s were a dance at the Newfoundland Hotel and a special ceremony at Cabot Tower, where he sent a message to his esteemed countryman Guglielmo Marconi in honour of the latter’s celebrated reception of the first trans-Atlantic wireless message.29 Emerson was the official translator for Balbo and his entourage in Newfoundland, all of whom made what must have surely been a most memorable visit to Quinnipiac during their stay. On the evening of his departure, Balbo was given an official sendoff at the St John’s railway station, during which Emerson (speaking on behalf of Governor David Anderson) replied to the aviator’s farewell address. As Balbo himself later recorded, “We got a rousing send off at the station from the Prime Minister and the other members of his Cabinet. Dr Emerson, a Newfoundlander who is a great authority on Dante and Petrarch, replied to my farewell speech in faultless Italian.”30 Aside from the complimentary assessment of Emerson’s linguistic abilities, Balbo’s reference to Emerson as “a great authority” on two of his country’s iconic poets suggests that the two may well have conversed on the subject at Quinnipiac. Later that same year, Balbo was appointed governor general of Libya, where he took up residence in 1934. An outspoken critic of Mussolini’s 1938 legislation against Jews, he expressed outrage over his leader’s support for Adolph Hitler, arguing (to no avail) that Italy should side with Great Britain instead. In the words of his biographer Claudio G. Segrè, “from 1936 to 1940 fascism was a slowly sinking ship. Balbo chose to stay aboard, bail, and from time to time shout advice to a deaf captain.”31 On 28 June 1940, Balbo died when his plane was shot down by



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Figure 3.5 Italo Balbo (centre) with Frederick Emerson to his immediate left, Shoal Harbour, Newfoundland, 1933. Also seen are (left to right): Newfoundland Secretary of State John C. Puddester and Mrs Puddester, Signor Nosari (a member of Balbo’s team), Charles Hutton, and future Newfoundland Lieutenant Governor Leonard Outerbridge.

Italian forces while landing at the airfield in Tobruk, Libya, shortly after a British air attack. The official explanation of the incident dismissed his death as a “friendly fire” accident, however widespread speculation ensued that Mussolini had ordered his assassination. By opening his home to a diverse array of foreign guests (distinguished visitors and those of modest means alike), Emerson played a major role (one perhaps not fully appreciated at the time) in shaping Newfoundland’s image internationally as its unofficial “cultural ambassador.” Just as he shared his unique worldview with Newfoundlanders at home (the legacy of extensive travel abroad), his rich perspectives on Newfoundland culture were shared with the world.

4 Cultural Awakenings and Kindred Spirits: Queen’s College, the “Voice of Newfoundland,” and Eleanor Mews Jerrett By the 1920s, Emerson had become a stalwart of the local arts community. His rich baritone voice was soon heard in local concerts and lecture halls, where his impassioned renditions of Newfoundland folksongs became well known, while a lifelong affinity for the piano was manifest through a number of concert performances on the instrument. According to David Holt, he may have even harboured aspirations of becoming an opera singer during his younger years.1 One of many early performances took place at a banquet given by the Benevolent Irish Society in St John’s in 1926. Emerson was a featured singer on the program, which also included musical selections rendered by Charles Hutton. In 1928, he collaborated with the Church of England organist and choirmaster Richard T. Bevan on a Schubert Festival at Memorial University College.2 Emerson’s multifaceted contributions to the proceedings typified his central role in Newfoundland’s artistic and intellectual life by this stage (a role he passionately embraced). The festival culminated with successive concerts on the evenings of 26 and 27 November, during which Emerson delivered an address on the life of Schubert, performed the “Wanderer” Fantasy for solo piano, and sang three lieder: “Der Doppelgänger,” “Nacht und Träume,” and “Ständchen.” Bevan, for his part, was an accomplished composer who had previously written “The Life of Christ” for SATB chorus with soprano and baritone solos. That composition was performed by the combined choirs of the Church of England Cathedral and St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of St John’s in a 1927 choral concert commemorating the centenary of the death of Beethoven. The concert took place at the Cathedral and featured soprano Edith Groat and Emerson as soloists.



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Figure 4.1 “The Singing Lawyer”: Emerson had become a stalwart of the local arts community by the late 1920s

Despite the considerable demands of a large law practice and a growing family at home, Emerson made charitable and educational work an essential part of his life. He gave freely of his time and talents to a host of benefit concerts and other fundraising events for an array of causes and was known to have supported an aunt living in New York City with proceeds from his newfound law practice. He became a pillar of the Anglican Church in Newfoundland, a life of service rooted in his home parish of the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in St John’s and expanding to a leadership role of distinction as an educator at Queen’s College (theological) and later chancellor of the Diocese of Newfoundland (1954–60). In 1926, he served on a committee to raise funds for the reconstruction of the Cathedral organ.3 Among the ideas proposed by Emerson during

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the committee’s deliberations was the formation of a new choral society dedicated to the performance of sacred concerts at the Cathedral following the installation of the new organ. By 1927 the organ reconstruction had been completed by Casavant Frères of Québec, while Bevan, formerly organist at Romsey Abbey in England, marked the occasion with an organ recital in which Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor was performed alongside an original organ “Fantasy” composed by Bevan himself. Beginning in autumn 1929 and continuing for several years after, ­Emerson lectured on English literature (and occasionally law) at Queen’s College in St John’s. Founded in 1841 as the Theological Institute by Bishop Aubrey George Spencer (the first Bishop of the Diocese of Newfoundland), Queen’s College was one of three educational institutions founded by the Church of England in Newfoundland following the formation of the diocese in 1839. The others were the aforementioned Collegiate School for Boys (1844, known later as Bishop Feild College), and the Diocesan Girls’ School (1845, later Bishop Spencer College). In its first year of operations, under the tutelage of the Rev. C. Blackman, the college trained an inaugural class of six students in a small schoolroom near St Thomas’s Church. Before departing Newfoundland for the balmier island posting of Bishop of Jamaica in 1843, Spencer increased the number of Church of England clergy in Newfoundland more than threefold (from eight to twenty-five), including deacon-schoolmasters. His successor, Bishop Edward Feild, arrived in 1844 and shortly thereafter relocated the college to a new building, where it was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria and Feild’s alma mater, Queen’s College, Oxford. Following a series of incremental improvements and additions to its facilities, a major series of post-World War I extensions was undertaken under the leadership of college principal Dr N.S. Facey. Decades later, in 1967, a new Queen’s College opened on the Prince Philip Drive campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland as an affiliated college of that institution. Earlier in its existence, the institute was affiliated with ­Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Québec, and, prior to 1949, with Durham University in England and Memorial University College in St John’s.4 In autumn 1929, Emerson lectured on the subject of “A Clergyman’s Knowledge of the Law” to an assemblage of clergy organized by the Queen’s College Social Club. A report on the event appeared in the December 1929 issue of the Diocesan: “We are indebted to our Social Club for a lecture on points of law which have a special bearing on the work of the Clergy in our Diocese, by Mr F.R. Emerson. Mr Emerson



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took us over a wide field and gave us in simple language information on a large number of practical points. It was one of the most profitable lectures ever arranged for us by the Club and we are very grateful to them and their learned speaker.”5 Practical lectures such as this were in addition to his ongoing work as lecturer in English Literature, of which a 1932 weekly series on Shakespeare typified his contributions. Emerson’s enrichment of academic life at the college was acknowledged as “supplying a long felt want” among Newfoundland clergy, both with respect to the study of English literature and to acquiring the reading and literacy skills necessary to perform their duties.6 A donor of his time, intellect, and even it seems his library to Queen’s College, he received thanks in a 1933 article in the Diocesan: “Mr Emerson, our English lecturer, has added to our indebtedness to him by presenting the College with a copy of ‘The Universal Dictionary of the English Language,’ edited by Professor Wyld, of Oxford University. It contains some 200,000 words, including the latest additions to our language, with the received and correct pronunciation of each word. Mr Emerson is doing much to develop our interest in the derivation of words as well as a taste for the literature of our language, and we are very much his debtor. On behalf of the College we thank him most kindly.”7 In May 1933, he organized and performed in a concert given in the college library in which some of St John’s leading musicians took part (among them David Morgan, LRAM,8 Bevan’s successor as organist of the Church of England Cathedral and Gordon Christian, organist and choirmaster at George Street United Church and music teacher at the Methodist College). Later that same year a he gave one of his earlier lectures on the subject with which he is most closely associated today, traditional music. Facey’s adulatory report on the event suggests that Emerson’s musical talents and linguistic fluency made for a stimulating cultural experience: “Mr F.R. Emerson, our English lecturer, gave us a real treat on the evening of December 16th, when he took us on a tour through Europe on the piano. We could not but marvel at the way in which he interpreted the life and habits of the Norwegians, Russians, Austrians, Hungarians, Germans, and English, by playing and singing in their respective languages their folksongs. Only a Mr Emerson could have given us in the way he did such delightful glimpses of the social life of the peasant people in such a number of countries.”9 Similarly themed lectures were presented for an array of local church and community groups in the ensuing years, such as a presentation on E ­ uropean folk music to the Presbyterian Young People’s Association in June 1944.

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Years later, in another telling illustration of Emerson’s interdisciplinary scholarship (and growing international recognition of his intellectual abilities), he delivered a lecture on Roman history to a meeting of the London-based Virgil Society (affiliated with the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of London, the Virgil Society was founded in 1943 with the celebrated poet T.S. Eliot as its first president).10 It was at home in Newfoundland, however, that the breadth of ­Emerson’s scholarship was most widely appreciated. In July 1928, he gave the first of many lectures in a long and distinguished association with Memorial University College and, in the ensuing years, emerged as one the island’s most sought-after public speakers. The subject on that occasion was a centenary celebration of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, accompanied by a small collection of reproductions and one original drawing on exhibit.11 As a music lecturer at the college years later, ­Emerson would leave his lasting mark on post-secondary education in Newfoundland as an entire generation of students was introduced to the world of classical music and inspired to a fresh rediscovery of Newfoundland traditional music (see chapter 7). Yet as early as 1930 the seeds of knowledge were already being planted with a series of musical presentations to the college community. As one of the students in those early sessions, Stuart Godfrey, later recalled, “the late Frederick Emerson, KC, was a particularly generous and much appreciated visitor. One recalls that Mr Emerson visited the College on several occasions at general Assemblies and other times during the two academic years 1930–32. It was then that many of us heard and had interpreted to us, for the first time, recorded instrumental and vocal performances, as well as music played (piano) and sung by him. Little enough though these brief exposures may have been they were important features in the stimulating and civilizing process through which we were making our way, and gave us much delight.”12 It was during this same time period that informal student singing groups at the college began to emerge and there can be little doubt that Emerson’s presentations (with sung vocal examples) served as an inspirational model. In 1933, he shared his musical expertise with the community at large as an adjudicator in a competition of St John’s interdenominational church choirs (sharing the adjudicating duties was his former Bishop Feild music teacher H.W. Stirling). The winning choir on that occasion was the George Street United Church Choir, under the direction of Gordon Christian.13 On 14 November 1932, Emerson performed in a landmark radio broadcast of orchestral, vocal, and instrumental music commemorating



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the opening of Newfoundland Radio Station VONF in St John’s.14 Along with its sister station VOGY (both owned by the Dominion Broadcasting Company), VONF was the first to provide island-wide broadcasts. The two stations were amalgamated under government control in 1934 as VONF (Voice of Newfoundland), before being transferred to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation following Confederation with Canada in 1949. VONF’s inaugural concert broadcast, the first of its kind in Newfoundland history, was transmitted across the island and billed as something of a “who’s who” of local musical talent: Tonight at 8 o’clock the new station of the Dominion Broadcasting Company will be formally opened when a general outline of the aims and purposes of the station will be given by Mr R.J. Murphy, followed by a programme of orchestral, vocal, and instrumental music, and the latest news as purchased by the station from a local press syndicate. This programme will originate in the new studios of VONF, situated on McBride’s Hill, comprising studios, operating room, waiting room, offices etc. Connection between the studios and the transmitting station in the United Towns sub-station at Mundy’s Pond is maintained by a series of cables especially installed for this purpose ... The transmitter in the United Towns sub-station at Mundy’s Pond is so situated as to give maximum results in antenna radiation as the point is one of the highest in the city. The power of the transmitter will be continually increased and finally will have an output of approximately 5000 watts. At present output, reports have been received from Battle Harbour and Port aux Basques stating that reception is satisfactory every day. The highest class of entertainment procurable in the country will be provided and to this end the co-operation has been obtained of such artistes as Mr D.M. Morgan, organist of the C. of E. Cathedral, Dr John Grieve, Mr Fred E ­ merson, Mrs R.B. Job (née Mrs Emily Warren), Miss K. Howley and Miss Elsie Tait. Programmes consisting of organ recitals, symphonic recordings, vocal and instrumental solos, etc., have been arranged and will be given at regular intervals. The orchestra will be under the direction of Mr Allan Pittman. The design of the station and the installation of the equipment have been done under the direction of Mr G.I. ­Stevens, station director, assisted by Mr J. Butler, operator and

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announcer, and Mr William Moyst. The studio director will be Mr W.F. Galgay.15 Following its auspicious grand opening, the Voice of Newfoundland would play a central role in Newfoundland’s emerging broadcast culture in the ensuing years. In addition to a variety of British and American programming (VONF was the only station in Newfoundland to provide material from NBC in the United States), a series of immensely popular local programs fostered a strong sense of local identity amid British influence during the controversial Commission of Government years. Of these the Gerald S. Doyle News Bulletin (a public service program broadcasting personal messages), the serial drama Irene B. Melon, and Joseph R. Smallwood’s The Barrelman resonated profoundly with Newfoundland listeners.16 The Gerald S. Doyle News Bulletin resulted from Doyle’s voyages throughout coastal Newfoundland, where he identified a pressing need for local radio programming to serve isolated outport listeners. The Bulletin featured local news, community events, weather forecasts, announcements, and personal messages that connected Newfoundlanders in even the most remote communities to distant family and friends. During the spring sealing season, it transmitted information on the state of sealers to family and friends on shore.17 Named for a fictitious schooner, the Irene B. Melon program ran from 1934 to 1941 and followed the exploits of the vessel’s globetrotting crew interspersed with performances of folk and popular music. The song “Cliffs of Baccalieu” was written by Jack Withers (the series creator) for performance on the program.18 Smallwood’s The Barrelman blended history, geography, and folklore into a buoyantly nationalistic program aimed explicitly at “making Newfoundland better known to Newfoundlanders.”19 The show was hosted by Michael F. Harrington following S­ mallwood’s ascent to the forefront of Newfoundland politics and remained on air until 1956. Another program that resonated strongly with Newfoundland listeners was the London-based wartime broadcast Calling Newfoundland. Originating from the BBC and broadcast across Newfoundland on VONF, the program was hosted by Newfoundland native Margot Davies and broadcast interviews and messages from soldiers stationed overseas to family and loved ones across the Atlantic.20 In a gesture of patriotic pride, each episode began and ended with a rendition of the “Ode to Newfoundland” (typically stirring performances delivered by the soldiers themselves), while poetry readings and traditional songs (sung by the soldiers and other guests) were often interspersed with the ­messages.



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In 1944, in recognition of her efforts to bridge the distance between Newfoundland soldiers overseas and their families back home, Davies was appointed a member of the Order of the British Empire. In rural Newfoundland, her voice was as familiar and welcome as a family friend and her name is still revered in many outport communities today. Upon her death in London in 1972, a plaque in her honour was erected in Newfoundland’s provincial legislature, the Confederation Building. One of Newfoundland’s favourite on-air personalities and an institution at VONF was the pianist, organist, and announcer Robert F. ­MacLeod (1908–1981). Born and raised in St John’s and educated at Bishop Feild College, the Methodist College, and Memorial University College, ­MacLeod worked in the retail and later insurance sectors, however he is best remembered for his multifaceted contributions to music and broadcasting.21 A gifted pianist and dynamic presence on the Newfoundland music scene, he played piano for the Masonic Orchestra in the late 1920s and in 1929 founded MacLeod’s Orchestra, a five-piece band that performed widely for local dances and balls.22 In 1931 he began a distinguished career in church music by accepting the position of organist and choirmaster at Wesley United Church. In that capacity, he produced special musical services and arranged and performed in many church-affiliated concerts. It was likewise through that association that MacLeod gained his first experience in radio through services at Wesley United broadcast regularly on the church’s radio affiliate VOWR (Voice of Wesley Radio).23 In 1943 he became organist and choirmaster at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, a post he maintained for decades.24 From 1935 to 1947, MacLeod was a fixture on VONF and a household name in Newfoundland through the multifaceted roles of solo pianist and accompanist, organist, announcer, and producer.25 He produced and hosted talent shows such as the Children’s Savings Program, Stand by for Music, and others and served as an announcer on the Gerald S. Doyle Bulletin for twelve years. MacLeod’s association with Doyle is a fascinating one, as their shared love of Newfoundland culture prompted three summer voyages (1937–39 inclusive) to collect folksongs on Doyle’s yacht the Miss Newfoundland. With MacLeod’s musical expertise, the songs were notated and subsequently published in the second edition of Doyle’s famous Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland (1940). Although seldom accorded the same recognition as Doyle or visiting song collectors working in Newfoundland in first half of the twentieth century (such as ­Karpeles and Greenleaf), ­MacLeod’s role in the Doyle collections was by no means ­inconsequential; like Charles Hutton before

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him (who notated songs for the first edition of Doyle’s collection) he performed an invaluable service in helping to foster and preserve a popular canon of Newfoundland folksongs.26 In the post-Confederation era, MacLeod took his engaging personality, humour, and infectious love of Newfoundland culture on the road as an entertainer, delivering Newfoundland songs and stories to conventions and special events throughout Newfoundland, mainland Canada, and the United States. With the advent of television, he hosted a series of programs on Newfoundland station CJON (now known as NTV), including an interview program entitled Fireside. Robert MacLeod succumbed to a fatal heart attack on 22 May 1981. A dedicated musician to the very end, he passed away shortly after giving a piano and organ performance that same day at the new Salvation Army Temple in St John’s. With MacLeod, Davies, Smallwood, and others behind the microphone, the “Voice of Newfoundland” was clearly being heard and by the time of Confederation with Canada, many of its locally inspired programs, songs, and stories had become enshrined in Newfoundland popular culture. It was a broadcast culture with which Emerson was intimately acquainted, and its passionate advocacy for “all things native” he shared deeply. At the same time as MacLeod was captivating listeners island-wide with his unique blend of music, humour, and Newfoundland culture, Emerson was inspiring in a generation newfound appreciation of the island’s folk music heritage through his published writings and public lectures. In 1944, in one of the earliest radio broadcasts of a play by a native Newfoundlander, Emerson’s locally inspired one-act drama Proud Kate Sullivan (see chapter 6) was broadcast to Newfoundland listeners on VONF. As for his own singing voice, a characteristic modesty precluded any pretense of professional ambition (his childhood dream of becoming an opera singer notwithstanding); however, his considerable talents were not lost on visiting observers (most notably Maud Karpeles, of whom more will be said presently). Lady Hope Simpson, wife of British commissioner Sir John Hope Simpson, visited Newfoundland in the mid1930s and spoke glowingly of Emerson as “a most interesting and gifted person who sings and plays beautifully.”27 Emerson’s fascination with the human voice was further enriched by a series of voice lessons from the Newfoundland singer, voice teacher, and choral director Eleanor Mews (later Jerrett) (1895–1996) following the return of the latter from study abroad in the early 1930s. While Emerson learned much about the human voice (and, as a composer, the art of writing for the human



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voice) from Mews, he reciprocated by offering assistance and camaraderie as the latter sought to re-establish her career in Newfoundland upon returning from the United States.28 In addition to their shared musical interests and international travels, both Mews and Emerson were key figures (albeit somewhat underrated ones) in the development of post-­ secondary music education at Memorial University College and emerging concert life in twentieth-century Newfoundland. For these reasons, and for the many intersecting paths their creative lives entailed, the inspirational story of Eleanor Mews Jerrett merits further consideration here. The daughter of the former Mabel Woods and organist and choir director Arthur Mews,29 Mews was raised in a cultured household that included siblings Marjorie (1902-1965), a librarian and an amateur singer, Henry (Harry) (1897–1982), a member of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment during World War I and later mayor of St John’s, and Gwendolyn (Gwendolyn Duffill Mews, 1893–1973), a visual artist who rose to prominence in the United States with her depictions of the American West. An uncle, Alex Mews, was an accomplished cellist, while his son Douglas Mews would go on to international acclaim as a composer and music educator in England and New Zealand (where he is still highly regarded today).30 The Mews family had immigrated to Hant’s Harbour, Newfoundland, from England during the mid-­nineteenth century. Despite suffering serious burns to her face and body at the age of two and permanent damage to her fingers as a result of the accident, she learned to play the piano and graduated from the Methodist College in her native St John’s in 1913 after winning the Jubilee Scholarship for highest marks in the Council of Higher Education examinations. Following voice lessons at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto with H. Ethel Shepherd and harmony and counterpoint with Healey Willan, she received her LTCM31 diploma from Trinity College (England). By the 1920s, she had taught singing at the Royal Conservatory and established an emerging presence on the Canadian concert scene. Critical response to the young mezzo-soprano was warmly receptive, with her tone, diction, and interpretive sensitivity receiving special notice. The Toronto Star lauded Mews for “the liquid softness of her tone which could not become harsh or strident in any kind of song,” while the Evening Telegram of St John’s remarked similarly that hers was “a voice that is delightful to hear alike for its velvety tone, its purity, and its richness.” Saturday Night commentator Hector Charlesworth hailed her as “the mistress of perfect diction,” while the Toronto music

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critic Augustus Bridle once remarked of her voice that the young singer possessed “an excellent sense of phrase and sentence,” adding (with reference to her Newfoundland roots) that “the sea colours her voice.”32 It was during this time that she returned to Newfoundland to give a series of “song recitals in costume” with her cellist uncle Alex Mews and pianists Gordon Christian and Florence (Pittman) Mews (her aunt). Repertoire included operatic excerpts from Mascagni, Scarlatti, ­Monteverdi, Pergolesi, Mozart, Bizet, and Rimsky-Korsakov, song selections from Vaughan Williams, and selected French Canadian folksongs. Subsequent studies were undertaken in Copenhagen with Ingenus ­Bendtsar, ­England (where her teachers included choral director Sir Hugh ­Roberton and Irish baritone Harry Plunket Greene),33 and New York (where she resumed studies with Bendtsar and assisted him in the coaching of opera singers). Mews served as director of the A Cappella Choir of the University of West Virginia at Kayser from 1931 to 1933, where for a period of time the choir instituted the peculiar policy of conscripting football players to address a shortage of tenors and basses.34 In 1933 she returned to Newfoundland to concertize, open a studio for private voice pupils, and, at the invitation of John Lewis Paton (the first president of Memorial University College), establish a special choral group for students at the eight-year-old institution. Still much sought after as a mezzo-soprano, she was invited by Charles Hutton to sing the leading female role in an acclaimed production of Greenbank, Jones, and Hall’s Geisha (a production that also featured Ignatius Rumboldt). In an impressive career that extended into the 1970s, Mews taught generations of young singers as a private teacher, among them ­Emerson, Stuart Godfrey, Kevin Osmond, Joan McNamara, Helen ­ Marquis, Michael Donnan, and much later Catherine Cornick. An adjunct of Mews’s teaching was her pioneering role in the developing music festival movement in Newfoundland, a passion shared with collegial interest by music educators such as Andreas Barban, Sr Kathrine Bellamy,35 and Eric Abbott,36 among others.37 In addition to preparing students for festivals, she served on the Kiwanis Music Festival Advisory Committee during the organization’s fledgling years of the 1950s. Mews was a strong supporter of the St John’s Community Concerts Association, an outgrowth of the American Community Concerts movement that emerged in Newfoundland in the 1940s under the leadership of Darroch MacGillivray and the sponsorship of local Rotary Clubs. First introduced in the United States in the 1920s as a means of making world-class concert artists accessible to audiences in small- to medium-



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Figure 4.2 Eleanor Mews as “Carmen” from Bizet’s opera, c. 1923

sized communities, the movement spread to Canada in 1930 with the advent of the Community Concert Association of Kitchener, Ontario.38 By the 1940s, Community Concert Associations could be found in cities and towns across North America, including the Newfoundland communities of Grand Falls, Harbour Grace, St John’s, and Corner Brook, the first such association on the island. As with other Community Concert Associations elsewhere, those in Newfoundland were organized by individual communities in association with Community Concerts, Inc., a subsidiary of Columbia Artists Management Inc. of New York. The Community Concert Series introduced many musicians of international stature to Newfoundland audiences, among them singers Anna Kaskas,

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Mario Lanza, George London, Jean Watson, Arthur Kent, Walter Cassel, Louis Quilico, and the singer whose voice Mews championed as a model for her pupils, Teresa Stratas.39 Considered collectively, the concurrent development of local music festivals and community concerts created important new educational and performance contexts for music in Newfoundland (a development that mirrored the growth of like-minded organizations throughout North America). Mews’s early stage participation in both settings was both timely and influential. It is for her choral directing and voice teaching, however, that Eleanor Mews Jerrett is best remembered today. Prior to her arrival at Memorial University College, Charles Hutton had taught music (both in theory and practice) to teachers in training at the St John’s Normal School beginning in 1921 and subsequently at the college from 1934 until his retirement in 1940.40 Hutton endeavoured to establish a college glee club as early as 1925, the first year of the institute’s operations, an undertaking later attempted (with varying degrees of success) by Richard Bevan and David Morgan. It was not until Mews’s arrival, however, that the college glee club became a fixture of cultural life at the college, enjoying a period of uninterrupted growth from 1933 to 1939. Mews’s glee club commenced operations in autumn 1933 as an a cappella ensemble, consistent with Paton’s desire to model the group upon the unaccompanied choral singing traditions popular in British schools and colleges. To bolster her vocal forces, she enlisted the services of several college alumni, private singing pupils, friends, and relatives.41 Accompanists included Elsie Tait (Mrs F.G. Wylie), a music graduate of Mount Allison University and the first woman to be appointed organist and choirmaster of a St John’s church, and relatives Kathryn and Douglas Mews. Public performances of the glee club took place in the College Assembly Hall in December (“Yuletide Carols”) and May (“Springtime in Song”) of each year. Repertoire included full choruses as well as a variety of arrangements for smaller chamber groups. The glee club’s spring 1936 concert, for example, featured an eclectic selection of music that included Elizabethan madrigals (Morley’s “Now Is the Month of Maying,”), romantic repertoire (Elgar’s “As Torrents in Summer”), British folksongs (“Swansea Town”), spirituals (“Roll, Jordan, Roll”), and operetta excerpts (the “Dance a Cachucha” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers). Chamber music by Mozart, Franz, Handel, Beethoven, Bach, Percy Grainger, and Gounod was likewise heard. Eclecticism of musical styles and genres was in fact quite typical of the glee club’s concerts. Choral music from the art music tradition, folksong arrangements



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of Western and non-Western origin, and popular songs and operetta excerpts all found a welcome place. So it was that the group’s spring 1938 concert included music by Morley, Sibelius, Pergolesi, Handel, and Johann Strauss (an odd quintet if there ever was one), folksongs of Irish, Scottish, and Slavic origins, spirituals, and Zuni Indian music. On 13 March 1939, six of the singers (under Mews’s direction) performed in a concert broadcast on VONF. The cultural significance of the glee club extended well beyond the walls of the college in ways that have yet to be fully recognized. In an era when opportunities for musical instruction in rural Newfoundland were scarce, the ensemble sparked the birth of like-minded glee clubs, singing classes, and school choral groups, many of which were directed by MUC Glee Club alumni. As the college calendar for 1938–39 stated, “The Glee Club is intended to foster a love of music among students, and to help those who will later be in outports to organize similar clubs in their own communities.”42 As noted in the previous year’s Report of the College President (1937–38), these goals were already meeting with tangible results: “The College Glee Club, directed by Miss Eleanor Mews, LTCM, has had a very successful year. Its two recitals, both given twice, were ‘Carols by Candlelight’ and ‘Springtime in Song,’ which reached high levels as choral productions of the first order. Already we hear of at least one or two Glee Clubs in certain outports and can trace their origin here. This activity can be further extended and, I hope, will be.”43 Following an extended hiatus brought about by her marriage to Eric Jerrett, Eleanor Mews Jerrett returned to the podium in the 1950s to lead the newly founded St John’s Glee Club, a community choir comprised largely of Memorial University College alumni. The St John’s Glee Club was active under her direction from 1951 until 1954.44 Individuals active in the development of the organization included Stuart Godfrey, P. Lloyd Soper, Joan (McNamara) Furlong, Richard Furlong, Mary D’Arcy, Stan Fowler, Kevin Osmond, H.D. Rosenberg, Andreas Barban, and Helen Lodge, a former MUC Glee Club member and a faculty member in the teacher training program at the college during the 1930s. A board of directors oversaw the administrative operations of the group.45 Accompanists for the glee club were Elsie (Tait) Wylie and Douglas Osmond, LRAM, of Moreton’s Harbour, Newfoundland. Not unlike Mews herself, Osmond had returned to Newfoundland following studies in England and the United States, becoming music teacher at Prince of Wales College and organist and choirmaster at Wesley United Church and later Gower Street United Church. His piano playing was

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often heard in recital with local soloists in the St John’s area in the midtwentieth century, among them singers Godfrey and Eileen (Cantwell) Stanbury.46 As Godfrey would later recall, Emerson’s guidance helped bring the new organization to life: “Another person with whom we exchanged ideas was the late F.R. Emerson, a prominent member of the Newfoundland Bar, and a gifted musician of extensive knowledge and ability. Although Mr Emerson was not directly involved in later discussions leading to the establishment of the St John’s Glee Club, his continuing interest and support were important influences in our deliberations.”47 Although comprised of a loyal core of Memorial University College alumni and voice pupils of the conductor (both former and current), the new glee club drew upon choristers of diverse backgrounds. Roman Catholic and Protestant members – many of whom also sang in church choirs – were equally welcome and, like the Memorial University College Glee Club, the group served as a model of non-sectarian cooperation in an era in which denominational rivalries were at times pronounced. The main criteria for membership were a capable singing voice, a desire to interpret music artistically, and, as was the case with her college glee club, punctual and regular attendance. While the majority of glee club members were native Newfoundlanders, a substantial portion were US military personnel and their spouses. As discussed in chapter 8, the American influence on Newfoundland’s increasingly eclectic music scene at mid-century (particularly in the realm of jazz and popular music) is an important chapter in Newfoundland’s musical history that still awaits exhaustive scholarly treatment.48 Yet the St John’s Glee Club serves as a useful reminder that the influence was by no means unidirectional. While a number of American choristers enriched the glee club with prior vocal training in the United States, so too Eleanor Mews Jerrett enriched their musical lives as she had done with her Newfoundland and West Virginia students before that. By September 1951, the community glee club with an increasingly international flavour had attracted more than 100 applicants. The concert season, modelled closely upon that of the college glee club, featured performances in December and May of each year. Programming was once again eclectic, with classical masterworks, folksong arrangements, and spirituals figuring prominently, while varying groups of chamber singers supplemented the full choral portion of the program. According to Godfrey, the group’s performances of folksong arrangements evoked special meaning for the glee club and its



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Figure 4.3 Eleanor Mews Jerrett (with dark dress and bouquet, front, centre), following a performance of the St John’s Glee Club under her direction, early 1950s

­ ewfoundland audience. Witness, for example, the following account of N an ­interpretation of the Scottish folksong “Peat-Fire Smooring Prayer” (“Song of the Hebrides”), arranged by Hugh Roberton: “The singing by the Women’s Chorus of ‘Peat-Fire Smooring Prayer’ achieved performances of near matchless beauty and maturity ... Numberless Newfoundland women – wives, mothers, and lovers, through two centuries of folk memory as well as in living memory – have watched through the terrors of ‘countless lantern’d nights’ of storm and fire, or at the bedside of a stricken child. In the singing of ‘Peat-Fire Smooring Prayer,’ the Women’s Three-Part Chorus and Eleanor Jerrett came together in unusual empathy between singers and conductor, and with Sir Hugh Roberton’s artistic purpose. For this listener each performance was a memorable and utterly moving musical experience.”49 In autumn 1953, the St John’s Glee Club issued a recording of several carols from its 1952 Christmas concert. A limited quantity of 12” records were produced on the RCA Victor label and arrived in Newfoundland stores just in time for the 1953 holiday season. It was to be the glee club’s one and only venture into the recording industry. The group was active under Mews Jerrett’s direction until 1954 when, on the advice of her physician, she once again relinquished the role of glee club director. The group’s “Spring-time in Song” concert in May 1954 would turn out to be its farewell performance.

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Although seldom accorded the same recognition as her colleagues Charles Hutton and Ignatius Rumboldt, Eleanor Mews Jerrett played a seminal role in fostering a vibrant tradition of choral singing in Newfoundland. The extent of her achievement is all the more remarkable given the era in which she lived, the dearth of opportunities for careers in music in Newfoundland at the time, and the physical challenges she was forced to overcome from a very young age. Her fledgling college glee club spawned dozens of like-minded ensembles across rural Newfoundland and helped plant seeds that would flower fully following the college’s evolution into a degree granting university in 1949. Rumboldt’s revival of a Memorial University Glee Club decades later was a product of this impulse, a tradition that continues to the present day with the choirs of the Memorial University School of Music. The St John’s Glee Club, in turn, built upon its college roots to help foster a vibrant and ongoing tradition of community choral singing in Newfoundland. The immediate impact of this legacy could be heard in choirs such as Eileen Cantwell Stanbury’s Cantabury Singers and Sr Kathrine Bellamy’s Mercy Convent Glee Club during the 1960s, while its distant echoes are still felt today in Newfoundland’s rich tradition of community and youth choral singing. It was precisely this tradition that served as a foundation for the Festival 500: Sharing the Voices international choral festival (1997–present), a biennial celebration of choral singing founded to coincide with the five-hundredth anniversary of Giovanni Caboto’s voyage to the New World.50 More than a decade later, the festival continues to attract singers from around the world as well as large and appreciate audiences locally, while homegrown choirs share the spotlight with their international colleagues. Lastly, the legacy of Eleanor Mews Jerrett has endured in the musical careers of the many singers to study under her tutelage, among them Godfrey, Osmond, Emerson, McNamara, ­Marquis, Donnan, Cornick, and others. Gilles Potvin, in an article entitled “Singing and Voice Teaching” in the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, makes brief mention of Mews Jerrett among the leading voice teachers in Canadian history (the only Newfoundland voice teacher named),51 while a rehearsal room in the Memorial University School of Music is named in her honour. In Eleanor Mews Jerrett, Emerson had found a kindred spirit  – an accomplished musician, a tireless devotee to the cause of music education in Newfoundland, and a well educated world-traveller with fluency in several languages. The legacy of their mutually beneficial relationship would last a lifetime. Godfrey summarized well the nature of their



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shared contributions to post-secondary music education in Newfoundland when he wrote that “Mr Emerson’s sessions with those students captured the essence of what Mr Paton had in mind when he invited Eleanor Mews, a decade earlier, to form a Glee Club at Memorial College: this essence was the pleasure of searching for and recreating a musical truth through effort shared in fellowship. Memorial University College of those early years had need of a Hutton, an Emerson and a Mews for continuing enrichment in the lives of its students.”52 Following Mews’s retirement from Memorial University College and that of the aging Charles Hutton, the task of forging a place for music in the college curriculum in the 1940s would fall squarely on Emerson’s shoulders.53

5 “She’s Like the Swallow”: Maud Karpeles, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Emerson, and the Preservation of Newfoundland Folksongs As Newfoundland’s unofficial cultural liaison with Europe, Emerson was a natural choice to serve as host and advisor for the pioneering expeditions of English folksong collector Maud Karpeles (1885–1976). A member of the English Folk Dance Society (EFDS), Karpeles was a disciple of Cecil Sharp (1859–1924), a close acquaintance of Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)1 (with whom she shared a deep passion for traditional music), and later co-founder of the International Folk Music Council (1947). For her contributions to folksong research, she was later awarded an OBE, an honorary doctorate from Université Laval in Québec (both in 1961), and a second honorary doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland (1970). The full extent to which she and Emerson knew each other prior to her arrival in Newfoundland is unclear, although according to Carla Emerson Furlong he had informed her of the richness of Newfoundland’s folksong traditions prior to her first visit. Some prior acquaintance would seem to be suggested in a letter from Karpeles to her sister Helen upon arriving in Newfoundland. That letter, dated 11 September 1929, refers to ­Emerson as “Miss Lawrence’s friend.”2 “Miss Lawrence” was likely Miss E.F. L ­ awrence, a prominent member of the English folk music circle and later a recipient of the English Folk Dance and Song Society’s Gold Badge Award (1938).3 Emerson’s acquaintance with Lawrence suggests some level of involvement with this circle, and by extension Karpeles, prior to her arrival in Newfoundland. Karpeles had initially planned a Newfoundland expedition with Sharp as early as 1918, however the trip was cancelled due to insufficient funding and Sharp’s untimely death foiled plans for an expedition in 1925.



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Figure 5.1 Maud Karpeles (1885–1976)

Shortly following her Newfoundland expeditions, she published an edition of Sharp’s English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians and later collaborated with A.H. Fox Strangways on a biography of her mentor.4 Ideas contained in the biography were later reworked and expanded by Karpeles as Cecil Sharp: His Life and Work. Undaunted by Sharp’s passing, she undertook the challenge alone and notated more than 200 tunes from singers in over 40 outports during separate visits in September and October 1929 and July and August 1930.5 A mere two months prior to her first visit to Newfoundland, American song collectors E ­ lisabeth Bristol Greenleaf and Grace Yarrow Mansfield of the Vassar College Folklore Expedition preceded her, although with rare exceptions she explored different locales than her American counterparts. Nine years before that, Greenleaf had notated some songs while working as a schoolteacher at the Grenfell Mission in Coastal Labrador.6 The results of the Vassar College Expedition were published in Greenleaf’s Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland. The Karpeles and Greenleaf expeditions were unprecedented in Newfoundland and reflected a growing interest in folksong research that was

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sweeping Europe and North America by the 1920s.7 In Eastern Europe, composer Béla Bartók (1881–1945) and his Hungarian colleague Zoltán Kodály (1882–1967) made prolific contributions to the emerging discipline of ethnomusicology through the collection and publication of traditional songs (many of them collected via the new technology of audio recording).8 In the case of Bartók, in particular, the merging of folk influences and classical forms resulted in a distinctive and highly personalized style of twentieth-century art music.9 In a telling illustration of the indelible impression Bartók’s imposing legacy left in the mind of the young Frederick Emerson, it is interesting to note that decades later, during his Newfoundland folk music lectures of the 1940s, he frequently cited Bartók’s work as a model by which aspiring Newfoundland composers could discover their own creative voices by engaging with the island’s rich folklore. In the United States, the pioneering research of John A. Lomax (1867–1948) into diverse aspects of that nation’s musical heritage (among them studies of Texas cowboy songs and the music of Southern African-Americans) challenged the primacy of British-centric models while in Canada the collecting activities of Helen Creighton and ­Marius Barbeau marked the early stages of a Canadian folksong revival. ­Creighton had begun her first song-collecting in Nova Scotia in 1928 following the model of her predecessor Roy Mackenzie (1883–1957), while Barbeau (motivated in part by Ernest Gagnon’s nineteenth-century compilation Chansons populaires du Canada) was already emerging as a dominant force in the Canadian folksong movement with his pioneering research into French Canadian traditional music and the music of Canada’s First Nations. At the same time as Emerson was guiding ­Karpeles through the uncharted waters of Newfoundland traditional song, ­Barbeau had found a kindred spirit of his own in the person of Toronto composer and conductor Ernest MacMillan, with whom he shared many mutually beneficial collaborations and creative ventures. In the ensuing decades, largely through the interrelated spheres of the Canadian Folk Music Society and its European parent, the International Folk Music Council, the creative lives of many of these individuals overlapped in fascinating and, at times, unexpected ways (see chapter 8). As a facilitator and “transatlantic link” between the British and North American song collectors, Emerson would prove a central figure in this development. A category apart from the scholarly research of visiting song colletors was the popular Newfoundland song tradition disseminated through the Gerald S. Doyle songsters, a promotional effort that paralleled



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John Murray Gibbon’s pioneering work in Canada to establish a series of folk and handicraft festivals under the auspices of the Canadian Pacific Railway.10 At the same time like-minded individuals in the United States, such as Bascom Lamar Lunsford (1882–1973) of North Carolina, sparked the emergence of an American folk festival movement.11 (A lawyer, performer, lecturer, and folk music enthusiast, Lunsford’s eclectic background likewise bore an uncanny resemblance to that of Emerson). Echoing the earlier publications of local balladeers such as John Burke and James Murphy, the first edition of Doyle’s Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland preceded his British and American colleagues’ expeditions by two years (the same year, interestingly, that Gibbon organized the first Québec Folk Song and Handicraft Festival). Both Karpeles and Greenleaf had direct contact with Doyle (the former receiving a letter of introduction to a singer, the latter publishing several songs from his collection that she had heard sung during her field work),12 while Doyle reciprocated by publishing several songs from Greenleaf and Mansfield’s collection in the second edition (1940) of his songbooks. Doyle, like Emerson, shared an affinity for songs of local origin, and this, in turn, guided his selective process in the 1940 collection by including only songs that were “truly Newfoundland compositions” from the Greenleaf and Mansfield collection.13 Contrary to Karpeles’s expectations, Newfoundland was far from “virgin soil” for the song collector. Focusing her efforts on the East and South Coasts of Newfoundland (the former in 1929, the latter in 1930), Karpeles visited communities in Conception Bay, Bonavista Bay, Trinity Bay, Notre Dame Bay, Placentia Bay, Fortune Bay, Hermitage Bay, St Mary’s Bay, and Trepassey Bay. The Newfoundlanders she encountered responded warmly and generously to her inquiries, although not without some good natured skepticism: The people from whom I gathered the songs were nearly all fisherfolk. My quest seemed a strange one to them, particularly when I had disposed of the idea that I was on the stage or an agent of a gramophone company. They were convinced that I should make a lot of money out of the songs. “If I could do that, I should never have to do another day’s fishing,” said one singer after I had noted down his song and sung it back to him. However, they did not grudge me my supposed reward or even expect to share it. Once they realized that their songs were appreciated, they were always ready to sing and they would go out of their way to help me to find songs. One

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day when I was crossing a bay by motor-boat, my navigator spent his time studiously writing out songs on scraps of paper. At intervals throughout our journey he shyly handed me the results of his labour asking if they would be of any use to me. Indeed, it would be impossible to find a kindlier or friendlier people than the Newfoundlanders. Wherever I went I was instantly welcome, although I came as a complete stranger without introduction. Everyone was delighted to meet “that girl from England” and to hear what the people “at home” were doing and thinking.14 Writing in her Newfoundland field diaries on 11 September 1929, Karpeles recorded her first impressions of Emerson as “a very charming and cultured man  – very interested in what I am doing and most eager to do all he can to help. It was very nice to make friends so soon after my arrival.”15 Emerson’s role in the Karpeles expeditions was by no means slight. She stayed with the Emerson family during her time in St John’s, and he was an important liaison who provided introductions to many of the singers who furnished her with songs. Karpeles writes: “Yesterday evening Mr Emerson fetched me in his car and drove me to Torbay, about ten miles outside of St John’s. We first called on the priest, a most delightful person called Father Carter, and then he escorted us to two different families, his parishioners.”16 Whether parishioners of Father ­Carter’s church would have felt completely at ease singing folksongs with a prominent religious leader and two visiting guests present is debatable; however, for Karpeles things were unfolding precisely according to plan. As the International Folk Music Council’s Manual for Field Workers (a publication she edited) would later advise, “previous contact with leading personalities in the locality, e.g. chiefs, government officials, priests, doctors, teachers, etc., is advisable. They may not be acquainted with the songs and dances, or even know where they are to be found, but they can establish relations with the people.”17 By summer 1930, it had become so common to see Emerson and Karpeles together that one singer in the community of Brigus mistook them to be husband and wife! While introductions from a prominent Newfoundlander were indispensable given the intricate web of social relations in rural Newfoundland communities, Emerson’s role as musical advisor was no less significant. The pair would talk for hours about music-related matters and on at least one occasion, this type of discussion – interspersed with interludes of music making – continued into the early morning hours. Karpeles, in a diary entry dated 27 October 1929, recorded that she



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“went in the car with Mr Emerson ... then sat up till 1:30 playing and talking on all kinds of subjects – but chiefly music.”18 ­Emerson’s opinions on the calibre of the collected songs were deeply valued. As K ­ arpeles once noted, “Mr Emerson arrived for lunch, and we had a grand time after lunch going through my tunes. Mr Emerson is delighted with them, and I realize more than I did what a very high standard they are.”19 Among the songs from her two expeditions she held in particularly high esteem were several deemed to possess superior melodies and “an individual beauty which sets them apart.”20 Of these, “Sweet William’s Ghost,” “The Maiden’s Lament,” and “She’s Like the Swallow” are mentioned by name. Karpeles would later remark with respect to “She’s Like the Swallow” that “my life would have been worthwhile if collecting that was all that I had done.”21 In October 1929, Karpeles lectured on her findings to a large gathering of academics and invited guests at the newly founded Memorial University College. Emerson performed several of the songs for illustrative purposes (accompanying his own singing with piano accompaniments he had created for the occasion) and the resulting demonstration met with an enthusiastic response: “My lecture ... took place at 12. About 200 students (men and women) were present, and various guests including Lady Middleton (Governor’s wife), Dr Mansbridge, and Dr Burke. I talked for nearly an hour and then Mr Emerson played and sang some tunes. Everyone seemed pleased and announced it a great success.”22 Considered in another light, it was through Emerson’s voice that some of Newfoundland’s most treasured folksongs were first heard outside of the intimate setting of the outport home and introduced to a wider audience.23 In 1934, thirty of the songs collected were arranged for solo voice and piano by Ralph Vaughan Williams and his associates Clive Carey, Hubert J. Foss, and Michael Mullinar. Published by Oxford University Press, the resulting collection was edited by Karpeles and dedicated to Frederick and Isabel Emerson. All of the arrangers in the 1934 publication shared a close connection to Karpeles, Vaughan Williams, and the British folk music circle. Carey (1883–1968) was a singer and composer who collected folksongs from the Surrey and Sussex regions of England during the early years of the last century,24 while Mullinar (­1895–1973) was a pianist/composer who studied with Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music. Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No. 6 in E minor is dedicated to him.25 Foss (1899–1953) was a composer, pianist, and concert promoter, but perhaps most influential as a publisher and musicologist.

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In the latter capacity, he acted as the sole publisher of Vaughan ­Williams’s music and authored the first full-length study of the composer.26 Vaughan Williams’s arrangements, fifteen in all, comprise the bulk of the volume and were later published separately as Fifteen Folk Songs from Newfoundland.27 These include arrangements of the ballads “Sweet William’s Ghost,” “The Cruel Mother,” “The Gypsy Laddie,” “The Bloody Gardener,” “The Bonny Banks of Virgie-o,” “Earl Brand,” “Lord Akeman” (“Lord Bateman”), and “The Lover’s Ghost” and the songs “The Maiden’s Lament,” “Proud Nancy,” “The Morning Dew,” “She’s Like the Swallow,” “Young Floro,” “The Cuckoo,” and “The Winter’s Gone and Past.” Of these, seven were classified by Karpeles as Child ballads (after Francis James Child’s landmark compilation);28 one, “The Bloody Gardener,” termed a supernatural ballad; four (including “The Maiden’s Lament” and “She’s Like the Swallow”) labelled love laments; while the remaining songs in the collection were likewise categorized on the basis of poetic theme. (Karpeles places “The Winter’s Gone and Past” under the heading of “The Lover’s Farewell and Absence,” while both “Floro” and “Proud Nancy” fall under the category of “Rejected and False-Hearted Lovers”). That the timeless beauty of Newfoundland’s rich folksong heritage captured Vaughan Williams’s imagination should come as little surprise given the composer’s lifelong engagement with traditional music and its central role in his creative process. After notating the song “Bushes and Briars” in the Essex village of Brentwood in 1903, he joined the English Folk Song Society the following year (as did his friend and colleague Cecil Sharp and, not long after, fellow composer Percy Grainger). Vaughan Williams was likewise a founding member of the English Folk Dance Society from its inception in 1911 and was instrumental in bringing about the amalgamation of the two societies into the English Folk Dance and Song Society in 1932. In 1946, he became the society’s president, to which he would later add the presidency of the newly founded International Folk Music Council the following year (a position he held until his death in 1958).29 Of Vaughan Williams’s absorption of folk influences into his compositions much has been said and written; however, it must be remembered that, not unlike his Hungarian contemporary Béla Bartók, he was also an active song collector. His height of activity as a collector occurred in the years prior to the First World War, during which some of England’s most cherished folk melodies – more than 800 in all – were noted and preserved. Among the many compositions bearing the imprint of Vaughan



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Williams’s immersion in traditional song are the Norfolk Rhapsodies for orchestra (1906), the London Symphony (1913), Five English Folk Songs for unaccompanied chorus (1913), The Lark Ascending for violin and orchestra (1920), the English Folk Song Suite for military band (1923), the operas Hugh the Drover and Sir John in Love (1924), and the Fantasia on Greensleeves, published in close proximity to the Newfoundland folksong arrangements in 1934. Other folk-inspired works include the Six Studies in English Folk Song for cello and piano (1926), Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus for strings and harp(s) (1939), the cantata Folk Songs of the Four Seasons for women’s voices and orchestra (1949), and many others. In Sir John in Love, Vaughan Williams quotes from several of his favourite folksongs (among them a song entitled “Lovely Joan” that he had collected years prior in Suffolk) and uses folk melodies as leitmotifs to delineate characters. “Greensleeves” appears in the opera as an orchestral interlude at the beginning of act 3, an adaptation of which was subsequently published as Fantasia on Greensleeves. Remarkably, there is scarcely a word of mention of Vaughan ­Williams’s Newfoundland folksong settings in major published studies of the composer’s life and contributions (save for the occasional cursory reference in catalogues of Vaughan Williams’s music). The closest thing we have to meaningful commentary on the set comes in an early review of the published collection that appeared in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society in 1935. Although very brief and general in nature (refraining from commentary on individual song settings altogether), it does offer the following observations on the art of arranging folksongs and a positive critical stance toward Vaughan Williams’s Newfoundland settings: The attitude towards accompaniments has traveled a great way since the days when any note in the setting that was not in the tune was looked upon as a dangerous intruder. For there is another and equally important aspect which should be considered, when the attitude of the arranger becomes more akin to that of a composer. A tune, or even a verse, lights up an excitement within him. Here is something with which he wishes to be identified, and which he also wishes to share. It is a creative impulse and out of it can come a perfect fusion and re-creation. The result is not just a setting of a folk song, nor a mis-applied effort at originality. It is a new work, even though we call it a setting by Vaughan Williams ... These are of a

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high level and of fine craftsmanship, a fact which further adds to the unity of the collection.30 In considering the collection as a collaborative venture between ­Karpeles and Vaughan Williams (with additional contributions from their associates), the close personal connection between the tandem cannot be overstated. Their mutual passion for traditional song and shared interest in fostering the growth and development of the English Folk Dance and Song Society and the International Folk Music Council are well known; however, the closeness of their personal friendship and the extent to which Vaughan Williams valued her opinions on musical matters bears further comment. In addition to availing of her acknowledged expertise in traditional song, Vaughan Williams had the highest regard for Karpeles’s criticism of his music and is known to have made revisions to his scores in response to her reactions. Witness, for example, Vaughan Williams’s reply to Karpeles regarding Sir John in Love. Karpeles, evidently favourably disposed toward the work as a whole, nonetheless imparted some criticism on aspects of the final act, prompting the composer to reply: “I’m glad you liked most of it – I shall think seriously over Act IV.”31 Perhaps the ultimate testament to Vaughan Williams’s respect for Karpeles’s opinions came in an exchange of letters that followed the world premiere of his Fourth Symphony at Queen’s Hall, London, on 10 April 1935. Karpeles, in a tactfully worded but unmistakably critical response to the work, wrote to Vaughan Williams that “I missed the clue ... Someone said it should have been called ‘Europe 1935’ and that is rather what it conveyed to me – the feeling of some huge force at work, driving us to fight and struggle, which may eventually shatter us to pieces, and yet we know in our heart of hearts there is something in life which withstands destruction and brings order out of disorder. The secret of it is to be found in music, but this time I missed it. Do please forgive me for preaching this sort of Easter sermon.”32 In a statement that speaks volumes, Vaughan replied with characteristic humility and good humour: “I loved your Easter sermon  – write me an Ascension, Whitsun and Trinity sermon also. I like you to like my music – and when you don’t I think you are probably right.”33 In addressing their respective contributions to the twentieth-century folksong movement, one cannot overlook the strong vein of British romantic nationalism informing both Karpeles’s and Vaughan ­Williams’s views. As song collectors, both prized modal tunes over tonal ones, older songs over newer ones, and this selective attitude had direct implications



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on the published results of their findings. During her song collecting in Newfoundland, Karpeles expressed disdain for hearing newly composed songs in a “popular style” from her informants (i.e. tonal, locally composed music), often neglecting to notate such songs altogether in favour of modal melodies of British origin.34 Vaughan Williams, in turn, published a far greater number of modal melodies than tonal ones from his song collecting days in England, even though the vast majority of songs he collected in the field were tonal. The composer’s well-known views on English folk music as the potential impetus for a national musical style are eloquently expressed in his National Music and Other Essays (published, interestingly, in 1934, the same year as the Newfoundland folksong arrangements). While further discussion of this complex topic is beyond the scope of the present volume, suffice it to say that Vaughan Williams’s enduring attraction to English folksongs was partly conditioned by what he and his generation regarded as their distinctly “English” qualities. Through his passionate advocacy of this heritage, Vaughan Williams believed that English composers might one day free themselves from the hegemony of foreign influence (German influence in particular) and establish a national style independent from the still dominant idioms of Wagner, Mahler, and Strauss. Nationalistic tendencies aside, there can be no disputing the fact that collecting and arranging traditional songs were labours of love. How else can one explain the years he painstakingly devoted to song collecting (even when the published collections of others were readily available to him), or the fact that some of his earliest published and performed folksong arrangements were of German and French songs? He viewed folksongs as both “supremely beautiful” and “supremely important” to all musicians and valued traditional and classical music as equally valid forms of expression.35 Witness, for example, the following excerpt from an early lecture delivered to students of Oxford University in 1902: “To those of you who say that you like country tunes but do not care about classical music – whatever that might mean – I would ask you to remember that there is absolutely no difference between the two. If a piece of music is good, sincere and beautiful then it does not matter if it is sung in an out-of-the-way part of Sussex, or Hampshire, or performed at a Queen’s Hall concert.”36 It was this same genuine affection that informed Vaughan Williams’s Newfoundland folksong settings. Evidently captivated by the songs ­Karpeles had sent him, he set out with steadfast determination to aid in their dissemination. With an introduction from Karpeles, Emerson met

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Vaughan Williams’s acquaintance and subsequently corresponded with the latter on several occasions. One such exchange was a 1934 invitation to visit Newfoundland shortly following the completion of the Newfoundland folksong settings. In his reply, Vaughan Williams offered the following comments on Newfoundland’s folksong heritage and his hopes for the published arrangements: Dear Mr Emerson, Thank you for your kind and appreciative letter. You have indeed some beautiful folk songs in your country and we all owe a great debt of gratitude to Maud Karpeles for recovering them. If my and my colleagues’ accompaniments can help to make them better known we shall be amply rewarded. I fear that it is not likely that fate will ever lead me to Newfoundland, but it would be a great pleasure if so ever it did come. Sincerely, Ralph Vaughan Williams37 For Emerson, Vaughan Williams’s interest in Newfoundland’s folksong heritage affirmed his own longstanding advocacy for the recognition of this heritage as a discovery of international significance: “I feel that no greater proof can be brought of the beauty of our folk music than the fact that Dr Vaughan Williams has written the piano accompaniments of these songs and I think that he has not done finer work in this line than he has on those of our folksongs he has selected for his special care.”38 No doubt inspired by his illustrious contemporary, Emerson began to explore his own compositional ideas with increasing rigour in the ensuing years, and it is surely no coincidence that two of his largescale mature works, the evocative Newfoundland Scene for solo harp (1963) and the folk-inspired Newfoundland Rhapsody for orchestra (1964), bear the imprint of Vaughan Williams’s influence (see chapter 9). While Vaughan Williams’s Newfoundland song settings are clearly not fantasias in the mold of the Five English Folk Songs or other works by the composer in which the melody serves more as a point of departure for the composer’s invention than a musical artifact to be preserved, they are far from mere functional arrangements either. Helmut Kallmann and Stephen Willis, in an article on folk-inspired composition in the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, remarked that Vaughan Williams’s Newfoundland settings are “worth special note”39 among folk-inspired works by European composers during the early decades of the twentieth



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century. For them, Vaughan Williams’s settings formed an important part of an emerging canon of folk-inspired works that also included music by Canadian composers of the same era such as Claude Champagne’s Danse villageoise and Suite canadienne and Ernest MacMillan’s Two Sketches for Strings, based on French Canadian Airs, to name just a few. These pieces, in turn (and many others like them), reflected a growing international tendency to integrate folk influences into modern art music in new and thought-provoking ways. The contrasting styles of Bartók, Manuel de Falla, Aaron Copland, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Carlos Chavez, and Alberto Ginastera are just some of the many examples from the era one could mention, as well as that of Vaughan Williams’s colleague and friend ­Gustav Holst. While Newfoundlanders would be careful to point out the historical inaccuracy of inferring that Newfoundland folksongs collected prior to 1949 were “Canadian” in origin, one can readily agree with the assertion that the Vaughan ­Williams settings are in fact compositions inspired by traditional sources. The distinction is a subtle but important one. While the arrangements of Carey, Foss, and Mullinar in the volume are by no means insignificant, there is a discernible difference in the quality and sophistication of those of Vaughan Williams and the capacity of the music to evoke both the meaning and spirit of the folksinger’s words. Examination of the composer’s manuscript sketches confirms that the creative process that gave birth to the Newfoundland song settings was meticulous and thorough. In many of the arrangements, in fact, Vaughan Williams’s self-editing can be traced through several stages of revisions and even extensive reworkings of entire passages in some instances. The individual arrangements show a variety of compositional approaches and differing levels of engagement with the folk melodies and texts. In his settings of “Proud Nancy” and “The Morning Dew,” for example, we have relatively straightforward accompaniments that support the melodies and enhance the moods suggested by the poetry without any pretense of recomposition. The former features sparse textures and staccato figuration well suited to the lively 6/8 metre of the original tune, while the latter is arguably the most uniformly chordal setting of the entire set in a style reminiscent of hymnody (an approach doubtless informed by the composer’s earlier setting of traditional English melodies to hymn texts). A similar approach is evident in his regal, hymnlike setting of “Earl Brand,” in which repeated dotted rhythms in the bassline accompany the words “Lord Robert he mounted a milk white steed” in an explicit and, critics might argue, obvious gesture of word painting.

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Figure 5.2 Ralph Vaughan Williams, arr., manuscript sketches of “The Lover’s Ghost,” showing the composer’s revisions

One style feature remaining remarkably constant throughout the set is Vaughan Williams’s fidelity to the original folksong melodies. There are subtle rhythmic alterations to the melodic line in a number of the songs, such as “Sweet William’s Ghost,” “Lord Akeman,” and “Earl Brand”; however, these are typically simple gestures of augmentation or diminution that occur as subsequent verses of a multi-verse poem are sung. With rare exceptions, the original melodies are preserved with an ethnomusicologist’s attention to detail and a composer’s regard for urtext authenticity. This is entirely consistent with Vaughan Williams’s philosophy toward arranging folksongs and a fundamental belief in the importance



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of letting the melodies speak for themselves. In praising the folksong arrangements of his friend and colleague Cecil Sharp, for example, he once commented that “his creative impulse came from the tune he was setting. That is why his settings are often better than those of more technically gifted arrangers because they come to the task as composers and let the suggestions started by the tune run away with them and so forget the tune itself ... In all the best of Sharp’s accompaniments it is the tune that counts and the arrangement falls into its proper background. In some cases his accompaniments look wrong, and sometimes even when played by themselves seem awkward, but they stand the important test that they make the tune sound right.”40 The majority of Vaughan Williams’s Newfoundland settings are characterized by detailed attention to the nuances of the poetry and a creative interweaving of vocal melody and piano accompaniment. Through this process the piano anticipates, echoes, comments upon the vocal melody, while newly composed countermelodies, expressive harmonies, and rhythmic intensification dramatize the story. For an illustration we turn to the song “Young Floro” from volume 2 of the collection. In this tale of unrequited love, the poet tells of his buoyant optimism as he seeks to marry the lovely young Floro (only to be rejected in the end). A brief, descending motive in the piano part establishes the mood and tonality and returns as transitional material linking successive verses. The second verse (“Was there ever a young man so happy as I”) is introduced by a modified version of the introductory motive and set to an accompaniment first stated in contrary motion to the vocal melody at measures 10–12. The texture evolves into an increasingly rich web of countermelodies as Vaughan Williams’s creative impulse, set in motion by the timeless beauty of the folk melody, produces three distinct textural layers (mm. 15–16). Similar in approach but entirely different in temperament is the brooding ballad “The Bloody Gardener” from volume 1. In a scene that could have been scripted for a television crime drama, the heroine arrives in a garden to meet her beloved, only to discover a bloody gardener instead. Unbeknownst to her, the young man’s mother had plotted the entire affair, luring her with false letters allegedly from her son. In some of the most gruesome verses in the Newfoundland folksong literature, the gardener brutally murders the young woman, laying her “virtuous body to bleed in the ground,” after which her forlorn lover arrives on the scene to discover the crime. Introduced by a brief descending motive in the piano part, the first two verses narrate the scene to a chordal accompaniment as the young lady is lured to the garden under false pretenses. It is in the

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Figure 5.3 Vaughan Williams, arr., “Young Floro,” Verse 2 (mm. 10–18)

middle verses that the real drama – both poetic and musical – unfolds. As the bloody gardener addresses the young lady with ominous intent (verse 3), Vaughan Williams reworks the introductory piano motive into an ostinato pattern on E. Underpinned by tension-inducing minor seconds in the left hand (mm. 10–11), the ostinato is repeated with rhythmic modifications (triplet eighth notes at m. 11) and an enriched harmonic texture (m. 13), before evolving into a fully developed countermelody at measures 14–17.41 The young lady’s beloved arrives on the scene in verse 6 (m. 18), at which point the piano ostinato continues to evolve with melodic interest shifting from the right hand to the left (mm. 18–20). The song culminates at the end of verse 6 as the distraught young man, unable to find his beloved, is left to mourn with “the groves and valleys.” In a gesture of musical closure that closely mirrors the story, Vaughan Williams’s countermelody ­merges with the original ­folksong tune at



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Figure 5.4 Vaughan Williams, arr., “The Bloody Gardener,” Verses 3-5 (mm. 10–17)

m.  23 as the pianist momentarily accompanies the singer in unison. It is as if the folksong melody represented the completion of the composer’s musical thought, just as the folksong idiom embodied the ultimate fulfillment of Vaughan ­Williams’s musical philosophy. In the poignant “Maiden’s Lament,” we enter a fundamentally different musical world as Vaughan Williams evokes the timeless beauty of a melody that Karpeles once identified as one of the most striking of her entire collection. The same could not be said of her opinions on the text sung by her informant. In the explanatory notes to the collection, she states that she “omitted three corrupt stanzas, which tell of

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the intervention of the maiden’s hard-hearted parents,” but reassuringly adds that “otherwise the text is practically unaltered.”42 Why she viewed these three stanzas as “corrupt” is a matter of conjecture; however, we must dispute the latter assertion as there is yet another verse omitted not accounted for in her explanatory notes (the verse in which the heroine bids farewell to her friends and family). The editorial notes to the 1971 edition of the original songs shed a little light on this question. In a statement that appears aimed at retrospectively justifying her previous revisions, she acknowledges that “The Maiden’s Lament” “may be part of a longer song in which more detailed circumstances of the maiden’s tragedy are related, but the tune is so essentially lyrical in character that it would not lend itself to the accompaniment of a long ballad.”43 As if to provide further justification, she goes on to suggest that her informant’s memory may not have been entirely reliable, adding that the individual was “an old man [who] had not sung the song for many years.”44 Disclaimers aside, Karpeles appears to have shortened the song from seven verses to three to suit her own musical tastes. Although her editorial changes were rarely of this magnitude, they are manifest frequently throughout collection by a recurring tendency to combine the melody of one informant with the text of another (such as “Sweet William’s Ghost,” among many others), or in selected instances, the omission and/ or modification of existing verses and the substitution of others. In the case of one song, “The Gypsy Laddie,” she combined texts collected from four different Newfoundland singers. In sharp contrast to the thematic treatment of the preceding two songs, Vaughan Williams’s primary focus in “The Maiden’s Lament” is on rhythmic tension and the selective use of harmonic colour. This may be partly attributed to the relative brevity of Karpeles’s revised song text in comparison with the much lengthier ballad texts found elsewhere in the collection. Evidently captivated by the song’s metrical irregularity, Vaughan Williams establishes an atmosphere of rhythmic freedom from the outset with a piano part characterized by syncopation and a descending triplet pattern. The introduction cadences on G (the singer’s opening pitch), at which point varied repetitions of the introductory motive are stated against a G pedal. Rhythmic tension derives from the superimposed duplets and triplets of the vocal and piano lines, respectively. The opening verse culminates with the maiden’s heartfelt proclamation “I have lost my love,” at which point textural transparency gives way to a chordal texture marked by an 9th chord on A-flat (accompanied by a crescendo and resolving to a G minor triad to form an elided



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Figure 5.5 Vaughan Williams, arr., “The Maiden’s Lament,” Verse 1 (mm. 1–13)

cadence linking the two verses). A chordal texture persists as the climactic second verse ensues (“O love is like an unquenching fire”), after which the descending triplet motive is distributed between right and left hands. In an affective gesture not unlike that of another notable lament, “When I Am Laid in Earth” from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, the stepwise melodic descent is continuously repeated for the duration of the song (with slight rhythmic modifications) as a mournful undercurrent mirroring the poet’s dire words (“Unto my cold grave I will retire”). Octave G pedals (this time in the right hand of the piano part) recall verse 1 and bring the song to a poignant close.

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Vaughan Williams’s arrangement of the love lament “She’s Like the Swallow” offers a compelling synthesis of his folksong arranging techniques. As with “The Maiden’s Lament,” Karpeles made a significant textual alteration to the version collected from John Hunt of Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, on 8 July 1930. Conspicuous by its absence is the pivotal fourth verse of the collected song text, the suggestive imagery telling of the circumstances that led to the heroine’s broken heart.45 In its place, she substituted a literal repetition of the opening verse. Karpeles, in her explanatory notes, tells us only that the changes were intended to address certain aspects of the original text that were “irregular” and “unintelligible,”46 although in hindsight they appear closer akin to censorship than editorial proofreading. While Karpeles may have edited for sexual content, she apparently had no reservations about gruesome murder as the lengthy text of “The Bloody Gardener” was preserved with every vivid detail intact! A two-measure piano introduction establishes the mood and tonality (C minor), while an elided cadence flows breathlessly into the vocal melody. Here, as in other songs (such as “The Bloody Gardener”), the folksong melody represents the completion of Vaughan Williams’s musical thought as the C – G melodic progression at mm. 2–3 serves as both the conclusion of the piano introduction and the beginning of the vocal melody (a tendency repeated both during and at the end of the first vocal phrase as a countermelody in the piano part merges into a unison doubling of the vocal line at m. 3 (G – F – G in the bass register), and m. 6 (G  – A-natural  – B-flat in the soprano register). Once more Vaughan Williams weaves a seamless textural web in which contrary motion (m. 7), retrograde treatment (m. 4), and countermelodies (m. 5) create new expressive possibilities for the folksinger’s poignant words. “She’s Like the Swallow” is more richly textured than “The Maiden’s Lament” but uncomplicated harmonically; the persistent use of suspensions throughout adds an additional level of emotional tension and release. As Zoltan Kodály once wrote, Vaughan Williams “ennobled folk song with his marvelous settings; he ennobled his own style with the spirit of folk song.”47 To which we might add that he could have found no better specimen with which to “ennoble” his style than the timeless beauty of “She’s Like the Swallow.” Although seldom heard today and scarcely mentioned in existing studies of Vaughan Williams’s music, the Newfoundland folksong settings offer a unique opportunity to witness one of the leading composers of the twentieth century respond creatively to one of the richest



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Figure 5.6 Vaughan Williams, arr., “She’s Like the Swallow”

r­ epositories of traditional music in the New World. A passionate advocate for the living tradition of folksinging, Vaughan Williams recognized that each Newfoundland singer imbued the songs with the imprint of their own personality, and, through his settings, this is precisely what he strove to achieve (always mindful, nonetheless, of revealing the intrinsic beauty of the original songs in what Kodály termed “the true humility of greatness”48). He could not, in the manner of the folksinger, vary the intensity of his voice or cast a reflective glance to convey the meaning of the stories. In his imaginative arrangements, however, he placed himself in the mindset of folksinger and storyteller and using the tools of the composer’s craft – melodic development, harmonic colour, rhythmic

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i­ ntensification – added his own creative voice to the songs’ ever evolving histories. In his inspired settings, Vaughan Williams held up a mirror to Newfoundland folksongs and saw in them reflections of himself. Decades later, in 1971, a greatly expanded collection of close to 100 of the songs collected by Karpeles was published by Faber and Faber of London and dedicated to the memory of Marius Barbeau.49 Much had transpired in the Newfoundland folksong movement in the intervening period, including landmark expeditions by American folklorist MacEdward Leach (1950–51), the first Newfoundland song collector to preserve informants’ voices via tape recorder,50 and Canadian composer Kenneth Peacock (1951–61; see chapter 8). The folksinger/guitarist Omar Blondahl contributed to the popularization of local folksongs throughout Canada via radio, television, and recordings (1955–64), an effort that paralleled the composition of Howard Cable’s similarly inspired Newfoundland Rhapsody (1956) and the publication of Fowke and Johnston’s Folksongs of Canada (1954). The creative explosion of local talent that marked the emergence of the “Newfoundland Renaissance” and the concurrent development of academic programming in folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland were likewise reshaping the cultural landscape in new and thought-provoking ways. ­Karpeles’s volume, undertaken with support from the Canada Council, was nonetheless eagerly anticipated among the international folksong community and, in many respects, an act of completion that brought closure to her song collecting career. The collection was partitioned into two broad categories: Ballads and Songs (89 pieces of music) and Dances (3). A number of the ballads and songs appear in multiple musical variants, giving a total of 150 tunes in the collection (a number that would have been higher still had Karpeles notated the many variants that singers often improvised when repeating stanzas of a song). More than 40 of the tunes Karpeles noted during her Newfoundland expeditions (alternative renditions of ballads and songs in the published collection and other titles that were excluded from the volume entirely) remain unpublished. The ballads and songs in the published collection were further categorized as follows: Child Ballads (24), Ballads – Supernatural (4), Ballads and Narrative Songs – Various (12), Sea Songs (2), “The Drowned Lover” (3), “The Female Sailor Boy” (5), “The Lover’s Farewell and Absence” (4), “The Returned Lover” (3), “Rejected and False-Hearted Lovers” (8), “Hard-Hearted Parents” (6), “Wooing and Courtship” (10), “Love Laments and Lyrics” (5), “Nonsense Song” (1), and “Cumulative Songs” (2).51 Karpeles observed a



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higher percentage of modal melodies than in her native England (24 melodies in the Dorian mode, 24 with no sixth, 7 in the Aeolian mode, 14 in the Mixolydian mode, 13 with no seventh, and 5 with variable seventh). Common musical phrase structures included the recurring pattern of four varying phrases (ABCD) and a symmetrical ABBA pattern. Karpeles, in the introduction to the volume, concluded her remarks by thanking “all those who have helped me and in particular my friends, Mr and Mrs Fred Emerson, who offered me generous hospitality in their home in St John’s and gave me much valuable information.”52 The Emersons are the only individuals acknowledged by name. The legacy of Emerson’s relationship with Karpeles would prove an enduring one. The two maintained a close lifelong friendship, he and members of the Emerson family visited her in London on numerous occasions, and Karpeles reciprocated by visiting the Emersons at their retirement residence in Greenfield, Nova Scotia, during the 1960s. When Karpeles was awarded an honorary degree from Memorial University in 1970, she was warmly received in the home of Carla Emerson Furlong. Years after their first encounter, he could reflect on Karpeles’s accomplishments in Newfoundland with a mixture of nostalgia and heartfelt admiration: Collecting folk music is a fascinating task. Country people are usually shy about singing their songs to strangers. Miss Karpeles had the gift that many great artists have, that of being completely sincere. She could enter a fisherman’s house and be just as much at home as in her drawing room in Hampstead. She impressed people she met as deeply as they seemed to have impressed her. In her preface to these songs she says: “It would be impossible to find a kinder, friendlier people than the Newfoundlanders.” This is a generous and, I feel just tribute, but it speaks eloquently for Miss Karpeles herself. The ease with which she could win the hearts of these people incline me to the view that if she had had any aspirations to a political career in Newfoundland, she could have sat in our House of Assembly, had it lasted, without the effort that some of our politicians have found necessary.53 When Joseph R. Smallwood’s encyclopedic Book of Newfoundland was published, Emerson was invited to write an article on Newfoundland Folk Music.54 Initially a two volume compendium, the Book of Newfoundland was published by Smallwood’s Newfoundland Book Publishers in 1937 with financial backing from Chesley A. Crosbie.

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Further volumes followed decades later, in 1967 and 1975. Written in the 1930s with the memory of the Karpeles visits still fresh, the article refers to her collection extensively, yet draws strikingly different conclusions on matters of aesthetic preference and cultural significance. For Karpeles, folksong collecting was a quest for authenticity, a search for musical truths that were to be found in a pure and unadulterated form of traditional song (unencumbered by the burden of musical notation). Yet as she candidly admitted, such truths were largely illusory in the Newfoundland context: The proportion of authentic folk songs is small compared with the general repertory. In addition to the composed songs of an earlier generation, songs are constantly being made up about contemporary events such as exploits at sea, shipwrecks, etc. These are often set to a well-known ‘Come-all-ye’ type of tune. They usually have but little aesthetic value and since my interest lay in songs that represent an older tradition I did not note any of them.55 Karpeles’s distinction between “folk” and “popular” songs conforms closely to the guidelines outlined in the International Folk Music Council Manual for Field Workers: “The singer or instrumentalist will be unable to distinguish between what is ‘folk’ and what is ‘popular.’ His first impulse will be to give you popular music rather than folk music because he will think that this is better suited to your requirements. Do not discourage him by letting him think that you regard this as valueless.”56 Reading not far between the lines, this type of “popular” song was clearly not what she envisioned in her quest to find the Holy Grail of British traditional song in North America. Like many song collectors of her generation, including her Canadian colleagues Helen C ­ reighton and Marius Barbeau, Karpeles drew a careful distinction between “authentic” folksongs and newly composed music. Karpeles’s expectations for her Newfoundland song collecting (the dashed hopes that the region would be “virgin soil” for the song collector, for example) were partly conditioned by a previous expedition undertaken with Sharp in the Southern Appalachian Mountains a ­decade prior. There geographic isolation and a resulting “immunity from modern civilization” conspired to produce an environment in which traditional songs and little else were sung.57 Newfoundland, in comparison, was far less isolated culturally than she had anticipated and the diversity of musical styles and genres she encountered was both surprising



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and problematic to her. While she appeared at times flummoxed over a perceived lack of traditional songs, in hindsight we can readily agree with Martin Lovelace that the singers’ musical tastes were actually more eclectic than hers.58 Karpeles recorded a particularly memorable debate with one Newfoundland singer on this very question: In Newfoundland, as in other parts of the world, singers do not distinguish between traditional and composed songs, and many is the time that I have tracked down a singer with a reputation for old songs only to be regaled with “When you and I were Young, ­Maggie,” or “The Letter edged with Black.” In order to convey what I wanted, I used sometimes to explain that I was looking for songs that had not been put into books or that had no “music” to them, which to the folk singer means the printed air. I was once caught out by this ruse: a singer, coming to the end of his repertory of composed popular songs, all of which I had rejected on the grounds that they were already in print, innocently remarked: “Well, I can only think that some other young lady must have come along before you and got all the songs printed off.”59 Karpeles’s entrenched views may seem unduly restrictive when read today, yet they were entirely consistent with the British romantic nationalism that she, Sharp, Vaughan Williams, and others of their cultural milieu espoused. For Emerson, conversely, questions of authenticity and originality were subordinate to cultural meaning, and this, coupled with a strong vein of Newfoundland nationalism and a passionate belief in the value of preserving a local legacy, prompted him to draw strikingly different conclusions: “Hardly less interesting than the traditional songs are the songs composed by the people themselves. It can unquestionably be stated that in many places the gift of facile composition, if not of improvisation, is possessed in a very high degree. It is true that the composers or singers lack a certain literary sense, in that they borrow phrases and lines freely from old ballads, and, provided the tune ‘fits’ adequately, care little if at all about its originality. Yet, on the other hand, the fisherman has his own particular musical culture and a special vocabulary which contains words absent from his everyday speech. It is the habit of the fisher-folk in many localities to record in song local events, especially those of a tragic nature, and it may be premised that these songs, if collected, would give a very vivid sidelight on the history of our people.”60

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Emerson’s article refers to Karpeles’s work extensively, as well as that of Greenleaf, quoting from both women and prefacing his commentary by characterizing their collections as “two works of outstanding interest.”61 Yet, as the above quotation reveals, his contribution to an emerging discourse on the topic extended far beyond a descriptive summary of their achievements. In offering a comparative assessment of the collections, for example, he identified unexplored paths awaiting further discovery (such as a latent body of French and Gaelic songs): “While the two volumes above referred to appear to cover comprehensively the ballads and folk-songs sung by the people, yet all our music does not seem to have been explored. Sea shanties are common, and the French descendants of the exiled Acadians are said to possess a large number of songs. I have also been informed that Gaelic songs are still [sung] in the Codroy Highlands.”62 In other passages his keen musical insights come vividly to the fore, such as the following observations on the modality of Newfoundland folksongs: “When modal, they are usually Mixolydian, Aeolian or Dorian. Songs in the rarer modes, such as the Phrygian, or in the pentatonic scale, have not been found. Curiously enough, in some songs two modes are used.”63 He recognized the breadth of Newfoundlanders’ musical tastes (implicitly concurring with Greenleaf’s assessment and critiquing some of Karpeles’s views in the process) and was the first scholar to argue persuasively for the inherent value of songs composed by Newfoundlanders for Newfoundlanders: “As might be expected from sea-faring people, some of their songs are gleaned from outside sources – from the fishermen of Gloucester, the Canadian lumbermen and, latterly, the gramophone and the radio. Not the least interesting are the songs composed by the people themselves.”64 Emerson uses the phrase “songs composed by  the people themselves” twice in the article, as if to emphatically reassert the value of locally composed music. His advocacy for folk music in the curriculum of Newfoundland schools, something of an anomaly for an article of this type, speaks to a lifelong interest in music education: “In view of the increasing value which other countries attach to their folk music, and the growing popular interest in it, it is to be hoped that our educational authorities will consider the advisability of having these songs taught to the school-children of Newfoundland.”65 This pointed statement appears in the published article but not in an earlier draft, suggesting that it may have been a last-minute addendum directed squarely at government and educational officials.



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Musical quotations from “She’s Like the Swallow” and a pair of folk dances collected by Karpeles (“The Self” and “Kitty’s Rambles”) illustrate the text. The dances appear to highlight the relative scarcity of such pieces in the published collections, while “She’s Like the Swallow” appears front and centre on the first page of the article as a telling illustration of the canonical position both Karpeles and Emerson accorded it. A similar motivation must have surely inspired the quotation of F ­ rancis Forbes’s nineteenth-century gigue “The Banks of Newfoundland” in its entirety, a choice that might otherwise seem perplexing given that it is not referenced anywhere in the article and the primary focus of discussion is on folk songs (not instrumental music, per se). An earlier draft of the article sheds a little light on this question with the following observation (omitted in the final published version): “The tune that is perhaps most associated with the Newfoundland people – thanks perhaps to the Newfoundland Regiment – is the lively and captivating dance tune, ‘The Banks of Newfoundland.’” Initially published as a gigue for solo piano by Oliver Ditson of Boston, “The Banks of Newfoundland” acquired unofficial anthem status in the early nineteenth century as a regimental march performed by the Band of the Royal Newfoundland Companies and a variety of other military and civilian ensembles active in Newfoundland at the time. Processions, festivals, dinners, soirées, and the like were frequently enlivened with renditions of the popular tune, a tradition that began in the 1820s and proliferated in the years following the granting of representative government. Forbes, Newfoundland’s chief justice, had written the piece c. 1820 before departing for the balmier climes of Australia. The work’s storied association with the Newfoundland Regiment dates from the third year of the First World War and the founding of a Newfoundland Regiment Band overseas under the direction of Scottish bandmaster L.L. Worthington. Patriotism was for these bandsmen not merely an idea expressed but a concept lived. A song of tribute by Worthington entitled “The First Newfoundland Regiment” dates from this period, the introduction of which contains a quotation from the opening of “The Banks of Newfoundland.” In November 1916, just four months after the regiment suffered catastrophic losses at Beaumont-Hamel, the band led a procession of allied troops through the streets of London, where “The Banks of Newfoundland” was played before thousands of spectators who lined the route. In September of the following year, the city of London hosted a special Newfoundland Week series of events commemorating

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Figure 5.7 Francis Forbes, The Banks of Newfoundland (mm. 1–12)

the 420th anniversary of the discovery of Newfoundland and the wartime heroics of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. As part of the festivities, the Regimental Band performed “The Banks of Newfoundland” in front of an estimated crowd of 10,000 at Hyde Park, including a rather imaginative if somewhat bewildered music critic who characterized the piece as “curious ... a mixture of Irish and Red Indian strains, as stirring as it is weird!”66 As G.W.L. Nicholson recalls, “during the First World War the stirring tune was to lighten the step of thousands of marching Newfoundlanders and cheer the heart of many a wounded or convalescent soldier in hospital or nursing home; and in the years that followed, ‘The Banks of Newfoundland’ came to serve as a lasting memorial to the famous Regiment whose troops rallied to its historic and stimulating



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strains.”67 On 1 July 1924, at the unveiling of the National War Memorial in St John’s, the Church Lads’ Brigade (CLB), Catholic Cadet Corps, Methodist Guards, Newfoundland Highlanders, and a large assemblage of servicemen marched before tens of thousands as the CLB Band played “The Banks of Newfoundland.” In Newfoundland and Labrador today, the enduring legacy of “The Banks of Newfoundland” lives on as the “soundtrack” of North America’s oldest continuing sporting event, the St John’s Regatta (where it is still performed by the CLB Avalon Battalion Band), and a multitude of modern arrangements by an eclectic array of popular musicians. One recent performance context of note is the annual George Street Festival, a series of outdoor rock concerts in the heart of the St John’s entertainment district. In what has become something of a George Street Festival tradition, “The Banks of Newfoundland” is typically played at the close of the final night’s ­festivities (the eve of the Regatta notably) and never fails to draw a tumultuous response from the thousands of revellers in attendance. As with “She’s Like the Swallow,” it appears that Emerson was affirming the place of “The Banks of Newfoundland” as part of an emerging canon of local repertoire and a potent symbol of Newfoundland identity. Decades later, the same impulse inspired him to integrate melodies from “The Banks of Newfoundland” into his own Newfoundland Rhapsody for orchestra (see chapter 9). In retrospect it is tempting to ask why Emerson, with his lifelong love of Newfoundland folklore and music, did not embark upon his own expedition of folksong collection. He certainly possessed the necessary musical expertise and, unlike Karpeles, a wide circle of friends and acquaintances to provide him easy access to folksingers. He was, moreover, a native Newfoundlander and as such may not have faced some of the reticence that confronted Karpeles when asking certain individuals to sing. Quite likely the time constraints of his legal practice were of primary concern, but beyond that there was undoubtedly the perception that folksong collecting was a task better left to the “professionals.” 68 Educated in England and a loyal British subject through and through, Emerson was seemingly content to defer to Karpeles’s expertise in such matters, offering advice and assistance when called upon to do so. Differing aesthetic preferences and cultural allegiances aside, he was an unwavering Karpeles ally and remained so decades later as a board member of the first Canada Council (see chapter 8). His widely read article did much to draw attention to her research, hailing the achievement as a milestone in the preservation of Newfoundland culture and

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suggesting that from her collection (and others) a canon of indigenous folksongs could emerge. In the ensuing decades, “She’s Like the Swallow” would become one of the most widely recognized folksongs in the English language, a “cultural icon” as Neil Rosenberg aptly described it.69 Following Vaughan Williams’s 1934 arrangement and Emerson’s 1937 article (in which the song is quoted), it entered the mainstream of Canadian culture in the post-Confederation era through its inclusion in Edith Fowke and Richard Johnston’s 1954 collection Folksongs of Canada (adapted from Karpeles’s collection) and a similar version collected by Kenneth P ­ eacock and published in his Songs of the Newfoundland Outports (1965). The song has since inspired innumerable arrangements and musical compositions across a wide spectrum of styles and genres. Among the many versions are arrangements for solo voice and piano by Godfrey Ridout, Keith Bissell, and Benjamin Britten (the second of Britten’s Eight Folk Song Arrangements, 1976), Harry Somers’s oft-performed choral version (the fourth of his Songs of the Newfoundland Outports, 1968),70 John Beckwith’s arrangement for soprano, mezzo-soprano, flute, and viola (1999), Michael Parker’s The Maiden’s Lament, for soprano, clarinet, and piano (in which “She’s Like the Swallow” forms the basis of the fifth movement),71 contemporary pop versions by Melanie Doan and Jane Siberry, and a captivating folk revival arrangement by Pamela M ­ organ.72 From collection to dissemination, Emerson’s role in the popularization of the song (and others like it) was decisive.

6 Of Folk Schools and Folk Theatre: The Markland Settlement and Proud Kate Sullivan

There can be little doubt that Emerson’s cultural and intellectual pursuits occupied a central place in his life during the 1920s and 1930s, nor that the results of those endeavours left a lasting legacy with those who heard his voice, read his words, or sang from the rich folksong heritage he helped to preserve. His contributions to Newfoundland society, however, were by no means restricted to academia and the performing arts. Of special note here is his leadership role in the establishment and educational development of Markland, an experimental land-­settlement program on the Avalon Peninsula (near the present-day community of Whitbourne). Intended to address high unemployment and reduce reliance on the fishery, the land-settlement program was a direct consequence of the economic distress of the Great Depression and its devastating human toll on Newfoundland society. With demand for the nation’s principal exports of fish, pulp and paper, and minerals evaporating, the scandal-plagued government of Richard Squires had accumulated a staggering $100 million of national debt by 1931. When drastic fiscal restraint measures were coupled with allegations of misuse of public funds levelled at Squires and members of his cabinet in 1932, public frustration reached a boiling point. On 5 April of that year, a firestorm erupted as a mob of 10,000 stormed the doors of the Colonial Building, site of the legislative assembly, where they proceeded to loot and destroy public documents and property (including a grand piano). Fearing for his life, Squires escaped through a side exit and went into hiding for the next day. In the election that followed two months later, his government lost all but two of twenty-seven seats in one of the most lop-sided electoral verdicts in Newfoundland history.1

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With the solvency of the country in very real jeopardy, the British and Canadian governments intervened in 1933 with a joint loan of $1,500,000, conditional upon Newfoundland accepting a three-­member Anglo-Canadian commission to investigate and make recommendations on the island’s political and economic future. Foremost among the commission’s recommendations was a call for the suspension of the existing form of government until such time as the island could become self-­ supporting once more, and the creation of a British-appointed Commission of Government.2 On 16 February 1934, the six-member Commission assumed office under the chairmanship of Governor Sir David Murray Anderson. The Commission consisted of three Newfoundland representatives  – Frederick Alderdice (vice-chair and commissioner for Home Affairs and Education), William R. Howley (Justice, Police, Liquor Control, and attorney general), and John C. Puddester (Public Health and Welfare, Labour and Pensions)3 – and three British appointees – Thomas Lodge (Public Utilities), Sir John Hope Simpson (Natural Resources), and E.N.R. Trentham (Finance).4 While control of financial affairs was placed squarely in the hands of the British commissioners (underscoring some of the stark power imbalances on the Commission), Newfoundland’s representatives were responsible for aspects of social policy, including the crucial healthcare and education portfolios.5 The Commission’s mandate was the delivery of efficient, fiscally responsible government divorced from the religious and political practices that had coloured Newfoundland’s past. To say that the Commission of Government’s fifteen-year reign was controversial would be an understatement. Despite draconian measures intended to alleviate the island’s financial crisis, relief rolls were as high as ever five years into the new administration, and in the minds of many critics the Commission’s efforts to revitalize the economy were a dismal failure.6 More favourable reviews have been accorded the Commission’s efforts in healthcare and education reform, the latter of which included (among other objectives) compulsory education, a new curriculum, the construction of new schools, and the renovation of existing ones. With its promise of economic development, improved healthcare, and the innovative delivery of education, the Markland settlement was an idea whose time had come. While government support for agriculture as a means of addressing high unemployment in Newfoundland can be traced to the nineteenth century, Markland was the first and largest land settlement of its kind. During the Commission of Government era, smaller settlements were subsequently established across the island at Haricot, Lourdes, M ­ idland,



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Brown’s Arm, Sandringham, Winterland, and Point au Mal, consistent with the Commission’s quest to foster agricultural initiatives as a means of reducing reliance on the fishery. The land-settlement movement was by no means unique to Newfoundland during the Great Depression. Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Great Britain, and the United States, among other nations, sponsored various subsistencefarming initiatives to address high unemployment.7 In Newfoundland, renewed interest in the economic potential of agriculture also led to the formation of a colonial demonstration farm (1935), an affiliated school in practical agriculture (1936), and a pre-agriculture program at Memorial University College (1937). Named for the “forest land” of the Norse sagas, Markland was founded in 1934 when Emerson approached the Commission of Government with the idea of establishing a settlement for disadvantaged Newfoundlanders who wished to develop a self-sustaining agricultural collective as an alternative to social assistance. The idea came to fruition not as a creation of the commissioners (as is often wrongly reported) but rather on the initiative of Newfoundland war veteran William L ­ idstone. Lidstone approached Emerson with the concept of an agricultural collective and requested his assistance in obtaining a grant of land and sufficient funding from the Commission of Government. An earlier proposal had been rejected by the previous government under the rationale that it had little control over expenditures and no reasonable assurance that the program would be successful. Emerson’s solution to this dilemma was to propose that a board of trustees be established to control expenditures and supervise development of the project. With Lidstone’s support, ­Emerson’s conceptual land settlement was put forward and accepted by government. The following individuals were then interviewed by ­Emerson and appointed as fellow trustees: Newfoundland businessman Chesley A. Pippy (1894–1971), Dutch-born landscape architect Rudolph K. C ­ ochius (1880–1944), rural physician Dr John Grieve, and businessman and retired politician Sir Marmaduke ­Winter (1857–1936). ­Cochius is perhaps best known for designing Bowring Park in St John’s and the Newfoundland War Memorial at Beaumont-Hamel while Pippy, for whom Pippy Park in the Newfoundland capital is named, was a philanthropist and owner of Newfoundland Tractor and Equipment Co. Ltd. Lodge, perhaps the settlement’s most ardent supporter on the Commission after witnessing the early results of the project firsthand, described the board (minus Winter) in colourful terms as “the oddest quartette in the world – a Scottish doctor who had spent most of his life on the

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­ abrador and might have stepped out of a kailyard novel; a young lawL yer with a passion for music and exotic tongues; a young business man who could have sold harmoniums to Treasury officials, had he applied his mind to that task; and a Dutchman with a supreme artistic sense and a capacity for being incoherent in four languages.”8 Constructed on a sprawling, thirty-nine square-mile expanse of Crown land, the Markland site contained wooded areas and an abundance of marshland, the latter posing significant logistical challenges for settlement planning.9 On the other hand a preponderance of scenic rivers, lakes, and ponds offered opportunities for subsistence fishing and the potential for future tourism development. By autumn 1934, sixty houses and five log cabins, as well as a barn, a store, a staff house and a school were either built or under construction, and by August of the following year the number of families resettled at Markland had grown to 120. A post office, a forge, two sawmills, and a second, smaller school (aimed at reducing the distance some children were required to travel to attend classes) were later added, while a cottage hospital was founded in 1936.10 One of the first medical facilities of its kind in Newfoundland, the cottage hospital was a cornerstone of the Commission of Government’s rural healthcare initiative (a multipronged strategy aimed at improving substandard conditions by stressing the role of nurses and midwives, immunization against communicable diseases, nutrition, and healthcare education, as well as improved facilities).11 Conceived to address a dire shortage of hospital beds, the cottage hospital concept was inspired by models of healthcare delivery employed on the west coast of Scotland, where the medical needs of sparsely populated fishing and farming communities were believed comparable to those of rural Newfoundlanders. The Markland facility was one of several cottage hospitals established during the inaugural year of the program, with sibling facilities at Argentia, Old Perlican, Burgeo, Harbour Breton, Come-by-Chance, and Burin. By 1946 a total of fifteen such facilities had been constructed, each with a capacity of approximately fifteen to thirty beds.12 The underlying success of the program was affirmed by its continued development postConfederation, as a trio of cottage hospitals was built by the Province of Newfoundland at Channel-Port aux Basques, Fogo, and Springdale in 1952. An additional facility was constructed in St Lawrence by the US government as a memorial to those lost at sea when the American naval vessels USS Pollux and USS Truxtun ran aground off the south coast of Newfoundland in February 1942, and as an expression of gratitude to



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the residents of St Lawrence and Lawn for rescuing survivors. That facility was turned over to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1954. The last hospital built under the cottage hospital program was opened in February 1965 on Bell Island. Several of the former cottage hospitals survived into the twenty-first century and two of the facilities, at Brookfield and Springdale, have been transformed into modern medical facilities still operational today.13 In northern Newfoundland and Labrador, the Grenfell Mission continued to serve the healthcare needs of the people during the Commission era, much as it had for decades. The Grenfell influence was likewise felt in the establishment of nursing stations and a series of floating medical clinics for isolated coastal communities. The first such vessel, the m / v Lady Anderson, began servicing the south coast of Newfoundland in 1935 and soon became an iconic symbol.14 A district nursing service, following the model of the voluntary Newfoundland Outport Nursing and Industrial Association (NONIA), was responsible for recruiting and training nurses for public health work. By 1936, the number of active nurses with the service had grown more than six-fold in just two years.15 The emphasis on healthcare at Markland that the presence of medical facilities and healthcare professionals supported was further reinforced by careful attention to nutrition, dental care, hygiene, and personal cleanliness among children in the settlement schools. The Markland Cottage Hospital survived long after the Commission of Government and land-settlement movement had faded into history, continuing operations until 1984, when it was replaced by the Whitbourne Community Health Centre.16 Approximately half of the Markland settlers were from St John’s, another quarter displaced miners and their families from Victoria, Conception Bay, while others came from nearby communities such as Spaniard’s Bay, Carbonear, Upper Island Cove, Harbour Grace, Whitbourne, and Trinity Bay. Many were so impoverished that they lacked even the basic necessity of adequate winter clothing upon arrival, yet despite this and other hardships, the trustees noted a determined optimism among the people: “There is definitely at Markland today what is called the ‘Markland spirit.’ The men work with great zeal and enthusiasm. It is obvious that the chance of becoming independent and self-supporting has a strong attraction and, as a definite area is allotted to each applicant, he is able to see the farm that he will eventually own. It is estimated that over twenty-five hundred people have applied for admission to Markland since the inception of the scheme. The men take pride in

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calling themselves ‘Marklanders,’ their lots are called ‘steads,’ and everything is done to give the community a character of its own.”17 Applications to the much sought after program were considered in the order in which they were received, with the main criteria being the receipt of able-bodied relief and the availability of at least one adult male in the family to work on community projects.18 By December 1934, the growing settlement employed seventeen staff that included an accountant and storekeeper (F.E. Spencer), a purchasing agent and city representative (Arthur Hayward), a stenographer (Miss W. Boggan), two teachers (Clare Cochius and Georgina Morris), a registered nurse (Miss S. Ash), and ten trainees recruited from Memorial University College to train as prospective managers for new land settlements.19 In this respect and others, the centrality of Markland as a germinating cell for the entire land-settlement movement in Newfoundland cannot be overstated. A separate annual stipend was allotted to the resident physician of the town of Whitbourne, Dr Newhook, to provide medical services. Overseeing the day–to-day operations of the settlement was Rudolph Cochius, who, in addition to his role on the board of trustees, was named to the salaried position of settlement supervisor and manager (a position that carried with it a travel allowance and onsite residence).20 While the trustees acted collectively on all matters of general policy, they were individually responsible for certain aspects of the settlement based on personal interests and expertise. Pippy devised a scheme of credit and repayment, Grieve took a special interest in food, health, and finance, Cochius supervised town planning, road building, and the erection of houses and buildings, while Emerson was in charge of legal matters and educational policy. The initial settlement of ten families soon grew into a social experiment with far-reaching implications. As Peter Neary has observed, “Markland was the Commission of Government’s beacon of hope – what New Lanark had been to the followers of Robert Owen and what, earlier in Newfoundland’s own history, Port Union, another model community, had been to William Coaker and the Fishermen’s Protective Union.”21 For Lodge, Markland was “an attempt at complete social reconstruction,”22 while Sir John Hope Simpson, during a 1934 Newfoundland visit, envisaged the Markland settlement as nothing less than a new economic beginning for Newfoundland: “We are hoping great things from this experiment. If successful, we hope to multiply it by ten or by twenty. After all, the salvation of this country lies in the land, though I suppose that the major industry will always be the fisheries.”23 Paternal



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Figure 6.1 A typical family homestead in the Markland settlement

encouragement from government officials aside, Markland was to be first and foremost a homegrown initiative conceived and implemented by Newfoundlanders. That point was emphatically driven home in summer 1935, when the entire board of trustees briefly resigned to protest government meddling. The crisis was resolved when Hope S­ impson intervened to assure the board of the government’s appreciation and commitment to assisting the trustees in their endeavours.24 In one controversial incident in 1936, Emerson’s roles as legal advisor and educational supervisor merged. Acting upon the advice of Clare Cochius, one of two teachers at the newly founded Markland school, he was faced with the unpleasant task of dismissing one Markland family from the settlement for repeatedly refusing to send their children to school. Sir John Hope Simpson, in a letter dated 14 June 1936, laid the blame for the incident squarely on the shoulders of the children’s mother: “The Markland matter is small, but was causing great trouble. One family refused to send its children to school. This was the fault of the mother, who is a terror and has a bad police record, of which we knew nothing when they came to Markland.”25 The woman had apparently been imprisoned for arson prior to coming to Markland, a startling revelation that raised concerns over fire safety, given

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the wooden ­construction of the houses and the heavily forested terrain that surrounded them. Emerson, adopting a decidedly more diplomatic tact, urged the family to reconsider their decision, however the situation remained at an impasse. Considerable debate ensued, a petition from a handful of settlers to allow the family to stay was presented, and, according to Hope Simpson, the exiled Richard Squires attempted to use the incident as a political ploy to undermine the Commission of Government.26 In the end, however, the original decision was upheld. Personal sympathies aside, the settlement’s educational objectives would not be compromised under any circumstances. Perhaps the most innovative concept developed at Markland was its experimental system of education. Based upon Scandinavian and English models, a holistic approach to education was given particular importance among the settlement’s stated social objectives: “Markland is something more than an experiment in land settlement for the unemployed. It is an attempt, the first attempt in Newfoundland, at a social organization of the people, a raising of the deplorably low standard of life, the creation of a community sense. With this in mind the Trustees have given special attention to the question of education ... It is felt that the schools at Markland should assume a far larger responsibility than Newfoundland schools have hitherto assumed and that they should concern themselves as much with the health of the child as with the imparting of knowledge.”27 Initially designed to accommodate fifty children, the Markland school opened on 22 October 1934 with Clare Cochius (a graduate of Memorial University College) and Georgina Morris (a graduate of McGill University) as its first teachers. The first Newfoundland school in which Protestant and Roman Catholic children could learn together, Markland was in that respect more than a half century ahead of its time as a model of interdenominational education. The interdenominational model did not preclude the study of religion, as free access was given to all churches to provide religious instruction to their members. Of the 120 families living in Markland as of August 1935, there were 41 United Church families (39 percent), 35 Roman Catholic families (33 percent), 29 Church of England families (27 percent), and 1 Salvation Army family (1 percent); 14 families (11 percent) did not identify themselves as belonging to a particular religious denomination.28 In devising an educational strategy for Markland, Emerson was attracted to the models of the Folk Schools of Norway and the Local Area Schools in England (which he believed to be well suited to the rural, agricultural Markland experience). The model of the Norwegian



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Folk Schools was also employed at the land-settlement school in Haricot. Originating in Denmark, the Scandinavian folk school concept was also employed extensively in the Appalachian region of the United States in the 1920s and 1930s.29 The Scandinavian influence could be clearly discerned in the schools’ curricular objectives: “The subject in Norway called ‘Hjemstedslaere’ (homestead learning) is being introduced under the name of ‘Practical Local Knowledge.’ It consists of the systematic explaining to the child of the nature and use of all objects within its every-day experience and the awakening of an interest in Nature and the life around it. It is a preliminary study to Geography, Natural History and Civics. It embraces the cultivation of a small school garden, the care of a school dairy, the collection of wild flowers and the explaining of the work the adults are doing on the farms.”30 Emerson’s belief in the relevance of Scandinavian models to Newfoundland was affirmed in an educational policy paper presented to the Church of England Synod in 1943. The paper was written on behalf of a church subcommittee on education: A study should be made not only of educational systems prevailing in this country and North America but also of those of other countries. In fact, the sub-committee devoted some time to a review of education in Scandinavia. It was felt that the experience and ideas of Scandinavian educationalists were of peculiar interest to Newfoundland and had much of value and interest to offer. It was pointed out that one of the basic principles of Scandinavian education was the stressing of the appreciation of Nature in the child’s immediate environment. In fact, it was upon the immediate environment of the child that in their view education should be centred. Science and Geography should be based upon the phenomena of Nature as the child knew them. Civics and the study of community life – subjects which the sub-committee felt were deserving of very great attention – should also be based upon society as the child actually knew it. It was important that an introduction to Science, in no matter how simple a form, should be begun at an early age, so that the child acquires a correct mental attitude towards life and the problems of life.31 Clare (Cochius) Gillingham, in an interview with folklorist Philip Hiscock, recalled the immediate impact of the school’s unique learning environment on the children:

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Emerson devised a program for Newfoundlanders on the Danish system of folk schools, but it was to be a Newfoundland thing, dealing with Newfoundland. And the idea was you began the day not by just correcting things or anything but by discussing something that they related to, asked them what chalk was or something like that and go from there, and they brought in ideas of their own which we in turn discussed, and so forth. The children couldn’t get there early enough. They were just so happy in their school environment that they would sit around the stove and the girls would teach the boys how to knit and they made quilts and things like that which they sent in to child welfare or something like that. It made them feel that they were doing something for somebody32 Gillingham’s personal reminiscences are echoed in the words of Lady Hope Simpson, who made the following observations on life and learning at Markland during a visit to the settlement in June 1936: All the experts who come to see it say it is the finest agricultural settlement they have seen – so enthusiastic – & the educational side is one of the chief features of it ... Their faces tell of a happiness achieved. The school is the community centre. The children love it. They learn to be clean & to obey & to cook & to keep clean houses, as well as the three Rs. And they learn to buy their food & to note how much every meal costs. And in the afternoons, the women come to learn to sew & make their clothes, etc., and to have some fun together like a women’s institute – & the men have lectures & classes in the evening. And the beautiful thing is that the principal school – & the first – was built by the men themselves in their off time; it is their school, & they are so proud of it.33 Not surprisingly, given Emerson’s holistic approach to education and passion for music and the performing arts, singing and dancing were given special emphasis at Markland both in and outside of the classroom: “Community singing and dancing are special features of the Markland school and should be of all phases of social life at Markland. The teacher’s first aim should be to instill into the minds of the children that the school is a place of healthy and clean enjoyment and not an institution in which they are to be crammed for examinations.”34 In implementing these objectives, Emerson found an enthusiastic young ally in the person of Clare Cochius, his choice to become Markland’s first schoolteacher.



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Figure 6.2 Children at school in the Markland settlement

Cochius brought with her an infectious enthusiasm for teaching, coupled with sound training in music and the performing arts honed during her student years at Bishop Spencer College in St John’s and later Memorial University College, where she played the piano for then President Paton to accompany college singsongs. Musical instruction at the Markland school was likewise aided by the availability of recording and gramophone equipment (a fairly remarkable asset given its time and place,

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which bears the unmistakable imprint of Emerson’s influence). In recognition of a perceived need for enhanced recreational opportunities for youth, singing and an array of physical activities were integrated into a children’s summer camp (modelled in part on the traditions of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides movements): “During the fortnight the camp was run, the children improved tremendously both in physique and morale. They soon learned to play games and thoroughly enjoyed the community singing which was a special feature of the camp.”35 Group singing and dancing classes for adults, one tangible manifestation of the school’s central role in the community, likewise proved immensely popular as both a vehicle for adult education and an outlet for cultural expression: “A singing class has already been started and has proved very popular. It has been discovered that there is quite a lot of interest in Music and some unexpected talent. An evening for dancing has been arranged and the quadrille much in favour in the outports has been danced and English country dances are being introduced.”36 Other educational programs for adults (offered after school hours) included courses in domestic science, agriculture, weaving and crafts, evening courses designed to facilitate increased literacy skills, and specialized instruction in subject areas such as history, political science, and physics.37 The school also housed a small public library. Emerson’s optimistic assessment is supported by Clare Gillingham’s recollections of the school as a social and cultural hub of the Markland experience: “Fred Emerson – the ideas were mostly his. Folk dancing and all that ... That first schoolhouse was the centre of everything in Markland. The men came there with the women in the evenings. I taught them square dancing or country dancing, folk dancing, and they loved it with their big boots. The women came there to weave. They learned to make clothes for the children out of the cloth that was made in Markland. And they all took turns. Somebody who was good at sewing made jumpers and so on and somebody else was good at knitting (knit stockings and so on). It was a wonderful, wonderful thing those first couple of years.”38 Building upon the tradition of the informal craft schools of the Grenfell Mission in the early years of the last century, the teaching of folk crafts at Markland was a fruitful strategy that, aside from its obvious practical benefits, engendered a strong sense of community among settlers (female settlers in particular). From the Markland experience, a Markland culture was beginning to emerge. The self-sufficiency and cultural dimension of the Markland model was echoed years later in Emerson’s educational policy paper for the



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Church of England Synod: “In this country we must solve our own problems for ourselves; outsiders could hardly be expected to solve them in a way that responded to the instincts and needs of our people. There was in fact a ‘Newfoundland spirit’ and, potentially, at least, a Newfoundland culture. Only a system of education which was inspired by the ‘Newfoundland spirit’ (using the term in its best and broadest sense) having for its aim the development and broadening of Newfoundland culture could achieve the best results.”39 Despite several successful years of operations, the folk schools at Markland (as well as that of Haricot) were gradually swept away by the then powerful tide of denominational education. By the mid-1940s, government interest in the Markland schools had waned considerably. As a draft of a letter from Secretary of Education G.A. Frecker to Commissioner for Home Affairs and Education H.A. Winter reveals, the unique logistical challenges of maintaining the Markland schools (and those of the other land settlements) were causing mounting concerns: “I think we should do something about the administration of the Land Settlement Schools at the earliest possible moment  ... At the present time I find myself saddled with the details of looking after these schools, which involves considerable correspondence with teachers about such things as stoves, paint, plumbing, roof, fences, etc. Each letter usually involves getting in touch with firms in St John’s, and taking the picture in general, the time that has to be spent on these four or five schools is altogether out of proportion with the time spent on regular Board Schools.”40 In 1945, the folk schools at Markland were replaced by two denominational schools, while further erosion in Markland’s social foundation occurred as residents abandoned communal farming for wartime employment at the US naval base in nearby Argentia. The twilight of the land-settlement movement in Newfoundland was near, although its distant echoes could be heard in the no less controversial outport resettlement scheme enacted by the Smallwood regime in the post-Confederation era. The legacy of the Markland settlement is in many respects a contested one. On the one hand sharp criticisms were levelled retrospectively at aspects of its operations (such as settlement planning and farming methods), criticisms that, although politically motivated in some instances, were not groundless.41 As a social experiment, moreover, it is debatable whether Markland achieved its stated goal of improving the financial lot of its settlers; but, if so, at what cost? In pseudo-communist fashion, Markland settlers were not paid in cash for their work but earned credits from which they could obtain goods and had strict conditions

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imposed on many aspects of their daily lives (including the amount of time they were permitted to spend outside the settlement). Was this serfdom in the twentieth century? Had the loathed “truck system” found a sinister new disguise?42 Although the settlement raises important questions about civil liberties and financial freedom, the answers to these questions are by no means as straightforward as they may first appear. Flawed strategically as it may have been and imperfect in its implementation, the settlement was not conceived for the enrichment of its administrators (none of whom, Cochius excepted, received any remuneration), but as an emergency measure enacted at the request of the settlers themselves. Each and every settler volunteered for the program (indeed there was a lengthy waiting list to do so despite the many lifestyle restrictions), and any family could “resign” from the settlement at any time if they wished. While settlers did not own their homes initially, they were nonetheless given the opportunity of working to become “steadholders” over time, an attractive prospect that would have been otherwise unthinkable for most, given that obtaining a mortgage or paying rent were well beyond their means. As restrictive as the Markland lifestyle may appear to us today, the opportunity for regaining a measure of dignity and selfreliance in the face of overwhelming obstacles must have seemed like a utopian dream for families struggling to put food on the table amid the grim reality of the Great Depression. In some respects, the lasting impact of the Markland experiment was transformative. As a model for rural healthcare delivery, the cottage hospital concept spawned dozens of comparable facilities across the island (a development that continued unabated during Newfoundland’s early years as a province of Canada). Considered collectively with improvements in nursing, nutrition, and disease control, this resulted in a higher standard of living for rural Newfoundlanders and Labradorians that made the entire region a healthier place in which to live. The sense of community spirit, pride, and shared forms of cultural expression that the Markland experience engendered lasted a lifetime, while the innovative, multidisciplinary approach to education (one aspect of the settlement that drew largely favourable reviews from critics) left a lasting legacy with the successful lives of the young students educated there.43 The folk school concept did not disappear entirely either. Just eight years after Frecker’s pessimistic assessment, Robert Newton, the former president of the University of Alberta, authored a report entitled Memorial University: A Survey, which proposed detailed plans for the future of the newly founded university. Among the report’s recommendations



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was a proposal for the establishment of a university-affiliated “folk high school” based upon Scandinavian models and following a “practical” course of study not unlike the Markland experience. Emerson, it is worth noting, was at the time vice-chair of the university’s board of governors and may well have provided input that informed Newton’s deliberations. As documented in the report, Submissions from the faculty very properly called attention to the Scandinavian Folk High Schools as institutions of a type which seemed peculiarly adapted to the situation in Newfoundland. The first Folk High School was established in Denmark in 1844, under the influence of Bishop Grundtvig, a great leader and reformer. He dreamed of a new and richer life for the country folk of Denmark, based on stirring their national pride and creating in them faith in their own future. The Folk Schools give five months’ courses, to boys in the winter and girls in the summer. They are residential schools, very simply conducted. Under the leadership of teachers carefully selected for personality and enthusiasm for their country as well as for their knowledge, the young folks of eighteen to twenty years study their own country’s history, literature, geography, art, music, social and economic life. The emphasis is on cultural development and citizenship. Little formal reading is prescribed, but the students spend most of their class time listening to and discussing the subject material with their teachers. It is noticeable that the graduates of these schools have attractive homes with well-stocked bookshelves, good pictures or prints on the walls, and well-kept gardens. The intellectual awakening resulting from a course in one of these schools results in some students preparing themselves for higher formal education. Some take a second course at a Folk School. Others go to an academic high school or to the University. The majority return to their former occupations, and normally carry these on more efficiently, though the course included no vocational training whatever. As the Norwegian poet Bjornson said: “The Danish Folk Schools taught the people how to make excellent butter without ever mentioning the word butter.” The conspicuous success of co-operative enterprises in Denmark is commonly attributed to the influence of the Folk Schools. The Memorial University faculty recommended setting up a first school of this nature in St John’s, in close association with the University. Later, schools might be established in other centres. They proposed to admit young people (eighteen to twenty-

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five) of both sexes, to three sessions of six weeks each, distributed from October to April. A hostel would be required, to be run on a co-operative basis, students being invited to contribute products of their home gardens as well as services. Studies would be largely informal. For example, literature would consist of the reading and performance of plays, reading of poetry, novels, and other works, using the discussion method of the reading circle. History and geography would aim to cultivate a true appreciation of Newfoundland. Economics would include a study of the resources of Newfoundland, and of the way the business of the country is carried on. Vocational topics would cover the life history and habits of local fish, technical aspects of the fish industry, analogous treatment of forestry, mining, farming, and, for women, household management, handicrafts, etc., all supplemented by demonstration visits to local institutions and plants. Choral singing, classes in music and art appreciation, suitable religious study and exercises, games and supervised social activities, would round out the experience of the students. It is an inspiring picture, worth trying to convert to reality. By doing so, Newfoundland could give a unique lead to this continent. 44 As a model of interdenominational education, the idea of Markland would undergo a full-fledged revival more than a half-century later with the amalgamation of the entire province’s school system. On 2 September 1997, a plebiscite was held to determine the future of education in Newfoundland and Labrador. In what was viewed by many as the province’s most important referendum since Confederation, 73 percent of Newfoundlanders voted to amend the terms of union with Canada and replace denominational education with an integrated, publicly funded school system in which children of all religious backgrounds could learn together. The community of Markland endures to the present day as a town of approximately 300. Many residents still practice agriculture and the Rodrigues Winery (Newfoundland’s first winery and Canada’s largest exclusively fruit winery) was founded in 1993 on the site of the former Markland Cottage Hospital. With memories of the Markland community folk schools still fresh, Emerson turned his energies inward to create the imagined community of characters that inhabited his folk-inspired one-act play Proud Kate Sullivan (1940). The extent to which Markland may have informed his creative process is a matter of conjecture, although the settlement was undoubtedly on his mind while writing the play and the dramatic action



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is set in a rural Newfoundland farming community not far from the city. Collectively Emerson’s administrative/educational work at Markland and theatrical work on Proud Kate Sullivan serve as prime illustrations of the complex and, at times, conflicting paradigms of British/Newfoundland identity that ran as parallel undercurrents throughout his life. Just as his administrative collaboration with the British commissioners on the Markland settlement yielded to an educational philosophy rooted in Newfoundland folk culture (with Scandinavian overtones), the British formal conventions that frame the dramatic action of Proud Kate ­Sullivan give way to a highly personalized evocation of rural Newfoundland life replete with local dialect, customs, and attitudes. The symbolic meaning of this subversive juxtaposition would not have been lost on Emerson’s Newfoundland audience and, indeed, may well have acquired added resonance within the historical context of the Commission of Government era. Following in the wake of his 1938 ballet The Triumph of Spring, the similarly inspired “dramatic interpretation” The Slave Girl, and the aforementioned songs “Mein Herz wie ein Hundlein,” “Grey Thoughts for Grey Weather,” and “In Flanders Fields,” Proud Kate Sullivan formed an integral part of Emerson’s growing body of creative work. Although simplistic perhaps in some aspects of dialogue and plot development (not surprisingly given his inexperience as a first-time, self-taught playwright and the lack of comparable dramatic models), the play is historically significant as one of the first theatrical depictions of local culture by a native Newfoundlander and the dramatized identity themes expressed invite revealing comparisons to other facets of his creative life. Written for performance by the St John’s Players amateur theatre company and dedicated to its director Rudolph (“Paddy”) Duder,45 the play was premiered by the same group (under Duder’s direction) on 4 December 1940 at Memorial University College. Founded in 1937 by Newfoundland playwright and director Grace (Hue) Butt (1909-2005), the St John’s Players were one of the island’s best-known theatrical groups in an era decades before the advent of local professional theatre companies such as the Newfoundland Travelling Theatre Company, the Mummers Troupe, CODCO, and later Rising Tide. The driving force behind the organization was Butt, a native of Brigus, Newfoundland, who studied at the Methodist College and Memorial University College in St John’s.46 In addition to her activities as a playwright and founding director of the St John’s Players, she wrote poetry, short stories, and, during the 1930s and 1940s, contributed articles on literature and the arts to the St John’s

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Figure 6.3 St John’s Players, c. 1940, with founding director Grace Butt in the second row, third from the right

Daily News. Employed first as a teacher at Holloway School and later as a reference librarian, Butt collaborated with Gregory Power, Samuel Hefferton, Harold Horwood, and Michael Harrington on the establishment of the Newfoundland Arts and Letters Competition, helped organize the Newfoundland Writer’s Guild, and presented a brief on the St John’s Players to the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences.47 Historically situated astride the transformative years of pre- and postConfederation Newfoundland, the St John’s Players were important precursors of later theatre companies on the island,48 a viable alternative to the London Theatre Company (a British troupe active in St John’s in the early 1950s),49 and, at the same time, a theatrical link to Newfoundland’s colonial roots. Operating out of a small stage at the college (where both Emerson and Duder had close professional ties), the group staged its first



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production, J.M. Barrie’s The Admirable ­Crichton, on 16 February 1938 under Butt’s direction. In the ensuing years, live performances at the college were supplemented by dramatized radio broadcasts on VONF and later, with the advent of television in Newfoundland, televised broadcasts on St John’s-based CJON television (known today as NTV). The St John’s Players’ production of Gayden, starring Flo ­Patterson, became the first full-length locally produced play to be performed on Newfoundland television.50 The group also offered theatrical workshops and sponsored performance-based talks such as those of Charles H ­ utton51 (“Expression”), Eleanor Mews Jerrett (“Voice Production”), and Grace Butt (“Problems of Directing”). During the Second World War, it entertained military personnel from around the globe (some of whom acted in the productions) and in 1946 established the Grace Butt Prizes for the encouragement of original plays written by Newfoundlanders.52 Among the more notable St John’s Players alumni is Hal H ­ olbrook (b. 1925), a US solider stationed in Newfoundland who would later become a film icon with his theatrical portrayals of Mark Twain and acclaimed performances in an array of Hollywood motion pictures and network television series.53 In 2008, he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in Sean Penn’s critically acclaimed film Into the Wild (2007), making him the oldest nominee in that category in the history of the Academy Awards. The fact that Holbrook performed with the St John’s Players early in his acting career speaks to the quality of the group’s theatrical programs and suggests that its influence was by no means confined to the local arts scene. The founding of the first Newfoundland Drama Festival in 1950  – the first regional drama festival of its kind in Newfoundland and the foundation upon which an emerging tradition of indigenous theatre was built – was largely a St John’s Players initiative. In 1949, in recognition of the need for an annual festival in which drama groups from across Newfoundland could perform and interact, Butt approached prominent local theatre patrons – among them Hefferton (Newfoundland’s minister of Education), singer Antonia De Alberti (wife of Charles Hutton), and Emerson – with the concept of establishing a regional drama committee to encourage local drama, act as a link between local theatre and that of mainland Canada, and explore the possibility of a regional festival. An open call for expressions of interest appeared in local newspapers and on 10 November a meeting was convened at Memorial University College in which the drama festival concept was endorsed and Emerson was elected as the first chair of the Newfoundland Drama Festival Society.

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The First Newfoundland Drama Festival, St John’s Newfoundland, April 1950, with festival executive director Jean Stirling (centre) and Frederick Emerson (first festival chair) at the far right

As reported in the St John’s Daily News, “the meeting was presided over by Mr Fred Emerson, whose wide culture and talents are well known in Newfoundland as well as his keen enthusiasm for the theatre (Mr ­Emerson is himself author of a Newfoundland one-act play presented here several years ago).”54 Emerson organized and chaired the inaugural festival, which took place in April 1950 with participating groups from St John’s, Corner Brook, and Harbour Grace. Following the success of the first festival, the event was repeated annually as a competitive regional festival (with a visiting adjudicator critiquing the performances). The winning thespians competed with other groups from across Canada in the national Dominion Drama Festival. At the 1952 national festival in Saint John, New Brunswick, Carmel Kemp of St John’s (a member of the St John’s Players) received the award for Best Actress.55 Founded in Ottawa in 1932, the Dominion Drama Festival was for decades Canada’s national theatre, providing career training for actors, directors, and technicians and fostering the writing of original plays (most notably perhaps in 1967 when an all-Canadian Festival was mounted to coincide with Canada’s Centennial Year).56 Newfoundland became



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eligible to enter the Dominion Drama Festival following Confederation with Canada. Years later, during Emerson’s tenure as a charter member of the Canada Council for the Arts (1957–59), the Dominion Drama Festival was awarded a $10,000 Canada Council grant to assist participating theatre companies with travel to the national festival and a series of awards to encourage the writing and production of Canadian plays.57 The cast of the world premiere of Proud Kate Sullivan included Newfoundland actors Mildred Samson, Kathleen Hayes, Daphne Pratt, ­Cherie Callanan, Frank Hue, Leslie Dawe, Ted Conroy, and Florence Mercer portraying a colourful array of locally inspired characters: Aunt Ellen (Samson), Aunt Lizzie (Hayes), Mary Whelan (Pratt), Kitty Whelan (Callanan), Smith (Hue), White (Dawe), Gregory Sullivan (Conroy), and Mrs Kate Sullivan (Mercer). In 1944, Proud Kate Sullivan was one of six St John’s Players productions (the only one by a native Newfoundlander) to be adapted for radio broadcast on VONF, while in 1952 a performance of Proud Kate Sullivan by the Northcliffe Drama Club of Grand Falls marked the first time a work by a Newfoundland playwright was performed at the Dominion Drama Festival. Lloyd Soper, in his history of the St John’s Players, hailed the work as a milestone in the history of Newfoundland theatre: At this point, it is a pleasure to be able to record success in the production of local plays. The first one was a one-act play “Proud Kate Sullivan,” written by Mr Fred R. Emerson, KC. This play depicts the simple life of several ordinary Newfoundlanders, marked by peculiarities of Newfoundland speech and mental attitude. It has a delightful local atmosphere about it and its production by the St John’s Players was indeed a thrill for all who hope to see the development of a Newfoundland theatre.58 Set in a seaside farmhouse not far from St John’s, Proud Kate S­ ullivan is an eclectic mixture of intrigue and old-time Christmas nostalgia, served with a generous helping of local identity and humour. Emerson sets the scene thus: The action takes place in the kitchen of the old Whelan farmhouse, which is to be thought of as situate some five miles from the city in a small settlement on the Atlantic coast. The kitchen is simply furnished. A fire is blazing on the hearth. In the right hand corner against the wall is a narrow table or bench on which stands a bucket

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of water. Beneath it is a supply of firewood and above it a cupboard containing some crockery, bread and other provisions. At centre back is a door, which, when open, gives a view over a moonlit field of snow and distant spruce trees. On either side of the door is a window, across which the curtains have been drawn. On the left is a door leading into a bedroom. As the curtain rises Aunt Ellen is examining the lock of the door and Aunt Lizzie is completing the decoration of the walls with small spruce boughs, festoons of red paper and other Christmas decorations. In spite of its simplicity, with the large fire burning on the hearth, the place has quite a festive air. It is a few days before Christmas and about nine o’clock at night. The Whelan farmhouse had been a fine one in its day – perhaps the largest in the settlement, but since the tragic death of Michael Whelan (who had married Aunt Ellen’s sister Mary) and the strange disappearance of the young hired boy, Gregory Sullivan, the old house had long been deserted, as the two children had been sent for by relatives in America. When the play opens the aunts are expecting the return of the two girls and it is in honour of their home-coming that the kitchen is being decorated. When the curtain rises Aunt Ellen is in a boisterous mood and is singing in a rather comical fashion, much appreciated by Aunt Lizzie: –   ‘The wren, the wren, the king of all birds   On St Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze.   Although he is little, his honour is great,   Rise up, pretty lady, and give us a treat.’ Perhaps she would have been less aggressively cheerful were it not that Aunt Lizzie is by no means at her ease alone with Aunt Ellen in this house after nightfall. For strange and sinister rumours about this empty house have been current in the settlement for many years.59 In subject matter, storyline, and dialogue, Proud Kate Sullivan evokes the same identification with place that informed his lectures on Newfoundland folksongs and later inspired the composition of musical works such as the evocative Newfoundland Scene for solo harp (1963) and the folk-inspired Newfoundland Rhapsody for orchestra (1964) (see chapter 9). In the play, Emerson’s characters speak in colloquial dialect that is at once authentic, evocative, and, in many cases, humorous, a pioneering tendency echoed to varying degrees in later works by Butt



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(The Road through Melton), Ted Russell (The Holdin’ Ground), and other playwrights of the era. In response to the singing of a traditional Christmas song (evoking the central role of communal singing in outport Newfoundland homes), one of the characters, Lizzie, proclaims: “That song you’re after singing reminds me of the old days. What times we did be having here, all of us, when we were young!” (my italics). The distinctive manipulation of tense (suggestive of Irish influence and known by linguists as the “after perfect”), is an idiosyncrasy of speech still found in many Newfoundland communities today and its presence here adds an unmistakable touch of local colour. Other instances of local colloquialisms in the play include the following lines: “They do say her daughter Mary would be the dead spit of her” (Lizzie, implying a close physical resemblance between mother and daughter); and “Well, warm yourselves, both of ye, after the cold drive from town ... Perhaps Dick would be good enough to stop staring like a great big gawk” (Ellen). In other instances, characters express surprise with religious proclamations such as “Glory be to God, child! I thought you were your mother” (Mrs Sullivan), or in rare instances the juxtaposition of the “after perfect” and religious references for added comic relief: “Holy Saints! Me horse is after running away on me!” (Dick). In a dramatized expression of expatriate identity, the play features two American-raised girls (Mary and Kitty Whelan) who return to their outport Newfoundland roots in a celebration of the Christmas season. Nostalgic childhood memories and buoyant optimism colour Kitty and Mary’s perceptions of their once familiar surroundings. The Christmas decorations are welcoming, the old-fashioned fireplace is warm and inviting, and a sentimental sense of belonging is tangible: “It’s just like heaven being back here again, Mary. A house of our own  – our own hearth – our own folk around us” (Kitty). When Kitty poses the question “There’s no place like Newfoundland, is there?” Aunt Ellen responds emphatically with a tone of unambiguous nationalist sentiment: “Well, they do say a Newfoundlander is never happy away from his own country” (my italics). The use of the word “country” in this instance is particularly revealing given that Newfoundland was not, de facto, a self-governing “country” politically speaking in 1940 but essentially a ward of Great Britain. Ostensibly an innocent remark by one of the characters expressing personal feelings of identity and place, a critical reading of the text within the context of Emerson’s Newfoundland nationalist views and the competing political dynamics of the era invites a more subversive interpretation. Considered in this light, the

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expression “away from his own country” could be taken to mean more psychic than physical separation, as if a metaphor for independence lost. As one of the earliest theatrical works to explore (albeit in preliminary terms) the subject of expatriate Newfoundland identity, Proud Kate Sullivan expresses sentiments that are unusually pervasive and in a sense timeless among generations forced to leave the island due in large measure to declining employment opportunities at home and the lure of financial security elsewhere (of which the decades long out-migration of Newfoundlanders from outport fishing communities to the oil fields of Western Canada serves as a dominant trope of modern times). Conditioned by close family and community ties and nostalgic memories of a life left behind, the magnetic impulse of Newfoundlanders living “away” to make regular pilgrimages “home” is a sociological phenomenon that offers few comparisons in modern North American society. For more than a century, government-sponsored “Come Home Year” initiatives (echoed by a myriad of similarly inspired community celebrations) have sought to tap the economic potential of expatriate longing and, at the same time, reunite distant friends and relatives in a communal celebration of place. As early as 1904, Newfoundland Governor Sir C ­ avendish Boyle collaborated with local composer Peter LeSueur on what is quite possibly the first “Come Home Year” song for Newfoundlanders living abroad.’ “Newfoundland Is Calling, Welcome Home Again” was emphatically a product of its era (of which Boyle’s now famous collaboration with Hubert Parry on the “Ode to Newfoundland” stands as a symbolic pinnacle of Newfoundland musical nationalism). More than a half century later, in 1966, Arthur Scammell composed the similarly inspired “Newfoundland Come Home Song” as official music of Newfoundland’s mammoth “Come Home Year” event that year, while the fourth edition of the late Gerald S. Doyle’s songbooks was conceived in part with the “Come Home Year” celebrations in mind.60 Perhaps even more revealing than government-sponsored initiatives are the many individual expressions of related identity themes in the decades since, an eclectic body of repertoire linking popular songs by musicians as stylistically diverse as Dick Nolan, Ron Hynes, and Pamela Morgan, to name just a few. Nolan’s hit song “Home Again This Year” (1972) typified the singer-songwriter’s unique blend of folk-inspired country music, a potent recipe for success among expatriate Newfoundland communities in mainland Canada (where Nolan himself led an expatriate existence for much of his musical career).61 Many of Hynes’s songs are likewise coloured by nostalgic references to the interrelated



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themes of cultural nationalism and expatriate longing, among which “Back Home on the Island” (1974), “Away” (1991) (composed for a Rising Tide Theatre Production entitled Newfoundlanders Away), and “Gone to Canada” stand as representative examples,62 while Morgan’s hauntingly beautiful “Out West” evokes the dominant trope of modern out-migration with bittersweet irony.63 In Newfoundland’s developing tradition of indigenous theatre, Emerson’s preliminary exploration of expatriate identity resonated ­ strongly with local playwrights of the era such as Grace Butt, Ted ­Russell, and others who interwove layered identity themes into sophisticated theatrical forms in the ensuing years. Butt’s best-known play, The Road through Melton (1945), centres upon the character of Steve, who, like Kitty and Mary Whelan in Proud Kate Sullivan, has returned to his rural Newfoundland roots after a sojourn in the United States, while in ­Russell’s The Holdin’ Ground, replete with nostalgic evocations of idealized outport identity, it is the character of Michael who fulfills the theatrical role of a character type that Michael Devine describes as the “voluntary exile.”64 A similar impulse, expressed in very different theatrical terms, serves as a dominant theme in the recent work of David French, of which the immensely popular Salt-Water Moon (1984) and the interrelated plots of the Mercer Plays stand as representative examples,65 while the screen adaptation of E. Annie Proulx’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Shipping News explores related identity themes through the character of Quoyle, an American journalist whose quest to discover his ancestral Newfoundland roots embodies a personal journey of self-discovery and redemption.66 Emerson was one of the first modern playwrights to dramatize the experience of Newfoundlanders in situations with which local audiences could closely relate. In some respects, his use of colloquial dialect and local colour for example, Proud Kate Sullivan harkens back to the achievements of balladeer John Burke, the legendary “Bard of Prescott Street” whose comic operettas (modelled upon those of Gilbert and ­Sullivan) satirized aspects of Newfoundland society and made him a cult hero at home during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A category apart from his well-known songs and ballads (of which “The Kelligrews Soiree,” Cod Liver Oil,” and “The Trinity Cake” have proven especially enduring), Burke’s theatrical legacy included operettas such as The Topsail Geisha (a local adaptation of the British musical comedy The Geisha) and The Battle of Foxtrap (a satirical chronicle of an infamous confrontation between the women of the town of Foxtrap and well-

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known judge and historian D.W. Prowse that occurred when the latter sent in police to prevent the obstruction of railway surveyors). Prowse was lampooned in the operetta as “Judge Spruce.” Burke’s work, in turn, responded to a longstanding tradition of local comic plays and operettas in the British tradition that originated in the early decades of the nineteenth century at the St John’s Amateur Theatre (and other like venues) and flourished during the 1880s and 1890s with the immensely popular Gilbert and Sullivan productions of Charles Hutton. While Burke offered social commentary through caricature (an approach revitalized to varying degrees generations later by the Mummers Troupe,67 CODCO,68 and Rising Tide Theatre),69 Emerson’s characters impress as inherently believable and genuine. Local speech patterns, customs, and values were rarely, if ever, accorded their place on the stage in quite the same way before.70 Other theatrical models included the local skits that permeated the rural Newfoundland phenomenon known as the community concert (a communal blend of songs, recitations, acting, and storytelling rooted in local folk culture) and the ancient mumming traditions that had long been enshrined in the island’s folklore since arriving in the New World with English settlers centuries earlier.71 Emerson was intimately acquainted with both traditions and, in an era in which artistic expressions of Newfoundland culture were viewed with skepticism by some members of the social elite (who still equated “high” culture with “imported” culture), he broke new ground by placing Newfoundland folklore front and centre on the theatrical stage in an unprecedented way. Given that the national Dominion Drama Festival was at times criticized for perpetuating elitist and colonial values, the staging of a play brimming with local dialect and folklore was doubly significant (not to mention timely in the years immediately following Confederation). By appropriating the formal conventions of British theatre and infusing them with local identity, Emerson transformed an imported theatrical form into a unique expression of indigenous culture. Proud Kate Sullivan marked the dawning of a new era in Newfoundland theatre. Following in Emerson’s wake, the St John’s Players premiered a series of locally inspired plays by Butt: among them, the acclaimed Road through Melton (1945) (the first locally written threeact play), and New Lands (1947), a dramatized history of Newfoundland commemorating the 450th anniversary of the voyage of Giovanni Caboto. Decades later, in 1969, Butt’s Part of the Main was awarded the O.Z. Whitehead Award as the best one-act play in Ireland’s Dublin Theatre Festival International Play Writing Competition, prompting



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­ merson (long since retired and living in Greenfield, Nova Scotia) to offer E the following congratulatory remarks in a letter dated 15 September of that year: “I can’t imagine reading anything that would have given me more pleasure than the news of your getting first prize in the ­Whitehead Competition with your play ‘Part of the Main.’ It is marvelous to have a play produced at the Dublin Theatre Festival & I am sure you will have a very great success. Isabel and I wish you every luck. When your play is produced, do send me a copy. I do so hope you & Bert will get to Ireland. You must!”72 Emerson and Butt remained in contact long after the early years of the St John’s Players, corresponding on multiple occasions during the 1960s in which they exchanged family greetings as well as personal observations on aspects of Newfoundland politics, culture, and literature (including a shared affinity for the writings of Margaret Duley). In 1965, Emerson served as a referee for a Canada Council grant application Butt was preparing to facilitate travel abroad to study contemporary plays in production. Not unlike his passionate advocacy for Newfoundland folk music within the Canadian cultural establishment (and his committed support of researchers engaged in its preservation and dissemination), Emerson no doubt viewed the opportunity to support a contemporary Newfoundland playwright as a logical extension of his activities as a “culture broker” (see chapter 8). The cultivation and subsequent professionalization of indigenous theatre in Newfoundland was intrinsically linked to the growth and development of the Dominion Drama Festival and, under its auspices, the Newfoundland Regional Drama Festival. As the first local play ever performed at the festival, Proud Kate Sullivan served as a harbinger of things to come. Four years after Proud Kate Sullivan made its festival debut, another local play, Russell’s The Holdin’ Ground, was performed (also by the Northcliffe Drama Club of Grand Falls), winning the prize for best play, and this in turn was followed by a cumulative series of successes in the ensuing decades. Plays such as Tom Cahill’s adaptation of Harold Horwood’s novel Tomorrow will be Sunday (St John’s, 1967), Michael Cook’s Colour the Flesh the Colour of Dust (St John’s, 1971), and many others since have captivated audiences with their varied interpretations of culture and history as the production of local drama exploded. Similar tendencies to dramatize aspects of Newfoundland life have been expressed in the plays of French, Cassie Brown, Al Pittman, Ray Guy, Des Walsh, Chris Brookes, and many others. Although E ­ merson is seldom acknowledged for his pioneering efforts in the development of Newfoundland theatre, Proud Kate Sullivan marked a turning point in

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the island’s emerging drama scene and anticipated the later achievements of professional collectives such as the Mummers Troupe, CODCO, Rising Tide, and other theatrical manifestations of the “Newfoundland Renaissance” of the late twentieth century.73

7 For the Love of Music: Memorial University College and the Newfoundland Folk Music Lectures By the early 1940s, Emerson had begun teaching regular music appreciation classes at Memorial University College in the capacity of honorary lecturer in music. It was a natural progression for a man well acquainted with the Newfoundland lecture circuit, having given numerous addresses on music, literature, law, and a host of other topics to local service organizations, church groups, and educational institutions (most notably the Queen’s College and Memorial University College lectures of the 1930s). To these duties he would later add the administrative post of vice-chair of Memorial’s board of governors during its evolution from college to degree-granting university (1945–57).1 Emerson was first appointed to the board in 1939 and, for a period of time in the late 1940s, chaired its finance committee.2 In many respects, the appointment as music lecturer marked the culmination of a lifelong passion for music and folklore, an ongoing commitment to education in Newfoundland, and the synthesis of musicality and intellectual discovery that guided his interdisciplinary perspective. From 1941 to 1947, Emerson’s classes were the only means by which post-secondary students in Newfoundland could study music as an academic discipline. Charles Hutton, due to advancing age, had retired from teaching in 1940, and the recently married Eleanor Mews Jerrett was on extended hiatus from choral directing. With two of Newfoundland’s leading music professionals unavailable, it was left for the “young lawyer with a passion for music and exotic tongues”3 to carry the torch for post-secondary music education. By 1946, College President Albert G. Hatcher could report appreciatively that “In the field of music appreciation we have been most fortunate indeed, for Mr F.R. Emerson has this year given two parallel series of twelve lectures each to large classes,

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whose attendance would have been even larger had the timetable permitted. The main topics treated are the lives of some of the great composers, an interpretation of typical works, and an introduction to the folk-songs of our own Island. Mr Emerson’s special gifts in this field were generously shared with us and we are most grateful to him for such a splendid series of lectures.”4 Opportunities for the study of classical music were rare in Newfoundland during this period and limited chiefly to those students who could attend one of several denominational “colleges,” participate in church choirs or denominationally affiliated wind bands, or take private music lessons (often under the tutelage of the school music teacher, church music director, or the nuns of the Presentation and Mercy convents).5 Much of this activity was centred upon the capital city of St John’s (site of all six colleges) and larger communities such as Bay Roberts, Bonavista, Burin, Carbonear, Corner Brook, Grand Falls, Harbour Grace, Placentia, Twillingate, and others. In much of rural Newfoundland at the time, economic realities meant that a large percentage of the population – the male population in particular – entered the workforce during their teens to earn a living in the resource sector as fishers, loggers, miners, and related occupations. The study of classical music, with rare exceptions, was the providence of the privileged few, and, for a college built against the grim backdrop of the Great Depression, funding for music in the curriculum was viewed as an unattainable luxury. It was amid this sobering reality that Emerson, in a philanthropic gesture, paid for the tuition of many outport students for whom a college education might have otherwise been unattainable.6 Founded in 1925 under the presidency of John Lewis Paton,7 Memorial University College marked the culmination of years of determined efforts toward the establishment of a nondenominational institution for post-secondary education in Newfoundland. In 1920, the government of Richard Squires established the Department of Education and, under its auspices, a “Normal School” for teacher training. With no funds available to supplement the teaching training initiative with a broader academic program, however, it was left to three of Newfoundland’s most prominent school administrators to appeal to the philanthropy of the Carnegie Corporation of New York for financial assistance. The administrators included Deputy Minister of Education Vincent Burke (and formerly superintendent of the Roman Catholic Board), Methodist Board Superintendent Levi Curtis, and the aforementioned William Walker Blackall, superintendent of the Church of England Board.8 In 1924 the



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Figure 7.1 Memorial University College, St John’s, Newfoundland, 1948

Carnegie Corporation consented to an annual grant of $15,000 for five years with the provision that the Newfoundland government make an annual $5,000 contribution. With the approval of Prime Minister ­Walter Monroe, Memorial University College was officially opened on 15 September 1925. Burke, Curtis, Blackall, and Ronald Kennedy (Burke’s successor as Roman Catholic Board superintendent) were appointed as trustees to administer the Carnegie Grant and, by extension, the governance of the college. Courses of study for the inaugural class of fifty-seven full-time students included Classics, English, French, German, History, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics, the last of which was taught by future college president Albert Hatcher.9 Hatcher held progressive views on the value of music and the arts at the college and, despite looming financial restraints, recognized during his presidency that “the needs for music and extended facilities for Art, especially for teachers-in-training, must soon be taken into account.”10 While not yet formally part of the college curriculum, music making was an essential aspect of college life from its earliest years. As Paton

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noted in the first Report of the President, “We have had several concerts, and once a week we have fifteen minutes music at the morning opening of the College. Usually, but not always, we ask some friend from outside to play or sing.”11 A college glee club was instituted in that inaugural year under the direction of Richard Bevan. In addition to directing the fledgling glee club, Bevan lectured on a variety of musical topics, including a lecture-recital on folksongs (assisted by Elsie Herder and H.B. ­Wardell) during the 1925–26 academic year. Prior to Bevan’s arrival, Charles Hutton had taught music to teachers in training at the St John’s Normal School beginning in 1921 and subsequently at the newly founded college from 1934 until his retirement in 1940. Following H ­ utton’s departure, vocal instruction for prospective teachers was given by Marguerite Jennings, LRAM, formerly music teacher at Bishop Spencer College. Other music instructors during the early history of Memorial University College included the Church of England organist David Morgan, LRAM, and most notably Eleanor Mews. As discussed in chapter 4, the college glee club under her direction enjoyed a significant period of growth during the 1930s, a development motivated in part by President Paton’s desire to emulate the unaccompanied choral traditions of like-minded British institutions. By that time, musical life at the college had evolved into three formalized streams of activity: the glee club, singing lessons to teachers in training, and musical performances at college assemblies,12 to which we could add dance music at college socials provided by an array of local big bands and popular orchestras as an informal fourth category. The 1935 assemblies were characteristically tuneful, with vocal selections rendered by assorted soloists, choral performances by the glee club, and all in attendance joining in the singing of the “Ode to Newfoundland.” Beginning in 1937, the college’s 300-seat assembly hall housed the St John’s Players. As discussed in the preceding chapter, it was for that group that Emerson wrote Proud Kate Sullivan (1940), an unprecedented dramatization of Newfoundland culture and the first of many journeys of cultural discovery he would introduce to the college community in the ensuing years. Emerson’s music appreciation lectures were by no means the first in Newfoundland, nor were they the first at Memorial University College. Bevan had attempted, with modest success, to establish classes in music appreciation at the college during the late 1920s, an initiative echoed by sporadic music lectures from fellow organists David Morgan, Rev. Frank Ross,13 and H.L. Smith,14 and college faculty members Alfred C. Hunter15 and J.S. Colman.16 Another musically inclined faculty member



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who assisted Emerson on occasion was the theatre director/professor Rudolph Duder. These efforts, in turn, represented a revival of interest in music appreciation in Newfoundland exemplified two decades prior in the private classes of Peter LeSueur, the English-born organist and choirmaster at Gower Street Methodist Church and music teacher at the Methodist College. Paul Woodford, in his history of the written musical tradition of Newfoundland and Labrador to 1949, claims that LeSueur was the first to introduce music appreciation classes to St John’s and in the modern sense we may readily agree.17 The earliest known precursors of a local music appreciation movement, however, date from more than a half-century prior to that. While there are recorded instances of music theory taught in Newfoundland in the early decades of the nineteenth century (and numerous examples of private instruction in practical music earlier still), lectures on music are documented as early as 1850 with the pioneering efforts of J.F. Myers, an accomplished music teacher who had recently emigrated to Newfoundland via the Queen’s Musical Academy of Toronto.18 As the Times and General Commercial Gazette of St John’s reported on 24 July of that year, Myers’s lectures (illustrated with musical examples performed on the flutina), were very well received: “The lecturer ... performed with exquisite skill and exhibited great powers of execution. He took, at the outset, a rapid and somewhat lengthy survey of the history of music from the earliest ages.”19 The same review mentions favorable responses by several local musicians qualified to pass judgment, including the St John’s music teacher and proprietor Joseph Bacon. Of particular note here is Myers’s use of the flutina, an early precursor of the button accordion, to illustrate his lecture. Evidently encouraged by his early efforts in Newfoundland, Myers delivered a similar lecture in the community of Harbour Grace several months later and established a thriving music studio in St John’s (where he gave immensely popular group classes in the instrument). While it is beyond the scope of the present volume to speculate on the influence of Myers’s teaching, his role in early music education in Newfoundland – the flutina classes in particular – are well worthy of further study given the accordion’s subsequent importance in Newfoundland folk culture. Myers’s music appreciation lectures soon spawned others, including a six-part series of lectures entitled “Hymnology of the Christian Church” given by the Rev. Moses Harvey at the Temperance Hall in St John’s in 1862 (with musical examples performed by a choir and instrumental ensemble under the direction of Joseph Bacon), and another ­lecture given

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that same year by composer, bandmaster, and music teacher ­William Stacy at the Masonic Hall in the Newfoundland capital. Other music appreciation pioneers in Newfoundland included Henry Clift, who lectured on “The Influence of Music” at the Temperance Hall in Harbour Grace in 1863, and Emile Handcock, who in 1873 gave an address on church music and psalmody in the basement of the Methodist Church in St John’s (with musical examples performed by a choir).20 There can be little doubt that many of these early lecturers (while expressing a genuine interest in music education) possessed ulterior motives. For Myers, recently arrived in Newfoundland, the opportunity was a perfect vehicle for introducing himself to the Newfoundland musical public, while Harvey and other members of the clergy no doubt found lectures on church music to be an attractive medium for recruiting new parishioners. Yet considered more broadly, lectures on music formed an integral part of an emerging intellectual discourse that was rapidly changing the face of Newfoundland society. By the mid-­ nineteenth century, public lectures encompassing a broad range of disciplines were very much in vogue among the middle to upper classes in many larger Newfoundland communities and these, in turn, mirrored the growth of learned societies in other parts of the New World. Central to these intellectual pursuits was the St John’s Athenaeum Society, a pillar of the local arts community that was founded in 1861 and flourished until the Great Fire of 1892 destroyed its hall.21 Non-sectarian and nonpolitical, the Athenaeum Society took inspiration from the many likeminded institutions in other British and North American cities, including the Athenaeum societies of Liverpool (1797), Boston (1807), London (1824), Halifax (1834), Manchester (1836), Toronto (1843), and Glasgow (1847), among others. Presiding at a gathering of the Manchester Athenaeum Society in 1843, Charles Dickens hailed the Athenaeum movement as beacon of intellectual engagement amid the tumult of the industrial revolution,22 a view that resonated with founders of the St John’s Athenaeum in their quest to foster a climate of intellectual discovery in a colonial society founded upon and dominated by the fish trade. The Athenaeum Society and other like-minded institutions were products of an emerging nation taking its place in the Western World as a social and cultural entity as well as a political one.23 The growth of public lectures on music – and the concurrent rise of public concerts, operettas, and music societies – would play a major role in this movement. In scope, longevity, and influence, however, Emerson’s lectures were unprecedented, serving as both an engaging introduction to the ­Western



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Figure 7.2 St John’s Athenaeum, late nineteenth century

art music tradition and a potent means of instilling deeper understanding of Newfoundland’s folksong heritage in an entire generation of postsecondary students. It was a heritage with which most Newfoundlanders (as many still do) felt an intuitive spiritual connection coupled with a proprietary sense of cultural ownership. Yet for Emerson there were many latent beauties and mysteries to be discovered in what he affectionately referred to as “our songs,” the nature of which could only be determined by careful study and attuned listening: “One of the strangest things about life is the way we take things for granted. One who has never paid attention to wild flowers can have no idea of the pleasure of the botanist as he roams over the fields or barrens or in the woods. One who knows nothing of geology knows nothing of the stories that the stones on which we walk can tell us. Those who have never learned how to listen to music are really deaf to the message it conveys.”24 It was a sentiment with which Aaron Copland would have surely agreed.25 Emerson’s classes typically took place on Friday afternoons, and it was not uncommon to witness as many as 200 students in attendance. Even in the university music classroom of today, this would be ­considered

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an unusually large enrollment at most institutions. At Memorial University College in the 1940s such numbers were nothing short of phenomenal. To place things in perspective, the average student population of Memorial University College from 1940 to 1947 was approximately 300, meaning that Emerson’s classes drew up to two thirds of the entire student body. The course, moreover, was strictly a voluntary activity for instructor and students alike. Emerson neither requested nor received any remuneration (a welcome gesture given the college’s wartime fiscal restraints), students received no college credits for attending, and, unlike the college glee club, it was not part of the core curriculum. They came for the love of music. Emerson’s lectures included studies of concertos, sonata form, symphonic structure, and German lieder, among other topics. The repertoire drew extensively upon the music of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Schubert, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Sibelius, Smetana, Wagner, and many others, with a discernible emphasis on romantic nationalist repertoire: “We shall study ‘Finlandia,’ a poem telling of the suppression of the Finnish people, of their dreams of liberty and of a free Finland. We shall learn some of the music of Chopin, who gave us such wonderful pictures of life in the tragic land of his birth and the cosmopolitan world of Paris. We shall study the story of the river on which the capital of Czechoslovakia stands; the river that begins in the mountains as a small woodland stream, passes through the forests famed for their hunting and game, flows through valleys and among historic castles and finally broadens out to the place on which the proud city of Prague stands; and we shall see how the story of this river symbolizes the story of the Czech people, how it reflects the deep feelings, the dreams and aspirations of a Bohemian patriot.26 We shall study too Tchaikovsky’s poem ‘1812,’ which tells the story of Napoleon’s advance on Moscow. We see the Russian people fleeing to the church to pray that God may avert the threat of Napoleon’s advancing army; how the dancing of the village people and their work in the fields is broken; we shall hear the French army represented by the Marseillaise struggling against the Russian national anthem and eventually we hear the Russian national anthem emerging victorious while all the bells of liberated Moscow peel forth and sing of the joy of the Russian people.”27 For many students it was their first exposure to classical music, and the indelible impression of the experience would last a lifetime. As one student in Emerson’s classes, Joan Stevenson McLeod, later recalled, “one thing I enjoyed at Memorial was Mr Emerson, Fred Emerson, a



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lawyer from St John’s: Emerson, Stirling and Higgins. He would come up once every other week and hold a music appreciation class. It was a voluntary thing for a couple of hours; I went to that and got a whole lot out of it. It was my introduction to Sibelius’s Finlandia, that sort of thing. I’ve never heard Finlandia since that I haven’t thought of Mr Emerson. I appreciated that to the degree that when I went to Mount Allison and there was a music appreciation class given, I took it.”28 For another former student, Cecil Vivian, the legacy of Emerson’s teaching spanned generations – a well-cultivated knowledge and enthusiasm for classical music that inspired no less than three of his children to pursue successful musical careers.29 William Abraham, son of the Anglican Bishop Philip Abraham and a student at the college during Emerson’s tenure, recalls that students spoke with unanimous warmth of Emerson’s classes (a compliment not always bestowed upon other instructors at the college) and that for many their first exposure to the appreciation of music was one of the most important things they learned at Memorial.30 Another frequent guest in Emerson’s classroom was the singer (and later author) Stuart Godfrey.31 An accomplished tenor, he would later give the following vivid recollection of Emerson’s teaching: Mr Emerson’s afternoon sessions during the autumn/winter of 1941–42, and again through 1942–43, for example, included studies of concertos, sonata form and examples of symphonic structure. During the academic year 1943–44 Mr Emerson’s series included illustrations of German Lieder. On one or two of these occasions the writer (at that time a voice-pupil of Mrs Jerrett) was most fortunate in being invited by Mr Emerson to sing Lieder from Schubert, ­Schumann, and Franz. Mr Emerson’s familiarity with the compositions of these and other German composers, and his interpretive coaching and playing of their songs was a most valuable and enjoyable learning experience for a student of this art form, as well as in the characteristic relationship demanded by the composer of pianist and singer.32 Invariably, the subject matter was presented in imaginative ways that engaged students’ intellectual curiosity. Symphonic themes were frequently fitted with familiar texts for identification, while descriptive imagery transformed even the most abstract of forms into quasi-­ programmatic adventures. Take for example, the following description of a Bach prelude, in which the composer’s figural treatment is conveyed

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through landscape imagery with which his students could closely identify: “I am going to play a little prelude of Bach and see if you can see the story in it. This little figure (A) is the little tune of the river. Now the whole piece is really just repetition of this little tune, or as musicians call it, ‘figure.’ If you allow your imagination to work, you will see how this little figure with its changing harmony and mood tells the story of a river, which begins as a quiet little woodland spring trickling down over the mountainside, over all sorts of difficult rocks and crags, and finally it broadens out into a wide river flowing through meadows and plains and then it joins another river and the two of them melt into one and flow into the ocean. A huge wave surges up, sweeps the fresh water away and the river is no more.”33 Such pictorial references were influenced by the subjective analyses of early twentieth-century writers such as Alfred Einstein,34 Romain Rolland,35 Arnold Schering,36 ­Donald ­Francis Tovey,37 Ernest Newman,38 and other musicologists of the era whose work Emerson knew well.39 In addressing the life and music of Ludwig van Beethoven, for example, he cited the research of both N ­ ewman and Rolland, quoting directly from the latter and lauding his work as “perhaps the most beautiful tribute ever paid to Beethoven.”40 An interdisciplinary perspective was likewise characteristic. Witness for example the following excerpt from a lecture on Beethoven: “The strange thing about genius is that it appears to descend upon countries at a certain period of their national development. Shakespeare was one of a galaxy of English poets, so with Virgil. We find in nations at a certain period this blossoming forth, and as all blossoms fade and pass, so does this period of genius usually peter out. All the great Dutch pictures were painted within the course of a century. The same thing applies to Italian art, although the period was somewhat longer. When Beethoven was born at Bonn in the Rhine country in 1770, Haydn was still alive, Mozart was fourteen years old and when Beethoven died in 1827, the great music of the last century – the music of Verdi, Wagner, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Tchaikovsky – was well on its way to development.”41 For Emerson, music appreciation opened up new pathways to exploration and self-discovery. An infectious spirit was palpable in his teaching, as evidenced by the following descriptive imagery: “We may not be able to see all the beauties of the kingdom of music, but as a little knowledge of botany opens up a new world for us in our woods and meadows, as a little knowledge of Geology changes our rocky shores and cliffs to a fascinating historical romance, so will a little study, a little thought and a little effort in the right direction give a free pass



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into the kingdom of music, a land that once seen can never be quite forgotten.”42 In his introductions to classical repertoire, Emerson made new concepts accessible by invoking comparisons to familiar ones. The musical cultures of Russia, Scandinavia, France, Austria, and a host of other destinations seemed infinitely closer from his intimate firsthand accounts, while colourful local references made European composers seem like long-lost family friends. Witness, for example, his creative introduction to the music of Edvard Grieg: One of his most descriptive pieces is called “Wedding Day at Trold­ haugen.” Troldhaugen was the name of the place near Bergen in which he lived. Grieg had a reason for calling this piece “Wedding Day at Troldhaugen.” He had a definite locality in mind when he wrote this piece. There is a difference between calling a picture “Sunset in Newfoundland” and “Sunset at Brigus,” so to Grieg this piece was a picture in sound of the little Norwegian town in which he lived. We Newfoundlanders can easily picture to ourselves what the Norwegian landscape is like because it is so similar to our own. Let us imagine a glorious summer day when the sun is shining out of a clear sky on brilliant blue sea. Around us is the scent of lilac, fir, spruce and alder. Along the country road a procession is about to pass to the church. A gay little tune suggests the excitement of the crowd as the carriage conveying the bride and her parents is first sighted. Various jerky little phrases suggest the movements of the crowd as they elbow and push each other to catch a view of the fair bride as she passes ... The ending is in the characteristic Grieg manner, with a loud unexpected chord, which one might almost call a flourish of the artist’s signature when he signs this little picture he has painted of country life.43 With many of the musical illustrations either sung or played on the piano by Emerson himself, the learning environment was from all accounts a stimulating one. New and familiar musical repertoire from both art music and folk music traditions, as well as theoretical concepts such as modal scales, were brought to life through his singing and playing. It was an engaging approach designed to stimulate students’ intellectual curiosity and, at the same time, emphasize the close connection between music as an academic discipline and performing art. Another indispensable aid to the experience was a collection of r­ ecordings, music reference

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books, and an electric phonograph and amplifier donated to the college by the Carnegie Corporation in 1939. The collection included more than 600 recordings of instrumental and vocal solos, chamber music, orchestral music, and operas by well-known artists and was described by President Hatcher as one of the institution’s most significant acquisitions.44 The principal reference collection of the set was the definitive Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians.45 Seven years prior, in 1932, the college received a set of Carnegie art reproductions for use in art appreciation presentations by its honorary art curator, Mrs A.C. Hunter.46 Both collections underscore the importance of Carnegie philanthropy in the ongoing operations of the developing college, without which the very survival of the institution may have been at times threatened.47 The college, for its part, paid tribute to the birth of Andrew Carnegie with a centenary celebration in November 1935.48 So popular was the Carnegie music collection that a student group met regularly outside of class time (with Emerson’s assistance) to listen to and discuss classical music. As noted in the Report of the President for 1942–43, “The College owes a debt of thanks to Mr F.R. Emerson, one of our Governors, who has been good enough to visit us each Friday to help our understanding of the music of the masters and to share with us some of his insight into its beauty and value. It is no coincidence that since he has been coming to us our students are more and more inclined to listen, in groups or even singly, to the classical records provided on our Carnegie Music Set.”49 Faculty members utilized the set in selected lectures and members of the general public could avail of the recordings through a series of evening “recitals.” One of the students involved in the listening group, Ian Rusted, later described the opportunity as “a key part of my education at Memorial, that good introduction to mainly classical music. By the time I went on to Toronto, I could recognize many of the composers and symphonies.”50 Housed in a room near the college Registrar’s Office, the Carnegie Collection was available for student use during designated daily hours. A student prefect was in charge of playing the recordings.51 The college’s Student Handbook for the year 1943 offered this welcoming invitation: “A group studies music, meeting once a week under competent guidance. There is a joint committee of teachers and students that arranges once or twice a week a recital of gramophone music. If you like music, classical or modern, grave or gay, vocal or instrumental, and are willing to give up a half-hour every week to listening, here is your chance. By a very simple method you can make known your preferences to the Committee, and all that is required



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of you is attention to the music and consideration for the pleasure of others.”52 Emerson took particular delight in sharing his extensive knowledge of Newfoundland music, and his insightful lectures on the topic (illustrated with spirited vocal renditions) met with an eager and receptive audience. In his classroom, popular local songs such as Arthur Scammell’s “The Squid Jiggin’ Ground” received equal billing with the symphonies of Beethoven (much to the chagrin of certain conservative-minded colleagues). Emerson’s pluralistic approach to repertoire selection reflected a deeply felt conviction that no single musical style or aesthetic perspective was preeminent and that music appreciation in the truest sense of the term involved consideration of a multiplicity of styles and genres (including representative examples of classical, folk, and popular music). In this respect and others, his teaching was decades ahead of its time. Scammell (1913–1995) had composed the song at age fifteen while fishing with his father Archibald Scammell near Change Islands, Newfoundland. The text was written as a high school project while the music appears to have been adapted from the Irish fiddle tune “Larry O’Gaff.”53 In 1940 Gerald S. Doyle included the song in the second edition of his Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland. Scammell recorded the song (with piano accompaniment) in 1943 in what is believed to be the first commercial recording of a Newfoundland song for local consumption. Recorded on the RCA Victor label, the recording was soon heard on radio stations throughout Canada and became so popular that an initial run of 5,000 copies sold out. A printed version, with musical notation and piano accompaniment, was published in 1944. Scammell received an honorary doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1977 and, in 1987, was appointed a member of the Order of Canada. A writing award given by the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council and a school in the town of his birth bear his name. Although widely admired by Canadians, for whom the “Squid Jiggin’ Ground” came to represent an idealized (if somewhat stereotypical) Newfoundland, some of the song’s textual nuances were evidently lost in translation at times. Witness for example, Scammell’s account of an exchange with one Canadian radio station on this very subject, told with characteristic colour and wit: “Squid Jiggin’ Ground” – a very confusing song title for all nonNewfoundlanders who hear it for the first time. Once I remember back in the days when Confederation was being talked about, I

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Figure 7.3 Published edition of Arthur Scammell’s “The Squid Jiggin’ Ground” (1944)

received a request from a Winnipeg radio station to play a Newfoundland song that they called “Squid Diggin’ Ground.” I suppose the poor landlocked hangashores thought any ground had to be ground to dig in. You can’t blame them too much. I remember the first time I heard about a wheat pool I thought it was a trout pond where they used to dump their surplus wheat to fatten the trout. I wrote back giving them permission to use the song but correcting the title. I told them if they ever called it Squid Diggin’ Ground and Newfoundlanders heard it they might as well forget about Confederation.54



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Just as Beethoven’s music was studied for its motivic construction and sonata form, so too “The Squid Jiggin’ Ground” was analyzed for its use of the pentatonic scale. Emerson introduced the song to his students thus: Let us take a song we all know, the “Squid Jigging Ground.” This song is not popular by mere chance; it is a very fine and attractive tune. What does it suggest? Again let us look at the content. It is not unlike an Irish jig. We Newfoundlanders have from the Irish people who have made this Island their home acquired something of the gaiety and humour of the Irish. A Newfoundlander’s sense of humour is not altogether too different from the Irishman’s. This song also has something of the gay little tunes that sailors dance to and in this way we see that it suggests the sea, and all Newfoundlanders are sea-folk. And so we see that this song reveals what we might call the music of sea-folk and, if you like, the humour of the Irish character. But there is something even more remarkable than this: a trained musician hearing the song for the first time is struck by the little phrase (Emerson demonstrates): These five notes are what are known as the pentatonic scale, that is, a scale made of five notes, and you may not have realized it, but some of the tunes we know best are written on these five notes: “Ye Banks and Braes of Bonny Doone,” “Auld Lang Syne,” for example, and many folk songs. So we see that this simple little song, “The Squid Jigging Ground” tells us its own story, just as “God Save the King” tells its story, and a very interesting story it is.55 In other instances he drew attention to historical Newfoundland musicians such as Georgina Stirling and Charles Hutton (the former for her operatic career, the latter for his compositions), and the man known affectionately as the “Bard of Prescott Street,” balladeer John Burke. Emerson’s integration of Burke’s ballads (and other aspects of the Newfoundland ballad tradition) into his discourse is particularly revealing, as it highlights an important aspect of local culture generally marginalized (or in some cases outright dismissed) by visiting song collectors. Burke’s work displayed an uncanny ability to capture in verse something of the essence of Newfoundland life, from minute descriptions of local events (often parodic or satirical) to epic tales of tragedy and heroism, all told from the perspective of an insider who was as much a part of Newfoundland society as the varied aspects of that society he chronicled. For George Story, Burke displayed an “intimate knowledge of his

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society” while striking a fine balance between “identification with and description of that society,”56 while J.H. Devine once mused that “had Burke lived a thousand years ago he would have been a great minstrel”57 (to which we could add that, had he lived today, Burke might well have found himself at home as host of the CBC television program This Hour Has 22 Minutes). In his many popular ballads, songs, and operettas, Burke struck a resonant chord with Newfoundlanders, who saw in his view of the world reflections of themselves. The enduring appeal of Burke’s legacy was widespread and by no means bounded by the insular world of Burke’s St John’s. “The Kelligrew’s Soiree, “Cod Liver Oil,” “Clara Nolan’s Ball,” and “The Trinity Cake,” in particular, have been enshrined in Newfoundland folk culture. As Story, Devine, and John White have suggested, Burke’s songs became immensely popular in rural Newfoundland, where they merged with traditional songs to become seamlessly integrated into the vernacular popular culture: “The advent of a new Burke Ballad was as eagerly greeted by the public as the best seller ... is today. Boys sold them throughout the city ... and they were eagerly bought. Outport people brought them to the local reciter, and soon all Newfoundland was hearing the ‘latest.’”58 In sharing this cultural heritage with his students, Emerson (as he had done with other aspects of his teaching) considered the local context within a broader international frame that situated the Newfoundland ballad tradition in relation to those of Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, and the United States. By asserting the cultural significance of this tradition (echoing sentiments expressed in his published writing), he implicitly critiqued the dismissal of the very same by Karpeles and others as well as certain patronizing attitudes toward the subject that he detected among some members of the academic establishment. Although no individuals were ever mentioned by name, the “learned professors” of Oxford University were occasionally referenced as metonyms for “old school” academia. Reading not far between the lines, such references were clearly intended with more local targets in mind, most notably conservative colleagues at Memorial University College (some of whom had direct ties to Oxford) and government education officials, who (in his view) vastly underestimated the potential of introducing the study of Newfoundland folk culture to local schoolchildren. Considered more broadly, such statements may likewise be viewed as a critique of colonial attitudes (the implications of which would not have been lost on his Newfoundland audience during the Commission of Government era). In that sense, they represent part of the same impulse that gave rise to the



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folk-inspired dialect of Proud Kate Sullivan and “Newfoundlandized” musical works such as the Newfoundland Scene and Newfoundland Rhapsody (see chapter 9). Traditional music discussed included representative ballads (e.g., “Lord Bateman”), love laments (e.g., “She’s Like the Swallow”), sea songs (e.g., “Riley the Fisherman”), and dances (e.g., “Kitty’s Rambles”). Many of these were drawn from the Karpeles and Greenleaf collections (which he cited frequently) or from personal recollection. He was, by necessity, highly selective in choosing repertoire, a process that (when considered collectively with his published writing) contributed to the emergence of a popular “canon” of Newfoundland folksongs (albeit a fundamentally different canon than the popular song tradition disseminated through the Doyle songbooks, the Ignatius Rumboldt folksong recordings, or on local radio broadcasts). That said, his integration of popular songs from outside the Newfoundland tradition – among them American songs such as “Old Folks at Home” and “My Kentucky Home” – speaks to a recognition of the diversity of Newfoundlanders’ musical tastes and the varied media contexts (such as radio and phonograph recordings) through which those tastes were cultivated. Hutton’s Newfoundland Folio of Over Fifty Old Favorite Songs, with its eclectic hybrid of American, Canadian, and Newfoundland popular songs, further affirmed of the breadth of musical repertoire Newfoundlanders were accustomed to by the early twentieth century. Here as in other facets of Emerson’s cultural work (such as his published writing), this perspective stood in stark contrast to the “presumption of innocence” that coloured the work of many visiting song collectors in Newfoundland, an idealized and at times naïve view conditioned by romantic nationalist preconceptions of authenticity and grossly exaggerated perceptions of the island’s isolation in relation to the rest of the Western World. For Emerson, the essence of Newfoundland folk culture nonetheless resided in the modal songs and ballads of the outports, the oral tradition transmitted through generations of folksingers and their descendents. While he shared Doyle’s nativist pride in locally composed songs of more recent origin (which he integrated selectively into his lectures), he recognized that this largely urbanized canon was not representative of the full spectrum of Newfoundland’s musical traditions (see chapter 9). The fact that many of the same traditional songs were referenced years earlier in his Newfoundland folk music article in the Book of Newfoundland supports this view, as does a recurring tendency to integrate European manifestations of folk-inspired romantic nationalism in art music

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(such as Chopin’s polonaises and mazurkas) within his discussion of local traditional songs. Through these deliberate juxtapositions, students were encouraged to reflect critically on the significance of their own folk culture, its connections to European models, and the potential for the development of Newfoundland musical styles: “You will probably say to me now that I have been dealing with music of countries that are rather remote. We have concerned ourselves with scenes in Norway, Finland, and Poland, and few of us have ever visited or hope to visit these interesting and distant countries. Let us now turn our telescope around and look at another part of the world. Let us look at Newfoundland! I do not know how many of you are aware that our own country, Newfoundland, has a not inconsiderable contribution to the world of music. Generations of our fisher folk few of whom are able to read and write, have carried down the tradition of noble and beautiful melody, and melody that, in my humble opinion, has a peculiarly rare and distinctive quality ... I am merely going to ask you to apply the same critical attention that you have given the classics of Europe to some of our native songs.”59 In addition to the traditional songs cited above (which he referenced frequently), “The Bloody Gardener” and “The Maiden’s Lament” received special attention due in large part to the interesting melodic characteristics he attributed to both. The music was typically discussed from multiple perspectives, addressing questions of origin, background, dissemination, and textual meaning, but also musical issues such as modality and performance practice. In other instances – the repeated references to “The Banks of Newfoundland” and “The Squid Jiggin’ Ground,” for example  – his selections appear to be deliberate manifestations of cultural nationalism designed to engage students’ intellectual curiosity regarding questions of identity and place. Such selections likewise served the pedagogical purpose of invoking familiar music to introduce unfamiliar theoretical concepts (such as aspects of modality and musical form). Of particular note is Emerson’s recognition of the vital role of folksingers as both agents of cultural transmission and musicians giving voice to their own personalized stories. In referencing songs from the Karpeles and Greenleaf collections, he invariably drew attention to the folksingers who sang them and, with a level of detail reminiscent of Greenleaf’s descriptive commentary, offered insightful reflections on aspects of performance practice and style.60 Here, as elsewhere in his teaching, he paid special attention to the Newfoundland context yet considered the broader implications of local forms of cultural expression within an international frame. From



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this vantage point he could argue persuasively for the development of Newfoundland styles of music composition rooted in the folk music of the people by invoking historical references to European models such as Liszt and Brahms. For Emerson, Newfoundland’s folksong heritage was a compelling record of history and identity, a legacy of intrinsic artistic worth and, at the same time, a living tradition awaiting fresh creative responses: Let us remember that many of our forefathers found in those songs perhaps the most significant memories they could bring of the homelands which they were leaving forever. They were the vessels in which they stored for their descendents the memories of the dance and song of their home in the green valleys of Ireland or the leafy lanes of old England. And it is no dead memorial of days long vanished that they have left us, but living songs of great beauty – folk songs that I think we can with justice claim to be not inferior to the folk songs of any country in Europe and songs that may well inspire our Newfoundland composer, when he appears, as the folk songs of Hungary inspired Liszt and Brahms. Although their appeal grows with close acquaintance, yet it is to us today as complete and as fresh as in the days of the earliest settlers. They have the quality of all great art in that their appeal is not limited to any particular race or country, and perhaps let us admit that for us at any rate they are better than any other songs because they are our own songs, and we may well be proud of them just as we may be proud of our local singers who have preserved them for us and our children.61 Emerson’s engaging lectures awakened newfound interest in local culture and inspired a journey of self-discovery for a generation of postsecondary students. For many of these young men and women, the college represented their first exposure to co-educational learning, interdenominational learning, and (in the case of rural outport students) city living. Differences of religious denomination, social class, and speech patterns (potentially divisive forces in other social contexts in Newfoundland during that era), disintegrated in Emerson’s classroom as a shared fascination for music and Newfoundland folklore fostered a culture of tolerance, understanding, and intellectual discovery. Through his teaching, young Newfoundlanders of all walks of life – Protestants and Roman Catholics, St John’s “townies” and outport “baymen” – came to realize just how much they had in common. That same collegial spirit

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prompted Emerson’s collaboration in the creation of a college song. Entitled “Memorial,” the song text first appeared in print in 1941, after which Emerson asked the retired William Blackall to compose the music.62 With words and music slightly modified by Emerson, a definitive arrangement of “Memorial” appeared in the college’s Cap and Gown magazine in 1943.63 An excerpt from the final version of the text, as it appeared in print, was as follows (Emerson’s text in italics): Lift up your voices, lift them up   Our college to extol, Whose doctrine practiced through the years   Our thoughts and acts control; Within whose walls fresh clear-eyed youth In search of knowledge roam, And learn how joy and wisdom crown Their academic home. Chorus: – Memorial, Memorial,   We rally to your call; On you, on you,   May blessings fall.64 Another intangible outcome of Emerson’s classes was to remind students (and indeed all Newfoundlanders) of the uplifting side of human accomplishment in troubled times. Intellectual curiosity, musical artistry, and cultural discovery were concepts easily forgotten amid the grim reality of war, a reality all too stark for a college that took its name from the First World War and saw a significant number of students and graduates lose their lives in the Second.65 So it was that College President A.G. Hatcher, in his 1942 annual report, recognized the value of Emerson’s classes as a refuge of beauty and inspiration: “A happy spot in the College is Room 13 where, on Friday afternoons, Mr F.R. Emerson shared with us his gift of insight into the beauty and meaning of the work of some of the great composers ... We all need good music in war-time.”66 In one of his later lectures, delivered not long after the war had ended, Emerson addressed the topic of wartime songs through a comparative assessment of First World War and Second World War repertoire. Three years later, Hatcher offered the following reflections on the war and its indelible impact on the college community: ““Our own spirits have been saddened and, we trust, chastened by the horrors of a modern ‘total’ conflict and by the loss our beloved College community has suffered in



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the gallant young men more than a score of them who will never come back to their Island home. This is not the time to tell the story of the war effort of this College, but it has not been unworthy. Apart from anything done for the War, we have tried to learn some lessons from it. We have seen how valuable is our cultural heritage, since so high a price has been paid to preserve it.”67 The alternative world created in Emerson’s classroom helped alleviate wartime anxiety and grief, reinforce the value of cultural expression, and, momentarily perhaps, make the world seem like a slightly better place. An article published in the college’s Cap and Gown magazine in 1947 (Emerson’s final year as music appreciation lecturer) offered this glowing assessment of his legacy: Mr Emerson has an absorbing interest in music. He is a gifted musician and, having traveled extensively in Europe, has a deep understanding of the background and “soul” which influenced the work of the masters. He has read deeply and comprehensively of the lives and times of the great composers. Twice a week a large and interested group of students gather to hear Mr Emerson. The lecturer’s usual procedure is to give a brief sketch of the life of the composer to be discussed and then a short summary of the influences which shaped his creative ability. Finally he deals with several pieces from the best of the composer’s works. The value of these classes to the individual student is further enhanced by the fact that, besides being an excellent pianist, Mr Emerson is the possessor of a fine singing voice ... Perhaps the most enlightening part of the course was the way in which Mr Emerson showed how the composers built their works on the folk music of their native lands. This is particularly evident in the compositions of Grieg, Sibelius, and Chopin. In the latter’s music is expressed the indomitable spirit of Poland and the people’s desire for freedom from the yoke of foreign oppression. It was pointed out that folk music is the basis of all great music. If Newfoundland’s musical creativity is to find expression, it will be based on the folksongs which, while all too infrequently heard, form an essential part of the traditions of the island.68 Hatcher, for his part, expressed considerable regret over Emerson’s departure from college teaching at the end of the 1946–47 academic year: “We missed much this year the splendid lectures on appreciation

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of music, given last year and before by Mr F.R. Emerson; such sensitive treatment of some of the works of the masters had come almost as a revelation to our eager students.”69 Emerson would return to give one final guest lecture to the college community during the 1948-49 academic year, sharing the lecture podium with the celebrated poet E.J. Pratt. Emerson’s lectures captured the imagination of a generation, instilling in his students knowledge of the Western art music tradition, deeper appreciation of Newfoundland’s folksong heritage, and fostering a culture of musical excellence at Memorial University College. During his tenure, the calibre and frequency of musical performances increased dramatically, with performances by talented Newfoundland musicians such as Stuart Godfrey, Joan McNamara, Kevin Osmond, Allan ­Pittman, Robert MacLeod, and others supplemented by visiting artists such as the singer Jean Watson (who visited the college during the 1946–47 academic year under the auspices of the Community Concerts Association). By the mid-1940s, art music, popular music, and traditional music all enlivened academic and social life at the college. A student social during the 1948–49 academic year, for example, featured the Chris Andrews Orchestra as well as an unnamed accordion player.70 The full impact of Emerson’s legacy extended well beyond the Parade Street campus to music classrooms, churches, concert halls, and homes across the island and beyond. Not unlike his published contributions, creative work, and collaborations with visiting song collectors, his teaching fostered greater understanding of local culture in an era of impending political and social change. Kindred spirits in this cultural revival included Margaret Duley,71 E.J. Pratt, Ted Russell,72 Arthur Scammell, Ignatius Rumboldt, Robert F. MacLeod, Gerald S. Doyle,73 and Joseph R. Smallwood, among many others. It was due in no small measure to the collective efforts of these and others of Emerson’s generation that an identifiable Newfoundland culture was preserved in a post-Confederation world.74 The spirit of cultural awakening that caught fire in the decades prior to Confederation ignited a new wave of creative acts among Newfoundland writers, artists, and musicians active in the second half of the twentieth century (the era of the oft-mentioned ‘Newfoundland Renaissance.”) The development of a Department of Folklore (now with internationally recognized undergraduate and graduate degrees) and the establishment of the Centre for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies (CNS) and the Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA) at Memorial University of Newfoundland were central to this revival,75 as was the



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birth of the St John’s Folk Arts Council and (under its auspices) the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival. Emerson’s contributions to music education at Memorial University College during the 1940s (building upon the achievements of Hutton, Mews, and others in the preceding decades) form a pivotal chapter in the story of post-secondary music in Newfoundland. The seeds he helped plant and nourish would flower fully at Memorial University in the postConfederation era under the dynamic leadership of Ignatius Rumboldt,76 renowned Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer,77 and the Newfoundland organist/choral director Donald F. Cook.78 The establishment of a Memorial University Department of Music (1975) and later School of Music (1985) brought this developmental process to a fruitful culmination. As a comprehensive undergraduate and graduate institution today, the Memorial University School of Music reflects many of the dualities that lay at the heart of Emerson’s work – the scholarly treatment of local folk music traditions set in relief against a broader international perspective, the integration of both folk and art music traditions within the curriculum, and the centrality of the institution within Newfoundland’s cultural life coupled with a growing national and international reputation. Although he did not live to see the realization of these later milestones, the imprint of his legacy remains while the family tradition of music instruction at Memorial was carried on capably by Carla Emerson Furlong during the early years of the Department of Music in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A student scholarship in memory of Frederick and Isabel Emerson, established through a donation by their children, is still offered by the School of Music today.

8 “I just arrived in Canada”: Emerson, The Canada Council, and The Canadian Folk Music Society The shortcomings of the Commission of Government in Newfoundland were soon overshadowed by the outbreak of the Second World War and the dramatic economic and social transformation that resulted. While the War exacted an immeasurable human toll in lost lives, the economic benefits for Newfoundland were undeniable. By 1943 healthy budget surpluses were reported, owing in large measure to increasing demand for local exports such as fish, paper, iron, and copper, while employment levels stood at record highs. An influx of US military personnel accompanied the establishment of major facilities at St John’s, Argentia, and Stephenville, and the concurrent influx of American culture would leave a lasting legacy that forever changed the face of Newfoundland society. Under the auspices of the USO, American entertainers such as Frank ­Sinatra, Gene Autry, and many others performed in Newfoundland, while the composer/conductor John Williams would later join the list of distinguished American musicians stationed on the island in the postwar era.1 Some US servicemen – notable among them pianist Ralph Walker and music educator Leo Sandoval – remained in Newfoundland to pursue musical careers while an emergent tradition of homegrown big band orchestras (such as those of Chris Andrews, Micky Duggan, Al Felix, and others) enlivened local dances and social events. In autumn 1945, the British government announced that a national convention would be elected the following year to make recommendations on Newfoundland’s political future. After nearly two years of tumultuous debate in which Commission of Government or a return to Responsible Government emerged as the two dominant options, a motion by Joseph R. Smallwood that Confederation with Canada be placed on the ballot in a referendum was soundly defeated. ­Smallwood,



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who had arrived at the convention with an eclectic resumé that included stints as labour leader, journalist, radio host, and pig farmer, was one of the Confederates’ most ardent supporters and soon became their acknowledged leader. Undeterred by the momentary setback, he launched a bold attack campaign against the Responsible Government side and sought a petition to have Confederation added as a third option on the ballot. With nearly 50,000 Newfoundlanders signing the petition, the British government consented and the Confederation option was added to the referendum ballot. On 3 June 1948, the referendum was held and although Responsible Government defeated Confederation by a narrow margin, a second referendum was deemed necessary since neither side emerged with a clear majority. In the run-off referendum that ensued (with Commission of Government dropped from the ballot), Newfoundlanders voted by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent in favour of Confederation. On 31 March 1949, Newfoundland became Canada’s tenth province and Smallwood ascended from relative obscurity to become Canada’s last father of Confederation and Newfoundland’s first premier.2 The momentous verdict polarized the population and is still hotly debated today. While the many complex political issues surrounding Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation are well beyond the scope of the present volume, the extent to which prior negotiations between the British and Canadian governments may have influenced the outcome of the final referendum remains a topical subject of scholarly debate laden with intrigue and conspiracy theories.3 As with many defining moments in Newfoundland history, the event spawned a potpourri of responses in song (mostly of an anti-Confederate bias); many of these, in turn, were resuscitated from the long-dead Confederation debate of the 1860s. Songs such as the “Confederation Song of 1869” (quoted in James Murphy’s 1902 compilation Songs and Ballads of Newfoundland) and the similarly inspired “Antis of Plate Cove” (quoted in the first edition of Gerald S. Doyle’s Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland, 1927), struck a resonant chord with proponents of Responsible Government, for whom the strident verses acquired anthem status. Arguably the most famous was the “Anti-Confederation Song” with its defiant proclamation: “Hurrah for our own native isle, Newfoundland! / Not a stranger shall hold one inch of its strand! / Her face turns to Britain, her back to the Gulf. / Come near at your peril, Canadian Wolf!” The song was immortalized in the second edition of Doyle’s widely circulated Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland (1940) and, ­ironically

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perhaps, in Fowke and Johnston’s Folk Songs of Canada (1954) and Fowke’s Canadian Folk Songs (1973). Yet behind the defiant rhetoric and cries of lost nationhood was a Newfoundland that was, in many respects, far better off than it had ever been. Union with Canada brought with it the security of old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, family allowances, and, by the 1960s, universal healthcare – an undeniably higher standard of living that must have seemed improbable at best a decade earlier. Perhaps the most dramatic transformation occurred in the field of education, where Memorial University College was transformed from a collegial campus of 300 students into a modern university with a generous scholarship and bursary program and skyrocketing enrollment that exceeded 10,000 within a few years. For Emerson, a staunch advocate of Newfoundland independence, it was a bittersweet occasion, yet one not without opportunity. In a letter to Grace Butt some fifteen years later, he echoed the sentiments of many Newfoundlanders of his generation in recounting the conflicting emotions the event engendered, a poignant mixture of hope and promise for a brighter tomorrow coupled with nostalgic reminiscences of a life (and nation) left behind: “I was brought up to feel that Confederation was inevitable and, having a Canadian mother, I couldn’t have anti-­Canadian feelings, but, like Charlie Hunt4 and so many of us felt at the time, I resented Newfoundland being part of a ‘deal’ between England and Canada and also being accepted by such a small majority vote. However, the years have shown the economic advantages and I expect most people now accept a fait accompli with satisfaction – but ‘the joy that we were’ has gone. If that is difficult to put into words it is something one can definitely feel. And it was a good thing.”5 Within a few years, Emerson had become an influential cultural ambassador for Newfoundland in Canada, staking a claim for Newfoundland music on the Canadian agenda and bringing his passionate advocacy of the subject to a new audience. At the request of Smallwood, Emerson represented Newfoundland as a member of the first Canada Council for the Arts from 1957 to 1959. Founded by the federal government in 1957 for the encouragement of the arts, letters, humanities, and social sciences in Canada, the Canada Council was established on the recommendation of the report of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences (1951) (commonly known as the “Massey Commission,” after its chair Vincent Massey of the University of Toronto). Both the Canada Council and its American cousin, the National Endowment for the Arts (1965), were patterned loosely after



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the model of the British Arts Council (1945). The Commission originated in the post-World War II era as part of an intellectual climate in which new creative directions in literature, the visual arts, and music paralleled evolving concepts of identity and nationhood. The founding of the Canadian League of Composers (1951) was a product of this impulse, as was the concurrent emergence of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation following its inception as the nation’s public broadcaster in 1936. Both served as crucial agencies in fostering the creation and performance of modern art music and the latter would play a pivotal role in shaping an evolving national consciousness in the ensuing years. As Paul Litt reminds us, “cultural nationalism was of particular importance in the postwar period because Canadians thought that their nation was coming of age and defining its mature national character in the process.”6 Founded on the urging of the Canadian Arts Council (a volunteer organization comprised of creative artists, patrons, and cultural groups), the Commission’s findings were informed by hundreds of briefs presented at public sessions in major Canadian cities between August 1949 and July 1950 and by special studies from invited experts in specialized fields (among them a study of music in Canada by Ernest ­MacMillan). Widely recognized as one of the most influential documents in the cultural history of Canada, the Massey Report established the principle of federal government patronage of a wide range of cultural activities, and its lasting impact on music and the arts in Canada since the mid-­twentieth century cannot be overstated. In the words of Northrop Frye, the report was “a landmark in the history of Canadian culture, not merely because it recommended a Canada Council, but because it signified the end of cultural laissez-faire and assumed that the country itself had a responsibility for fostering its own culture.”7 Under the chairmanship or Brooke Claxton, The first Canada Council met for its inaugural meeting at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa on 30 April 1957. Included among the charter members were Emerson, ­MacMillan, Claxton (Ottawa), Vice-Chair Rev. Georges Henri Lévesque (Montmorency, Québec), Mrs R.R. Arkell (Vancouver), Jules Bazin (Montreal), L.W. Brockington (Toronto), Samuel ­Bronfman (Montreal), Eric Harvie (Calgary), Dr Frank Leddy (Saskatoon), Mrs Angus L. ­Macdonald (Halifax), N.A. MacKenzie (Vancouver), Dr Frank M ­ acKinnon (Charlottetown), Dr W.A. Mackintosh (Kingston), Dr ­Eustace Morin (Québec), Vida Peene (Toronto), John A. Russell (Winnipeg), E.P. Taylor (Toronto), Mrs Alfred Paradis, Jr (Montreal), Major-General George P. Vanier (Montreal), and David H. Walker (St Andrew’s). A.W. Trueman

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was appointed as the Council’s first director. On 10 July of the following year, Prime Minister Diefenbaker tabled the Council’s first annual report, noting substantial measures taken to fulfill its mandate of arts sponsorship. By 31 March 1958, the Council had awarded 324 scholarships and fellowships totalling $640,000, 12 special project grants to individuals ($27,950), and 53 grants to organizations ($739,200), for total grant funding from the Endowment Fund of $806,850 in support of the arts and $600,300 in support of the humanities and social sciences.8 (In 1978, the Council’s humanities and social sciences division decoupled to form the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.) Emerson, through correspondence, reported to Smallwood periodically on the Council’s early progress. The appointment initially came as something of a shock since, despite his earlier work with Smallwood on the Book of Newfoundland, his political leanings (and more especially those of his law partners) made him more of a perceived adversary than an ally for the premier. From the outset, Emerson made it clear to his Canadian colleagues that Newfoundland wished to be a contributor to Confederation and that one of the province’s chief cultural assets was its wealth of folksongs. In this respect, he did much to dispel the “welfare state” myth that has surfaced periodically in contemporary depictions of Newfoundland society by Canadian writers since 1949.9 Emerson introduced himself at the inaugural meeting of the first Council by presenting members with copies of Karpeles’s Folk Songs of Newfoundland. Then, in a statement that speaks volumes, he went on to explain his air travel fatigue by exclaiming (much to the astonishment of fellow council members), “You’ll have to excuse me. I just arrived in Canada today!”10 In addition to representing Newfoundland’s interests on the council, Emerson played an integral role in elevating music to a high priority for Canada Council funding and his role in advancing the cause of Canadian music during the developmental years of the mid-twentieth century should not be underestimated. In this endeavour, he found a strong ally in the person of Sir Ernest MacMillan (1893–1973), with whom he would develop a close personal friendship. One of the most influential figures in the history of Canadian music, the Toronto-based conductor, composer, church musician, music educator, writer, and arts administrator was a dynamic presence in the Canadian music scene for much of the twentieth century.11 His legacy of musical works is diverse, including the Two Sketches for Strings based on French Canadian Airs, for string quartet (also arranged for string orchestra) (1927), Three Songs of the West Coast, for solo voice and piano (1928), and the String Quartet in C



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Figure 8.1 Sir Ernest MacMillan and Frederick Emerson during meetings of the first Canada Council, Ottawa, c. 1957

minor (1914; rev. 1921), among many others. A number of M ­ acMillan’s compositions bear the imprint of his collaborative research with M ­ arius Barbeau into aspects of French Canadian and Native Canadian musical traditions. Almost the exact contemporary of Emerson, MacMillan was certainly a uomo universale in his own right if there ever was one and, at the height of his fame when he first encountered E ­ merson in the Council chambers, he would prove an engaging and stimulating presence in his Newfoundland colleague’s musical life in the ensuing years. Among MacMillan’s multifaceted contributions at the forefront of the Canadian music scene were terms as principal of the Toronto (later Royal) Conservatory of Music (1926–42), dean of the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto (1927–52), conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1931–56) and Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (1942–57), and the first president of the newly founded Canadian Music Centre (1959–70).12

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One of the most significant achievements of the first Canada Council, the Canadian Music Centre was established through a grant to the Canadian Music Council for the establishment of a library and information centre for music by Canadian composers. Two of the nation’s leading composers, John Weinzweig and John Beckwith, presented a brief to the Council in support of the initiative. The Canadian Music Council/ Conseil canadien de la musique had been founded in 1944 as a “music committee” assembled in response to the House of Commons’ Committee on Post-War Reconstruction. Adopting its name in 1945 and inspired by like-minded institutions elsewhere (notably the British Music Society), the Council’s advocacy on behalf of music in Canada was both timely and influential. MacMillan was elected chair in 1947 (a position he held for twenty years), and by 1953 the organization had attracted forty individual members (by invitation) and three institutional members: the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada (CAPAC), the Canadian Federation of Music Teachers’ Associations (CFMTA), and the Canadian College of Organists (CCO); later known as the Royal Canadian College of Organists (RCCO). The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation joined later. Among the Canadian Music Council’s publishing projects was a 1955 volume edited by MacMillan entitled Music in Canada. Until 1965, it administered the affairs of the Canadian Music Centre.13 Only a few years removed from his determined efforts to develop a music reference collection at Memorial University College, Emerson was well equipped to champion the cause of a national music centre. The pressing need for such a centre was underscored in the Canada Council’s first annual report: To make new works of music, particularly by Canadian composers, better known and more readily accessible, a music centre which would assemble and maintain a library of scores and recordings and provide an information service about Canadian music for performance abroad as well as in Canada would be most useful. Various agencies including the CBC with its large library of Canadian compositions have offered co-operation. A study is being made to find out if the use made of such a centre would justify the expense. The making of a study of this kind in the interest of Canadian music shows that the Council recognizes the importance of contemporary music as well as that of the great masters of the past. Indeed in all the arts the Council’s assistance has been given to stimulate enjoyment of both contemporary and traditional works.14



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With support from the Canada Council and additional funding from CAPAC, the Canadian Music Centre was founded on 1 January 1959 and, following the opening of its flagship office in Toronto, soon expanded nationwide. The Toronto office became the national headquarters, while regional centres were later established in Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, and Sackville, New Brunswick. From 1964 to 1977, MacMillan’s son Keith MacMillan (1920–1991) assumed the role of general manager of the national headquarters. More than half a century since inception, the CMC today boasts an extensive lending library of scores, reference recordings, composer program notes, dossiers, and other related materials. Composer biographies, audio samples, news and events, and references to scores and recordings can be accessed through the Centre’s website (www.musiccentre.ca). Among milestones of note since the Centre’s inception have been the commissioning of Canadian music for school use through the CMC’s John Adaskin Project (founded in 1963) and the creation of the Centre’s own Centrediscs recording label in 1981. The CMC continues to serve as a liaison between composers and publishers, commissioning agencies, performing organizations, and recording companies and as an invaluable resource for composers, performers, researchers, students, and others interested in exploring the world of modern Canadian art music.15 In a similar vein, a $5,000 grant was awarded to the Canadian Music Council in 1958 to support the newly established Canadian Music Journal (published quarterly from 1956 to 1962 under the editorship of ­Geoffrey Payzant). John Beckwith, Leslie Bell, and Marvin Duchow served as associate editors for record reviews, music education, and book reviews, respectively, while Arnold Walter chaired the editorial board. MacMillan, Marius Barbeau, Glenn Gould, Godfrey Ridout, and R. Murray Schafer were among the contributors. Evolving concurrently with the Canadian Music Centre and mirroring the objectives of the Canadian League of Composers founded seven years earlier, the journal featured articles on Canadian composers (a rarity in the scholarly press to that time) and aspects of music in Canada. Among the Canadian composers featured were Claude Champagne, Barbara Pentland, Jean Papineau-Couture, Healey Willan, Harry Somers, and John Weinzweig.16 While its existence was short-lived, the journal served as an important precursor for later scholarly publications on music in Canada, such as the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada,17 The Canadian Musical Heritage, a multi-volume collection of musical scores (each with explanatory notes) tracing the history of Canadian art music from colonial times to

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the twentieth century,18 and Intersections: A Canadian Music Journal/ Revue canadienne de musique (a publication of the Canadian University Music Society known formerly as the Canadian University Music Review/Revue de musique des universités canadiennes).19 Beckwith, a prolific contributor to Canadian music research for more than a half century in the dual capacities of author and editor, has been a unifying link between the Canadian Music Journal and more recent publications.20 Marius Barbeau, among others, recognized that Emerson exerted great influence on the Council, an assessment that appears to be born out by the allocation of arts and humanities funding during the inaugural year of operations. Of the total funding allocated to organizational grants in the humanities during that year ($68,100), close to 50 percent of that amount ($32,300) was awarded to organizations with which E ­ merson shared a close association. Memorial University of Newfoundland received a total of $14,000 in institutional grants to fund two separate projects ($10,000 to collect and catalogue archives of Newfoundland and $4000 for the preparation of a Newfoundland bibliography), while the Canadian Folk Music Society received $10,000 to host the Annual Meeting of the International Folk Music Council in 1959 or 1960. This is in no way to suggest any impropriety in this regard (and, in any case, the lasting legacy of these projects attests to their intrinsic merit), however, there can be little doubt that he represented Newfoundland’s interests (and those of the Canadian folksong movement) with conviction. Arts funding for Special Projects and Grants to Individuals paints an even more vivid picture. Of the total amount allocated for that purpose during the Council’s inaugural year of operations ($21,550), no less than $18,000 (close to 90 percent of the total) was awarded to members of Emerson’s intellectual circle with shared research interests: $10,000 to Helen Creighton to employ a musicologist to transcribe folk tunes on tape at the National Museum (the largest arts grant to an individual), $5,000 to Marius Barbeau for the preparation of material on Canadian folksongs, $2,000 to Maud Karpeles to gather folksongs of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and $,1000 for a special recognition in honour of E.J. Pratt’s seventy-fifth birthday.21 A compelling case can be made, in fact, that support for folk cultures was perhaps stronger in the early years of the Council than at any time in the organization’s history.22 In February 1958, in a move that must have surely given Emerson particular satisfaction, a grant was awarded to the Halifax Symphony Society for a tour of Newfoundland.23 The tour, one of the first of its kind in the region, formed part of the Council’s broader mandate to



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support touring arts organizations seeking to overcome the logistical challenges of Canada’s geography in effort to bring their art to a wider (and largely decentralized) audience. In addition to the Halifax Symphony Society, touring grants were awarded to the Opera Festival Association of Toronto (for separate tours of Ontario and Atlantic Canada), Jeunesses Musicales du Canada, the National Ballet Guild of Canada, and Théâtre du Nouveau Monde.24 As reported in the Council’s first annual report, dated 13 March 1958, the Halifax Symphony Society tour was deemed a great success: “An important step was taken when arrangements were concluded to underwrite a visit of the Halifax Symphony Orchestra to Newfoundland in February. Concerts were given in St John’s, Gander, Grand Falls, Corner Brook and at the RCAF Station at Torbay. Altogether fourteen concerts were given including four to schoolchildren. This first tour of this kind was arranged with the cooperation of the Government of Newfoundland as well as a number of local organizations and individuals. That these concerts were attended by 6000 including 1200 children testifies to the good reception given to the first orchestra of its size to visit Newfoundland.”25 In a statement undoubtedly informed by Emerson’s insight, the report goes on to highlight the perceived benefits of the tour to the Newfoundland musical public and the unusually hospitable response that greeted the orchestra upon arrival: “It is perhaps not easy for Canadians living in our larger cities, where symphony concerts during the season are quite frequent, to realize that many people in Newfoundland were seeing and hearing an orchestra in the concert hall for the first time. The Council’s grant helped to overcome the island’s musical isolation, and Newfoundland’s appreciation was not only shown in the applause after the performance. We have been told of the warm, personal kindness which the people of the island showed to the musicians, taking them into their houses to rest and presenting them in some cases with carefully wrapped presents in return, as it were, for the gift which the orchestra had brought – its music.”26 Individual awards were given to an eclectic array of musical artists ranging from Teresa Stratas to Leonard Cohen, composers Bruce Mather and Gilles Tremblay, and violinist Hyman Bress, among others.27 Strong support for Canadian choirs, choral societies, opera companies, and orchestras likewise formed an important facet of the Canada Council’s music programs. During Emerson’s tenure on the Council, funding was awarded to the CBC Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Edmonton Symphony Society, the Halifax Symphony Society, the Hart House Orchestra of Toronto, Jeunesses Musicales du Canada, the

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Bach Elgar Choir of Hamilton, the Halifax Choral Society, the Montreal Bach Choir, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Ottawa Choral Society, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, the Edmonton Choral Society, the Opera Festival Association of Toronto, the Ottawa Philharmonic Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and the Winnipeg Symphony orchestra, among other performing ensembles. The impact on Canadian orchestras was particularly striking, with a virtual doubling of the number of educational children’s concerts and an enhanced capacity to attract and retain gifted musicians who might otherwise have been lured to more lucrative positions in the United States. This, in turn, fostered a higher standard of playing, which had the ancillary benefit of a substantial rise in concert attendance. Clearly the cause of Canadian music was being voiced loudly and clearly in the early years of the Council, and – with Emerson and M ­ acMillan seated firmly at the table – that voice was being heard. More than a half-century later, the Canada Council today offers a broad range of grants and services to artists, arts professionals, and arts organizations. It maintains the secretariat for the Canadian Commission to UNESCO, administers the Killam Program of scholarly awards and prizes, the Glenn Gould Prize, and the Virginia P. Moore Prize, among other prestigious awards. Created by Parliament to operate at arm’slength from government, it manages its own expenditures and grants and reports to Parliament through the Minister of Communications.28 Although at times reproached for what some critics have argued are elitist policies that favour professional artists and organizations of national stature at the expense of amateur or regional endeavours, supporters point to the extraordinary support the Council has provided (without which the very survival of many arts organizations, and the cultural industries dependent on them, would be threatened). The priorities of the Council have continued to evolve to reflect Canada’s changing cultural landscape in the new millennium. Key initiatives undertaken during the past two decades include enhanced support for Aboriginal and culturally diverse arts practices and the establishment of the Inter-Arts Office in response to shifting disciplinary boundaries and new artistic practices.29 From inception the Council has been the engine driving Canada’s cultural industries and the growth of its grants programs paints a vivid picture of just how dramatically the nation’s arts scene has evolved. From its modest beginnings in 1957 with twenty-nine arts organizations and two individual artists awarded a total of $806,850, the fiftieth anniversary of the Council saw more than two thousand



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organizations and two thousand individuals receive total funding of over $140,000,000.30 As a board member of the first Canada Council, Emerson played an integral role in charting a course for Canada’s developing arts policy. Yet for all of his executive duties and eminent acquaintances nationally he never lost touch with his Newfoundland roots nor abandoned his deeply felt commitment to music education on his native isle. One facet of his work in this regard (and a further illustration of his lifelong service to the Anglican Church) was his volunteer coaching of the CLB Avalon Battalion Band during the 1950s. Emerson would often assist Bandmaster ­Stanley Saunders direct the band in preparatory rehearsals for the St John’s Kiwanis Music Festival and other performances that earned the ensemble accolades and awards. A former CLB member himself, ­Emerson was no stranger to the organization and, as early as 1920, imparted wisdom to young cadets at the CLB Armory’s “Brigade College.”31 As former bandsman Dr Robert MacLeod (son of Robert F. M ­ acLeod) recalls, the level of musicianship he inspired in the band was of a rare order: “He would get wonderful things out the band. The level of musicianship rose dramatically as a result of his influence and everyone in the group wanted to impress Mr Emerson. He had a way of singing the parts in rehearsal. He paid careful attention to the balance of instrumental parts, and worked a great deal on musicality, details of inner parts, details of articulation, and so on. His rehearsals were very detailed, careful, and brought out the best in the band. He was well respected and well liked among the band members. He treated every member with respect and was careful never to offend anyone when offering constructive criticism on aspects of technique or interpretation.”32 Decades later, under the capable direction of veteran bandmaster Walter Learning, the band continued its longstanding tradition of musical excellence by winning first prize in the winds and percussion bands category at the 1986 Grey Cup parade in Vancouver, British Columbia, before a nationally televised audience.33 In 1954 Emerson was appointed the first chancellor of the Diocese of Newfoundland by Anglican Archbishop Rev. Philip S. Abraham ­(1897–1955),34 a position he maintained until 1960. The office of chancellor was in part a ceremonial post but also a practical one. In addition to officiating at the installation of new bishops and related special occasions (the ceremonial component), Emerson served as the archbishop’s legal advisor. He figured prominently in a reception given by church officials for the visiting Bishop Rev. L.J. DeMel of Kuraungala, Ceylon, in ­October 1956 and frequently accompanied Bishop Abraham on tours

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Figure 8.2 Frederick Emerson (third from left) and other Anglican Church officials greet the visiting Bishop Rev. L.J. DeMel of Kuraungula, Ceylon (centre), upon the arrival of the latter in Newfoundland, October 1956

of rural Newfoundland (where the arrival of the archbishop in those days was an occasion befitting of royalty). As his son William ­Abraham recalls, “He [Bishop Abraham] used to travel around the island and visit various communities. He would, for example, get to the South Coast, or Labrador perhaps, every three years because he had all the coasts of Newfoundland to travel. He was often away from June until autumn. The community more or less shut down when the bishop came to town. They would build an arch with boughs and in some communities, women took their hooked rugs out of their homes and laid them from the wharf up to the church to form a carpet for the bishop. It was almost like the queen coming or something like that.”35 Emerson and Abraham shared a close collegial relationship. They were frequent dinner guests at one another’s homes, where c­ onversations



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ranged from legal matters and theology to shared literary interests, and worked closely together on a number of joint initiatives.36 One instance of Emerson’s close working relationship with the archbishop (and a further illustration of his humanitarianism) involved the establishment of a farm for the training of troubled youth near the Western Newfoundland community of Stephenville Crossing. The White family, who had owned the farm, transferred ownership of the land and buildings to a board of trustees that included Abraham, Emerson, and law partner Gordon ­Stirling. Inspired by British models and following in the wake of the Markland settlement two decades prior, the initiative was designed to teach life skills and farming methods to its young recruits, with William Abraham serving as manager. The White farm ceased operations as a training centre for troubled youth with the death of Bishop Abraham in 1955, although it was later rented to a clergyman and still exists as farmland today on an attractive site near Harry’s River.37 In December 1957, Emerson accepted an invitation from Marius ­Barbeau to become a vice-president of the Canadian Folk Music Society (CFMS). One of Canada’s foremost anthropologists, ethnologists, and folklorists, Barbeau achieved a career of distinction in the collection of First Nations and French Canadian traditional songs. His staggering legacy included the collection of more than 13,000 original texts and variants (no less than 8,000 of them with tunes) and the invention of a system for the notation of First Nations songs.38 In recognition of his achievements, he was appointed a companion of the Order of Canada in 1967.39 It was on the initiative of Barbeau and Maud Karpeles that the Canadian Folk Music Society/Societé canadienne de musique folklorique was established in 1956 as the Canadian branch of the International Folk Music Council.40 Included among its aims was the encouragement of “the study, appreciation and enjoyment of the folk music of Canada in all its aspects.”41 The Society’s early milestones included hosting the annual conference of the International Folk Music Council in Québec City (28 August – 3 September 1961), establishing a newsletter (the Canadian Folk Music Bulletin, 1965) and later the Canadian Folk Music Journal, edited by Edith Fowke (1973). In the late 1980s, the organization changed its name to the Canadian Society for Musical Traditions/La Société canadienne pour les traditions musicales, in part to avoid problematic connotations of the words “folk” and “folklorique.”42 Barbeau served as the first CFMS president, from 1956 to 1963. Deeply moved by Barbeau’s invitation, Emerson accepted the offer and, in doing so, joined some of the nation’s foremost folk music experts

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on the CFMS executive.43 During his tenure on the executive, Emerson proposed a concerted campaign to encourage students to join the organization (recognizing as he did the aging CFMS demographic and that a vibrant youth movement represented the future of folk music research in Canada). In the decades that followed, this youth movement was especially evident in his native Newfoundland as a new generation of musicians embraced a contemporary revival of local folk music traditions. Emerson gave presentations on Newfoundland folk music at CFMS meetings and national conferences and led the effort to recruit more Newfoundlanders to join the society. At his request, Ignatius Rumboldt assisted in the latter endeavour and by October 1959 Emerson confidently predicted that the society should “easily get a couple of dozen” new memberships from the city of St John’s alone.44 Emerson was an influential presence on the CFMS executive, proposing programming and policy initiatives that the society would later adopt. His acknowledged expertise in the field of Newfoundland folk music was by this time well known, and his enviable position as a potential ally for the CFMS on the Canada Council was viewed as an added bonus for the society.45 Barbeau, in a letter dated 5 June 1958, praised him as “one of the few real pillars of the society.”46 With his newfound status among Canada’s premiere folk music scholars, Emerson found himself immersed in a new and fascinating circle to complement his already distinguished list of acquaintances. Marius Barbeau, Helen Creighton, and Ernest MacMillan, in particular, became close personal friends. “Canada’s first lady of folklore,”47 as her biographer Clary Croft aptly described her, Creighton amassed an imposing collection of more than 4,000 songs from her native Nova Scotia in the English, French, Gaelic, German, and Mi’kmaq languages. Of these the ballad “The False Knight upon the Road” is noteworthy for its antiquity (dating from the thirteenth century), while the “Nova Scotia Song” (“Farewell to Nova Scotia”) has enjoyed widespread popularity due in large measure to its memorable melody, infectious rhythmic energy, and frequent performances by contemporary singers such as Catherine McKinnon.48 Collectively Barbeau, Creighton, and MacMillan possessed a wealth of knowledge about traditional music and, given Emerson’s own passion for the subject and his authoritative knowledge of Newfoundland’s folk music heritage, he could not have felt more at home. Emerson’s first visit to the Barbeau home took place in spring 1958, after which he wrote with gratitude to the latter:



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My dear Monsieur Barbeau, I cannot leave Ottawa without dropping you a line & telling you how greatly I enjoyed Sunday evening at your home. I was glad to meet so many of your interesting friends & have the ­opportunity of talking to them. I leave for Toronto this afternoon with the regret that I cannot stay longer here & see more of your work. I shall try to find out how many members I can get to join in ­Newfoundland. I know there are quite a few who would be interested & it really is more the matter of my finding time to get in touch with them than anything else. Please give my best regards to Madame Barbeau & tell her how much I enjoyed meeting her. I think she & my wife would have many interests in common & hope they meet soon. Again many thanks for your hospitality. Yours very sincerely, Frederick Emerson.49 By this stage in life, Emerson was already a frequent visitor to the picturesque rural retreat of Greenfield, Nova Scotia, where he and I­sabel occupied a riverside country home bearing the affectionate and apt family moniker “Quinnipiac” (a direct reference to the couple’s Winter Avenue dwelling in St John’s).50 Quinnipiac quickly became the intellectual capital of Greenfield as Barbeau, Creighton, Karpeles, M ­ acMillan, and others visited frequently (much to the delight and astonishment of neighbours). Emerson would later give the following account of one memorable illustration in a letter to Creighton: “When I happened to mention to my young gardener that you had been here, he looked at me incredulously and said: ‘Do you mean DR HELEN CREIGHTON?’ When I said ‘Yes,’ he looked at me starry-eyed and said in awed tones: ‘Do YOU know Doc-tor Helen Creighton?’ Even when I said ‘Yes’ again he said: ‘The author of Bluenose Ghosts?’ This time I could only humbly nod my assent and he said: ‘Gosh! That’s the finest book I ever read.’ And he repeated ‘Gosh!’ over and over again and finally said: ‘Fancy knowing DR HELEN CREIGHTON!’ So I told him that when you next came down he must come in and shake hands with you and he left us that day quite the happiest boy in all Queen’s County.”51 Creighton, in turn, offered the following welcoming assessment of Quinnipiac and its inhabitants in a letter to Barbeau:

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Dear Dr Barbeau, In a letter from Fred Emerson, he says that he hopes to take you and Madame Barbeau back with him to Greenfield. Really he is the kindest person, and this is a lovely idea. His house is in the heart of the country beside a river, and it has all the comforts of a city house combined with the beauty of the country. I have been there and know that you will not find warmer hospitality anywhere. This includes his wife and family.52 Quinnipiac, Greenfield, represented a pastoral escape from the rigours of the legal profession in St John’s, a welcome opportunity to spend time with daughter Anne and his grandchildren, and a much needed lifestyle adjustment to counter mounting health concerns and work-induced stress. In just a few years, the pressing need for this slower paced lifestyle would strike with near-dire consequences. Emerson’s role in encouraging folksong research was pivotal to the state of the profession in Canada. In 1958, Barbeau, Karpeles, and Helen Creighton all received Canada Council Grants to collect folksongs, while an institutional award was given to the CFMS for the purpose of hosting the annual meeting of the International Folk Music Council in Canada. The award, listed in the Canada Council’s Annual Report under the heading of “Projection of Canada Abroad,” epitomized its mandate to support the “exchange with other countries or organizations or persons therein knowledge and information respecting the arts, humanities, and social sciences.”53 The prospect of hosting the annual meeting of the International Folk Music Council (known today as the International Council for Traditional Music) was a major milestone that marked the coming of age of the CFMS on the world stage. The conference was held from 28 August 28 to 3 September 1961 in Québec City, attracting a wide range of scholars from Canada, the United States, and Europe. It marked only the second time in the history of the IFMC that the conference had been hosted in North America.54 Interestingly, the ICTM marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Québec conference by returning to Canada once more for its 2011 International Conference. In a move would have surely given Emerson particular satisfaction, the conference was held in St John’s, Newfoundland, at very same institution that played host to his landmark traditional music lectures more than a half-century prior, Memorial University of Newfoundland. On a personal level, Emerson welcomed visiting folksong collectors Kenneth Peacock and Margaret Sargent to Newfoundland with the



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same enthusiasm and wisdom previously accorded his longtime friend Maud Karpeles. Both visited Newfoundland under the auspices of the National Museum, Sargent in 1950 and Peacock in a series of summer expeditions from 1951 to 1961. A friend of Creighton, Sargent first met Emerson in 1950 during a visit that she would later describe as “quite wonderful. The hospitality of the people, both rich and poor, must be seen to be believed. The folk-lore treasure there is astoundingly rich – largely, I should think, because it is an island, and because it has been so little influenced by other countries. I have only scratched the surface since it took me a while to become acclimatized and to make contacts. I left, however, with an overwhelming desire to return and follow up my beginnings. This may be possible in a year or so ... . I stayed on the Avalon Peninsula, amongst the Irish who are a delightful people. I heard so many ghost stories that, if I’d stayed much longer, I’d have been seeing them too ... I had a delightful time with the Emersons, both in St John’s and at their summer place.”55 Emerson, for his part, expressed delight at meeting Sargent and a desire for Karpeles to view her work. In this and other matters, he remained a loyal Karpeles ally to the end, always mindful of her pioneering contributions in Newfoundland folksong research and ever eager to support collaborative ventures between her and her younger Canadian colleagues. Peacock, an accomplished composer and ethnomusicologist, was a founding member of the Canadian Music Council, a member of the Canadian League of Composers, and an associate of the Canadian Music Centre. In 1982 he became a Member of the Order of Canada, and in 1998 received the Marius Barbeau Medal from the Folklore Studies Association of Canada.56 The most comprehensive collection of Newfoundland folksongs published to date, Peacock’s Songs of the Newfoundland Outports included meticulous transcriptions of both music and song texts, as well as commentary on matters of text, style, and source material.57 The landmark three-volume compilation, published in 1965, bears an acknowledgement to “Fred Emerson of St John’s for his many good offices on behalf of the project.”58 During Peacock’s first visit, Emerson arranged to have him give a broadcast piano recital at the St John’s studios of the CBC, where he performed music by Béla Bartók and his own “Bridal Suite,” “Elegy,” and “Songs of the Cedar.” 59 Emerson was a vital link between Newfoundland folksongs and those wishing to collect and preserve them and an important (though largely unheralded) liaison between Canadian and British folksong collectors. Through his advocacy, the achievements of Barbeau, Creighton, Sargent,

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Peacock, and others were made more widely known among the English folk-music circle, while conversely, he remained a loyal Karpeles ally in lobbying the CFMS for funding on her behalf. He proposed (with mixed results) that she become involved in the work of Peacock and ­Sargent and continued to support her efforts in the Canada Council. Barbeau, in a letter to Karpeles dated 13 May 1958 concerning proposed CFMS funding for her work in Newfoundland, went so far as to refer to Emerson as her “patron of the Canada Council.”60 Barbeau’s letter, and Karpeles’s reply to it, speak volumes in this regard and are well worth quoting in their entirety: Mr F.R. Emerson, your patron of the Canada Council, spent the evening here with a few friends last Sunday. He arrived earlier than the others to discuss your project, and he told me that you had been awarded $2000. He was vague about your plans, and was much interested. He asked for my opinion. Here is what I told him, and he asked me to write to you about it. I will be sending a copy of this letter to him. Two thousand dollars would not be enough to bring you over to Canada, but would enable you while staying in London to prepare another book on Newfoundland folk songs, using more of your own materials than you have already published, if not all of them. We wondered how many songs you had recorded, one hundred or two or three? Actually you published about twenty-five, I believe. I told Mr Emerson that in a letter to me you had expressed the wish to come to Canada in 1959, on the occasion of our meeting of the IFMC, probably in Québec. Your idea was to stop over at St John’s, Newfoundland, to direct the work of further research there, as you did not feel like getting into the field yourself. Mr Emerson told me there is someone there who could collect songs for you. Better still, I told him that Ken Peacock, who goes there to work for us again this coming summer, might very well do it again next year. Besides, you expressed the wish to come to Ottawa to consult our files and see us. I am very much in favour of an enlarged plan of work and publication for you. The Council should grant you $5000 for the whole project, which would consist of your preparing and publishing two or three hundred songs from Newfoundland in two volumes. The first would consist of ancient ballads and songs from the Old Country, transformed and reinterpreted by the Newfoundland singers. The



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second volume would consist mostly of materials of local origin, as we know some of the singers there are still given to composing songs on present day events. The manuscript might be offered by you for publication to the National Museum of Canada, as private publishers would not feel like going through the expense of publishing such folklore materials prepared in their entirety. This plan, I know, is different from that which you followed in your previous Newfoundland book. There, you selected a few of the best pieces of old world origin ballads and songs. In the forthcoming book you would produce folklore recordings more or less in the raw, much of it good, some of it less. There you would give a more accurate idea of what folk songs actually are at the present day in the country of your interest.   This is in substance what we discussed, and Mr Emerson is very much interested in the project of your agreement, and I am sure that he would give you all his support with the Canada Council, where he is influential. With kindest regards, Marius Barbeau61 Karpeles, in turn, replied thus: Dear Dr Barbeau, I have now heard from Mr Emerson and his views seem to coincide fairly closely with yours. I entirely agree that we should consider an enlarged plan of work and publication and I suggest that the collection should be published in the form of the two volumes of English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, i.e. that it should be a scholarly work giving melody, texts and notes to the songs and that all versions of the various songs that have any interest or merit should be included. One would, I think, have to go rather cautiously with the songs of local origin. I should be in favour of including recently composed songs on local events provided that the texts are cast in the folk idiom and that the tunes are authentic folk tunes as distinct from composed popular tunes. I think you will agree that it is seldom that the folk singer will make up a new tune and that he nearly always uses an existing tune (or an adaptation of one) for his composed words. We ought to be able to assemble from three to four hundred tunes, including variants, quite easily – possibly considerably more. I myself

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have collected 185 tunes (110 separate songs). Of these probably 150 would merit publication. Then there are several songs in the Greenleaf-­Mansfield collection that should be included if permission can be obtained. I am not as yet familiar with Mr Peacock’s collection, but I have no doubt that he has many songs that should be utilized. One could probably make quite a presentable collection from the material already collected, but I think that some more field work should be done. I must confess that I am a little doubtful whether anything very different from what we have already got will turn up, but in any case recordings, even of songs already noted, should be made. I should find it very interesting to follow up and make recordings of the singers from whom I noted songs nearly thirty years ago. I should dearly like to do some more collecting in Newfoundland myself, but I hesitate to commit myself just at present mainly because of the difficulty of getting away. However I am fairly confident that I could manage a short spell either next year or the year after. I had, as you know, hoped to go to Newfoundland next year before or after our conference in Canada. Whether I can still manage to get to Canada next year will depend upon the date of our conference in Europe. This will be settled in a couple of months. What I have in mind is to spend the best part of August and September in Newfoundland and to finish up with a couple of weeks in Ottawa examining the files in the Museum. Alternatively I might put off my visit to Newfoundland until 1960 and combine it with the Québec Conference, if this materializes. But it would, I imagine, be quite useful for me to come to Canada next year in order to discuss arrangements for the 1960 Conference. I fear I should need to have my expenses paid. I hope that Mr Peacock would be able to accompany me on the trip. That would seem to me an ideal arrangement. Should the worse come to the worst and I am unable to make the trip overseas perhaps copies of Mr Peacock’s transcriptions could be sent me for examination. A comprehensive collection would of course have to contain songs in the French language. I should not be competent to deal with this section. It should be done by a French-speaking scholar and I am wondering if Miss Carmen Roy could be roped in. It would be excellent if the National Museum would undertake the publication of the collection.



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In addition to the comprehensive collection I should very much like to issue a cheap reprint of my published collection, which has long been out of print. Probably it would be best if it were published in the form of a pocket edition without accompaniments. This publication would, of course, be entirely different in scope from the comprehensive collection, as it would be popular and not scholarly in its appeal. The Oxford University Press do not want to reprint. Have you any suggestions? I am sending a copy of this letter to Mr Emerson. Yours sincerely, Maud Karpeles62 With Karpeles’s plans to launch a comprehensive collection of Newfoundland folksongs, Peacock (understandably perhaps) reticent about volunteering his research to the Karpeles cause, and Barbeau and ­Karpeles clearly at odds over the merits of locally composed material, Emerson was left to mediate between his longtime English friend on the one hand and the Canadian folk music establishment on the other.63 Compounding the dilemma was the fact that Karpeles, although adopting a somewhat more inclusive stance than that expressed in her earlier song collections, still held the belief that only “authentic” folksongs (not popular songs) should be considered for publication, the only exception being modern “composed” songs “cast in the traditional style” with melodies that are “either folk tunes or adaptations of them.”64 In contrast Peacock, like Barbeau and Emerson, was receptive to newly composed songs in a “popular” style irrespective of whether the collected material fit within preconceived notions of authenticity. The following extract from a letter to Barbeau, although not lacking in value judgments on the “presentability” of the material,65 affirms Peacock’s interest in the value of locally composed songs and his hopes for local reception of the published collection: I had planned to include as much local material as possible. Some of it is dreadful, of course; but there is a sizeable body of quite presentable material, some of it equal to anything I have seen in the traditional field. It seems to me that any comprehensive collection must rely heavily on this local material. Like Miss Karpeles, I usually prefer the traditional folksong, but I think personal tastes should be stretched a little if the book is to be comprehensive ... I want this to be more than a specialists’ reference book, more than just another

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good collection of Newfoundland songs. I want it to be the comprehensive collection, a work which Canada, and especially Newfoundland, will be proud of. It would be a great honor to work with Miss Karpeles on such a publication.66 The proposed Karpeles/Peacock collaboration never materialized, yet individually their labours bore fruit in Peacock’s Songs of the Newfoundland Outports and Karpeles’s Folk Songs from Newfoundland. Emerson, through his support in the Canada Council and his facilitating role as a culture broker, was a decisive influence in helping bring both projects to fruition. Emerson was a central presence at the CFMS national meetings in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, in summer 1958. In collaboration with Ernest MacMillan, he drafted the society’s constitution (in this and other matters, he became its unofficial legal expert)67 and, “with his usual charm,” 68 gave an address on the music of Newfoundland. Other addresses were given at the conference by Richard Johnston, ethnographer/folklorist Luc Lacourcière, song collector Louise Manny and Ernest MacMillan, who lectured on compositions based on Canadian folk music. Creighton gave the following recollection of the event and an informal meeting in Halifax shortly thereafter: The Emersons were the first to arrive and came on Friday afternoon. They were followed by Miss Manny and a little later by the ­MacMillans ... The Centre served us a very good dinner and before we realized it a symposium had begun. This was of course quite informal, and among other things they heard the music of a ballet based upon my folksongs and written by Michel Perrault. It was interesting for me to see Mr Emerson and Sir Ernest with their heads bent over the music score as they followed the playing. I had hoped that more would be able to come in to Halifax, but our French Canadian members felt they must go back to their various fields. However, Miss Manny, who had been sent down by the New Brunswick Travel Board, came home with me and when we met on Monday we also had Mr Emerson with us and Sir Ernest ­MacMillan dressed in the MacMillan kilt ... Mr Emerson then told about our meetings at Tatamagouche. Sir Ernest had been caught up in the holiday traffic and had arrived a little late. However, he talked to us about compositions based on folk music, because in this audience we had people who had not heard him at Tatamagouche.69



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With his multifaceted contributions to folksong research, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that Emerson was a practicing lawyer with a thriving and well-established firm. A specialist in real-estate law, he had, by the 1950s, one of the largest practices of its kind in the city of St John’s. Emerson had received the King’s Council designation (KC) in the 1940s, a rare distinction for a lawyer specializing in real-estate law.70 In addition to offering legal counsel to affluent individuals and corporations, among them Mrs Chesley Pippy, Eleanor Mews Jerrett, and Sun Life Financial, Emerson’s clients included many Newfoundlanders of much more modest means. In a remarkable extension of the traditional role of realestate lawyer, he not only provided legal services for real-estate transactions but also arranged mortgages for clients and even invested money on their behalf in some instances. In many cases such clients found it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain mortgages from local banks. Fulltime real-estate lawyer, part-time banker, Emerson made home ownership possible for many Newfoundlanders. By the late 1950s, the demands of the profession, coupled with mounting health concerns, had begun to take their toll. As he lamented in a letter to Barbeau dated 9 April 1958, “I have little leisure as my legal work takes up all my time – and eyesight!”71 By autumn 1959, E ­ merson reported (with considerable regret) that he would have to curtail his CFMS activities considerably (including attendance at some society meetings) due to the all-consuming rigours of his law practice. Months later, in spring 1960, fatigue and progressively worsening eyesight prompted a six-week sabbatical visit to Greenfield for rest and relaxation, followed by a Chopinesque excursion to the tropical island of Majorca. The affairs of the CFMS never far from his mind, he nonetheless took a keen interest in the Vienna Conference of the International Folk Music Council that year and its forthcoming gathering in Québec City the following year (all the while pledging to Barbeau to pursue a government contribution from Newfoundland Premier Joseph R. Smallwood): Dear Monsieur Barbeau, I had a chat with the Premier before Christmas & I suggested that the Government contribute to the Folk Music Society a sum towards the expenses of the 1961 Festival. He seemed quite willing to do this & asked me to write a letter that he could put before the executive. I shall do this as soon as he returns from abroad. I sent him the letter Dr Peacock sent me about a song inspired by the labour situation last year & he was most interested.

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The sum the Premier has in mind is $500.00 & I am writing you now just to keep you informed. I feel the main thing is to have the Government interested in our Society & I am doing what I can personally towards this end. Dr Alain Frecker the Minister of Education is also interested & I think it might be well to bear this in mind as if Dr F. is in Ottawa some time it would be a good thing if you could have a little personal chat with him. He is a fine fellow – a St Pierrais by birth & a very sincere supporter of music & art here. Mes compliments à Madame, Fred R. Emerson72 Emerson’s relationship to Smallwood is a fascinating one. On opposite sides of the Confederation debate, Smallwood nonetheless acknowledged Emerson’s expertise in appointing him as Newfoundland’s representative on the Canada Council. Their subsequent correspondence appears to have been cordial and informed by a mutual desire to foster the preservation of Newfoundland culture in the post-­Confederation era. In soliciting funds from the premier for the Québec conference, Emerson appealed directly to Smallwood’s personal interest in asserting Newfoundland’s cultural identity within Canada: I am very anxious that our Newfoundland folk music should be well to the fore at this Festival. I know you will agree with me that our Government should take a special interest in this event as our heritage of folk music is one of the most important contributions that this island can make to the culture of Canada and I think it would be a good thing if the Government made every gesture possible to show how alive this island is to the value of our folk music. Should we fail to do so, there is, I fear, the danger that our music will be ignored ... The secretary and moving spirit of the International Folk Music Society is Miss Maud Karpeles whose collection of Newfoundland folk songs published in 1934 really put our music on the map. Several of the songs in this collection such as “She’s like the Swallow” have had worldwide recognition. Apart from French Canada, no Province has folk music comparable in musical worth to that of our people ... I may point out that I have seen “She’s like the Swallow” claimed as the folk music of another province. It is a matter of record that this song was collected by Miss Karpeles in the late 1920’s and is, in



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fact, legally her copyright. I feel that our neglect of these songs may result in other provinces claiming some of our best songs.73 While Smallwood remained noncommittal to official government sponsorship of the event, Emerson continued to press for the inclusion of Newfoundland material on the conference program. By autumn 1960, these efforts had paid off as Barbeau offered assurance that Kenneth Peacock would present a series of Newfoundland songs (and possibly compositions based on them). This, coupled with Maud Karpeles’s participation, helped ensure that Emerson’s dream of elevating Newfoundland’s folksong heritage to the world stage was one step closer to reality. In a ceremony held during the conference, Karpeles presented her collection of Newfoundland folksongs to the National Museum of Canada. The final conference program featured a concert of symphonic compositions inspired by Canadian folk or Amerindian music (including music by Canadian composers MacMillan, Roger Matton, Graham George, and Claude Champagne, as well as European icons Vaughan Williams, Zoltán Kodàly, and Darius Milhaud). The concert was organized by Ernest MacMillan and broadcast on the CBC. Included as part of Canada’s contribution was Peacock’s orchestral suite Essay on Newfoundland Themes, one of several world premieres on the program.74 Emerson served as a vital liaison between the Canadian folk music establishment and the Newfoundland government in carving a niche for Newfoundland music on the program of the Québec conference. This did not happen by chance, nor was it solely the product of his “usual charm.” It was, rather, part of a carefully crafted process of negotiation by which both Smallwood and the CFMS were encouraged to view the inclusion of Newfoundland-based material as an absolute necessity by subtly (but unmistakably) alluding to the consequences of not doing so. Through Emerson’s carefully worded correspondence, the CFMS executive clearly understood that a substantial Newfoundland presence on the conference program was a prerequisite for funding from the ­Smallwood regime. Smallwood, in turn, was made aware of the potential loss of “cultural ownership” if Newfoundland failed to give its official support. A letter to the premier dated 24 January 1961 reiterated his view that Newfoundland had an obligation to participate:75 You will remember my informing you some time ago that a Folk Music Festival will be held in Québec next August when the International Folk Music Society holds its annual meeting there.

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The Canadian Branch of the Society of which Mr Marius Barbeau is President, is organizing this Festival to show what Canada has in the way of Folk Music and I am anxious that Newfoundland music be prominently featured. A number of distinguished European musicians will be invited, amongst whom, I am glad to say is Miss Maud Karpeles, the Secretary of the International Folk Music Society. You will recall that she visited Newfoundland several times and collected some two hundred songs, the best of which were published in 1934 by the Oxford University Press. We owe to her songs such as “She’s Like the Swallow,” “The Morning Dew,” and others that really placed Newfoundland “on the map” as far as Folk Music is concerned. I need not say that Miss Karpeles’ position as an authority on British Folk Music is unique and we in Newfoundland owe her an enormous debt of gratitude. I feel that our government should be officially associated with this Festival. I would have written you before but it is only lately that I have had the formal assurance of Dr Kenneth Peacock of Ottawa – a very brilliant collector of Folk songs – who has spent a great deal of time in Newfoundland, that Newfoundland songs and music based on them will be prominently featured at the Festival. I understand that you share my feelings that we should identify ourselves with this Festival. We have a unique treasure of Folk Music in Newfoundland and we should not, through lack of interest, weaken our title to it. (I have been told the song “She’s Like the Swallow” which has established itself as one of the best known folksongs of the English speaking world was announced as a Nova Scotian song on the radio last summer.) I don’t know if any member of the Government will be in Québec during the festival but if so, and he could conveniently attend officially, I think it might be a valuable gesture. As you know when I was on the Canada Council I did what I could to impress on the Committee the value of our unique heritage of folk music and our interesting musical tradition ... I would ask you to consider having a representative at the Festival and making as well a grant towards the expenses. The Canada Council is giving $15,000. The Province of Québec is contributing $5000.00 and Dr Helen Creighton is obtaining a grant from the Nova Scotia Government.76



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Emerson occupied a unique position in the Newfoundland folksong movement. Karpeles, Greenleaf, and Peacock all viewed themselves as researchers for whom folksongs were primary source material and Newfoundlanders were research subjects. Gerald S. Doyle and Robert ­MacLeod, conversely, were patriotic Newfoundlanders who took pride in preserving a local legacy without the pretense of scholarly intent. Emerson, in turn, straddled both worlds – a Newfoundland-born intellectual who shared Doyle and MacLeod’s passion for all things “native” and yet moved with ease among a wide circle of Canadian and British song collectors. Echoing ideas expressed in other facets of his creative work (such as his published writing and lectures), this unique perspective enabled him to avoid some of the preconceptions of visiting scholars (Karpeles’s entrenched views on “authentic” versus “composed” songs, for example), while at the same time proposing a place for locally composed songs in the repertoire. His role as a facilitator for folksong research in the interrelated spheres of the Canada Council, the Canadian Folk Music Society, and the International Folk Music Council was central to the popularization of Newfoundland folk music in Canada and abroad, while consideration of his unique position is these contexts sheds new light on the process of negotiation that was shaping the mediation of Canadian culture at mid-century. From the pioneering Karpeles expeditions decades prior to the more recent exploits of Peacock and others, Emerson was there every step of the way to help ensure that the Newfoundland voice in Newfoundland folk music was heard.

9 Final Opus

In February 1961, Emerson embarked on a period of travel abroad with Isabel that took the couple to New York City and then Barcelona in what must have surely been a welcome respite from the mounting stresses of an all-consuming law practice. Then, during a visit to England in April, the bombshell hit that would forever change the course of his life. As first reported by Karpeles in a letter to Barbeau, Emerson had suffered a serious heart attack that would leave him incapacitated for months. Whether caused by work-related stress or a combination of health factors, the event would prove a defining moment in his life. From that point onward, the Canadian Folk Music Society and all of his other varied pursuits would take a back seat to long-overdue rest and recuperation while his career in law, for all intents and purposes, was over. Although extremely reluctant to leave his law practice behind, ­Quinnipiac, Greenfield, would soon become the couples’ year-round retirement residence as Emerson, grimly reminded of his own mortality, set out with steadfast determination to spend time with his grandchildren there and savour every moment of his remaining years.1 By late June, he had recovered sufficiently to send his regrets to Barbeau over not being able to attend the Québec conference: It [the conference program] looks most exciting & I am bitterly disappointed not being with you all. I am only now allowed to write letters so I can tell you that I had a bad heart attack several months ago & am now just out of hospital. For a year or so I shall have to live a very quiet & unexciting life! It is with the greatest regret that I have to leave your fascinating and friendly group but the gods have



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so decreed. I needn’t tell you that you have all my good wishes for a great personal success & a memorable meeting for the IFMC.2 Life at Quinnipiac would prove an ideal remedy for Emerson’s health problems. The idyllic setting afforded him the quiet solitude and relaxed pace that working life seldom did, coupled with a healthy lifestyle conducive to his lifelong affinity for walking and swimming.3 As he would later express with characteristic eloquence in a letter to granddaughter Linda, the pastoral beauty of Greenfield proved an ideal setting for quiet contemplation and thoughtful reflection: “A gardener lives in anticipation of bloom to be, when he isn’t indulging in happy memory of the flowers that were. The trees are vivid in their autumnal polychromy.”4 It was there amid the trees, birds, and above all the family garden (a lifelong pursuit brought to full fruition in retirement)5 that he found the creative space to indulge in his musical and intellectual interests, unfettered by external pressures. He savoured the writings of Bertrand Russell (one of his literary “heroes”)6 and others, studied French history (a subject he passionately embraced), spent copious amounts of time in the garden (where he could be heard quoting Virgil as he watered roses and orchids), and pursued his lifelong passion for music with renewed zeal. On warm summer days with the windows open, the village of Greenfield resounded with the sound of the Emerson family Steinway as Emerson revelled in the opportunity of studying repertoire by Beethoven, Brahms, and a host of other composers  – a luxury seldom accorded him to the same degree during his working years. He played the instrument frequently in retirement (often as much as four to five hours per day), though seldom in public. Much like the act of music composition, his piano playing was by this time an intensely private activity shared with a select circle of family and friends. The Model B Steinway, built in 1956, had been purchased from London while the instrument given him by his father decades earlier remained in St John’s (where it is still in the possession of Carla Emerson Furlong). With characteristic modesty and understatement, he mused to Barbeau that “I now get in regular piano practice & thanks to Carl Czerny I should be able to play quite well (for an amateur) by 2010! – if I go on as I am now progressing.”7 When, as was so often the case, he was called upon by visiting house guests to play, he would typically temper expectations with the disclaimer that he was “terribly out of practice”8 and then proceed to render the music with a technical assuredness and interpretive sensitivity

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that left little doubt as to the many hours of practice that had actually taken place. The positive impact on his physical health and state of mind were tangible. Less than one year after his brush with death, a buoyantly optimistic ­Emerson spoke contentedly about life at Quinnipiac in a letter to Barbeau: I feel much better the past few weeks & Isabel is much better, too. I think it is perfectly marvelous how actively you keep on working. I can’t get over the fact that four more books are to appear before the spring! Here in the woods I never know loneliness! In fact, the days are all too short & the weeks ridiculously inadequate ... I hope the Society is flourishing. Maud was thrilled to get her doctorate & nothing could give me more pleasure than seeing her work in the field of Newfoundland folk song recognized. 9 Much like its St John’s predecessor, Quinnipiac, Greenfield, hosted a fascinating array of cultured guests as Emerson, freed from work-related stresses and invigorated by his pastoral environs, cultivated a rich circle of friends and acquaintances. One frequent visitor was the Norwegian pianist Solveig Bull, a beautiful and gifted woman whom he had met during a previous European excursion. Bull crossed the Atlantic several times to visit Emerson at Greenfield, giving him piano lessons during her stays and engaging in many lively conversations that lasted into the early morning hours. Isabel Emerson, despite her unwavering hospitality and grace, was said to be less than enamored with the recurring prospect of the attractive Bull showing up on the family’s doorstep,10 although there is nothing to suggest that she was ever anything more than a close friend of her husband. Another frequent guest was Helen Creighton, who would often travel from her home in nearby Dartmouth to visit for tea in the garden and discuss their many shared intellectual and cultural pursuits (not the least of which was their mutual passion for the Canadian Folk Music Society).11 Other visitors included Ernest ­MacMillan (with whom he would spend countless hours discussing music), composer Wolfgang Bottenberg (a music professor at Acadia University),12 Alan Gillingham (a classics scholar from Massachusetts), musicologist Gaston Allaire (a music professor at the University of Moncton and president of the CFMS, 1968–71), and Maud Karpeles. As reported whimsically in a letter to Fairchild (with reference to a recent visit by Karpeles), the occupancy rate at “Hotel Quinnipiac” was seldom less than full capacity: “Our sixteenth house guest has arrived. Aunt Ruth came yesterday. Your Mama



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and Granny went to the airport ... Maud Karpeles left on Monday and today we have received a very enthusiastic letter from her about her stay with us. I am glad she enjoyed it so much as she isn’t likely to cross the Atlantic many more times.”13 Of all of Emerson’s gifted acquaintances, it was the geography professor and visual artist Harold Goodridge who remained his closest companion. When the Emersons embarked upon their many European excursions, the Goodridges were their frequent travelling companions. The families made many such trips during the 1960s, including a visit to Paris, among other destinations. While Goodridge spent his days painting, Emerson would reportedly immerse himself in attractions of historical interest and delight in discovering local bookstores (of which Blackwell’s Bookstore, Oxford, was a particular favourite). The close family ties extended to Goodridge’s nephew Ted, who, under Emerson’s mentorship, articled at the lawfirm during the 1950s and took over his real-estate portfolio after he retired. In his paintings, Harold Goodridge frequently incorporated a beret-wearing character (often subtly lurking in the background of a scene) to symbolize Emerson’s presence in his creative life. It was in Greenfield, among the congenial company of family and friends, that Emerson’s infectious spirit and whimsical sense of humour came vividly to the fore. For all of his eminent accomplishments and distinguished acquaintances, he possessed an imaginative sense of humour and an almost childlike enthusiasm for practical jokes. Take for example this light-hearted account of “fine dining” at a family birthday party: “Janet had a grand birthday. Col Sanders has opened an excellent establishment at B’water and there you can buy chicken even in a bucket. The idea of a bucket of chicken had so intrigued Janet that nothing else would do for her birthday dinner. So her Mamma was dispatched to B’water that very afternoon and she did verily purchase a bucket of chicken, adequate for a party of twenty. So your distinguished parents, Janet herself, Uncle Harold and Granny and I rose up from the table gorgeously replete and if your Mamma thought there was going to be some left over for the morrow she must have been sadly disappointed.”14 An infectious sense of humour, combined with his innate musicality, made for some truly unforgettable moments at Quinnipiac. Even household tasks such as washing dishes were frequently enlivened by Emerson’s resonant voice singing assorted operatic arias. Perhaps one of the more memorable comedic encounters occurred in the presence of a young visitor who called upon the Emerson home one Halloween. As reported to Fairchild with

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Figure 9.1 Summer scene with family and friends at “Quinnipiac,” Greenfield, Nova Scotia, early 1960s. Left to right: Isabel Emerson, Carla Emerson Furlong, Daphne Collins, Frederick Emerson, Wickford Collins, Tony Collins, Harold Goodridge

characteristic wit, “one tiny-wee asked where Mrs E ­ merson was. When I told him she wasn’t very well and was resting he asked; ‘How old is she?’ I said she was as old as I was. He shook his head and then announced with pride: ‘My granny died last year and she was ninety-four.’ I replied that Mrs Emerson and I were going to live to be ninety-five and he commented encouragingly; ‘That won’t be long now, will it?’”15 It was a deeply felt desire to spend more time with family in his remaining years that served as the main motivating factor behind Emerson’s sudden (and some might say surprising) departure from his beloved St John’s. He experienced a deep bond with his grandchildren and took joy in imparting upon them something of the intellectual curiosity and creative space that had guided his own life. In recognition of his teenage grandson’s growing interest in reading, Emerson gave him many books from his library (among them a biography of Goethe) and left him his entire book collection in his will. For Holt, an established writer and magazine editor today, time spent with his grandfather at Greenfield remains one of most significant formative influences of his life: “I tend



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to dream of Greenfield in moments of transition ... Sometimes I dream about his place in the country, which represents creative space, freedom, nature, art, learning. Linda and I agree we carry that stuff with us ... I sit in my study surrounded by his books and pictures. He continues to be an inspiration.”16 While Emerson’s infectious enthusiasm for books found a welcoming recipient in the person of his young grandson, granddaughter Linda found herself captivated by his expertise in music and the fine arts. Emerson and Fairchild would spend hours in front of the piano singing and playing operatic excerpts, classical masterworks, and Newfoundland folksongs (among them “I’se the B’y”). Their shared love of music prompted Carla Emerson Furlong to refer to the tandem as the “mutual admiration society.”17 During her teenage years, she was able to gain special permission from her school to take French lessons from her grandfather as part of her secondary education. Fairchild, for her part, acknowledges that much of her knowledge of music comes from her grandfather and echoes the sentiments of her brother in identifying Emerson as “the single most powerful influence in my life.”18 Today Fairchild is a successful art gallery owner in San Francisco, California,19 where the Greenfield Steinway bequeathed to her in Emerson’s will is still used for a variety of art exhibits and special events. For both siblings, it was an unusually rich cultural upbringing (a “fantasy world” as Holt later described it), the uniqueness of which would be fully appreciated in adulthood.20 With the tranquility and creative space that life at Greenfield afforded him, Emerson returned to writing music with the composition of two Newfoundland-inspired pieces (his only known instrumental works) – the Newfoundland Scene for solo harp (1963), and the Newfoundland Rhapsody for orchestra (1964). Other late works included the song “Oh Year Grow Slowly” and his final composition, a four-part hymn setting of Rudyard Kipling’s “Recessional” entitled “God of Our Fathers” (1968).21 Self-taught as a composer, personal friendships with Ralph Vaughan Williams, Healey Willan, and Ernest MacMillan no doubt fuelled his compositional aspirations and MacMillan in particular may well have imparted advice on the art of composition during their many personal encounters in the 1950s and 1960s. The evocative Newfoundland Scene for solo harp was written for Carla Emerson Furlong and performed at a concert commemorating the 275th anniversary of the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in St John’s in October 1974. When asked to describe the extra-musical meaning

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suggested by the title, Emerson Furlong responded in an interview that she envisions a seagull flying over a Newfoundland landscape of stark cliffs, barrens, a jig being danced, and the sea beating against the rocky shore. In both this piece and the Newfoundland Rhapsody, one senses the influence of Vaughan Williams in the spacious textures, descriptive gestures, and treatment of folklike themes. The work opens dramatically with a glissando announcing the arrival of a series of stark, widely spaced minor chords (suggestive of the rugged cliffs). A fantasia-like series of motives follows, underpinned by “sweeping” sixteenth note and thirty-second note passages evoking ocean waves. Of note here is a striking diminished seventh chord at m. 13 that injects an unexpected hue of harmonic colouring and a melodic idea first stated in mm. 8–9 of the introduction that evolves into a lyrical theme of remarkable freshness and beauty in the piu lento section that follows. Whole tone passages (suggestive of Debussy) serve as transitional material leading to a grazioso cadence in open fourths and fifths, and this in turn functions as an elided cadence marking the beginning of a lively 6/8 jig section in the parallel major key. A variant of the lyrical theme returns in the coda, set in relief against brilliant accompanimental flourishes evoking waves crashing on the rocky coastline. The Newfoundland Rhapsody was composed for the newly founded St John’s Symphony Orchestra, although for reasons unknown the performance never took place and the work has yet to be premiered. The orchestra had been founded in 1962 by Ignatius Rumboldt as a twentypiece string orchestra under the direction of Englishman Nigel Wilkins. Andreas Barban succeeded Wilkins in 1964 and, under his leadership, the orchestra was expanded to include woodwinds, brass, and percussion.22 It was for that ensemble, under Barban’s direction, that Newfoundland Rhapsody was composed. Years later, the orchestra performed a series of Newfoundland folksong arrangements by Ian Mennie, conductor of the ensemble from 1969 to 1974. The group officially changed its name to the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra in 1978 (reflecting a growing provincial mandate) and, in the decades since, has been a central force in the concert life of Newfoundland and Labrador. A unifying link between the early achievements of the 1970s and the present day has been violinist Peter Gardner, the orchestra’s first full-time resident musician and a driving force behind its development in his varied roles as concertmaster, conductor, and general and artistic director. To be certain, Newfoundland Rhapsody was an ambitious undertaking for a self-taught composer with little experience in matters of

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Figure 9.2 Frederick Emerson, Newfoundland Scene, mm. 1–27

­ rchestration and music critics might argue that the piece is somewhat o lacking in this respect. Yet while the orchestral writing is unproblematic, perhaps even rudimentary in places, to assess the music on that basis alone is to miss the point entirely. Beneath a seemingly tranquil surface of harmonic simplicity and textural transparency lies an intuitive gift for melodic invention (an attribute heard in ample supply in the N ­ ewfoundland Scene), coupled with an undeniable sincerity in the writing. One could argue (as Sharp, Vaughan Williams, and others have done) that in a work such as this that strives to evoke the essence of traditional music, sincerity of expression is not only a virtue but a necessary prerequisite. Another consideration is that Emerson, in writing the piece, would have been

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well aware of the capabilities and limitations of the fledgling community orchestra and may well have avoided elaborate technical writing for that reason. The piece is scored for a chamber orchestra of flute, B-flat trumpets, harp, and strings, with the harp part intended for performance by Carla Emerson Furlong (then a member of the orchestra). Emerson’s piece draws irresistible comparison to Howard Cable’s oft-played Newfoundland Rhapsody for wind band as well as a piano composition by Robert MacLeod bearing the same title. Interestingly, both Cable and Emerson’s rhapsodies culminate with climactic quotations from Forbes’s “The Banks of Newfoundland.”23 Another similarly inspired work was the orchestral piece Terra Nova by American composer Theodore Fitch, a tone poem based on folk tunes collected by the composer during a nine-week visit to Newfoundland and Labrador in summer 1940. That composition was premiered by the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Leopold Stokowski in a 1949 Carnegie Hall concert to commemorate Newfoundland’s union with Canada.24 Kenneth Peacock, it must be remembered, had likewise composed his Essay on Newfoundland Themes for harp and strings as part of Canada’s contribution to the musical program of the 1961 International Folk Music Council Conference in Québec City. Of all the works cited above, the Cable connection is especially intriguing since the Canadian composer had visited Emerson in Newfoundland in July 1947 during a tune-seeking expedition with fellow composer and choral director Leslie Bell (Cable’s former teacher and director one of Canada’s most popular choirs of the era, the Toronto-based Leslie Bell Singers). The purpose of their visit was to acquire knowledge of local songs heard regularly in outport Newfoundland from which musical arrangements and compositions suitable for ensemble performances, radio broadcasts, and possible film scores could be crafted.25 During their song quest, the pair also called upon MacLeod, local singer and radio announcer Evan Whiteway, librarian Marjorie Mews, and the journalist/publisher Ewart Young. Gerald S. Doyle was away at the time and unavailable for immediate comment. The resulting interviews, contrary to expectations, did not result in the consensus opinion that Cable and Bell had envisioned but rather conflicting views as to which songs constituted the “real” Newfoundland culture. While Emerson and Whiteway contended that the traditional songs collected in the outports by Greenleaf and Karpeles represented the heart of the Newfoundland song tradition, MacLeod, Young, and Mews favoured songs from the Doyle songbooks that were most popular in St John’s. Overwhelmed and



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mildly confused by the responses they received, Cable and Bell selected twenty-eight songs for consideration (of which sixteen were popular songs in the idiom of the Doyle songbooks and the remaining twelve traditional songs and ballads from the Karpeles and Greenleaf collections).26 The divergent opinions they encountered underscored the reality that Newfoundland’s emerging song traditions, contrary to popular belief, expressed a plurality of perspectives conditioned by issues of class and region, as well as aesthetic considerations such as melodic style and modality. As an upper class, urban proponent of a musical style most closely associated with working-class, outport Newfoundland, Emerson stood astride both traditions, arguing persuasively for the musical value of traditional songs and ballads while at the same time recognizing the local significance of popular tunes such as “The Squid Jiggin’ Ground” and “The Banks of Newfoundland.” Not unlike his published contributions, college lectures, and advocacy as a “culture broker” within the Canada Council and the Canadian Folk Music Society, his input to visiting composers served as a useful reminder of the process of negotiation that was shaping the construction of a Newfoundland song canon in the pre- and post-Confederation eras. Cable’s Newfoundland Rhapsody was completed in 1956 to celebrate Newfoundland’s union with Canada and broadcast widely on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is one of his most popular compositions and a staple of the wind band literature.27 In the end (likely with input from Doyle), he settled on three songs from the second edition of Old Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland (1940) to set to music alongside Forbes’s iconic gigue: the popular “Ryans and the ­Pittmans” (“We’ll Rant and We’ll Roar”), “Tickle Cove Pond,” and the lesser-known “Sealing Cruise of the Lone Flier.”28 “The Ryans and the Pittmans” is quoted in the opening and penultimate sections as a parenthetical gesture framing the folksong portion of the piece, with the whole musical work culminating with a closing section based on “The Banks of Newfoundland.” Cable was first introduced to the latter by Robert ­MacLeod, who would later give the following description of Cable’s evocative treatment: “He uses it [the ‘Banks of Newfoundland’ theme] in many ways in his rhapsody. He uses it straight through; he uses it as a bridge from one part of the music to the other and he has slide trombones imitating the effort of the people rowing the boats. You can almost hear the fellows pulling the oars.”29 Collectively, Cable and Bell’s Newfoundland excursion and the varied creative acts it inspired would play a major role in shaping Canadians’

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perceptions of Newfoundland music and, by extension, Newfoundland itself, during the initial period of courtship and subsequent nuptials with Canada (arranged as the marriage may have been). After returning home, Cable was commissioned by the National Film Board of Canada to compose music for two film scores commemorating Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation: Newfoundland Atlantic Province (1949) and Inside Newfoundland (1951). In addition to the Newfoundland Rhapsody, he utilized Newfoundland-inspired themes as the basis for the Newfoundland Sketches for strings (1948), On the Grand Banks for men’s chorus (1957), Newfoundland Sketch for brass quintet (1978) (composed for the Canadian Brass), and “The Banks of Newfoundland” (1979), an arrangement of Newfoundland Rhapsody for brass band with three new folk-inspired movements – “The Badger Drive,” “I’se the B’y,” and “The Kelligrew’s Soiree.”30 Bell and Cable’s Newfoundland folksong arrangements, in turn, were featured on a special CBC radio program entitled “Welcome to Newfoundland,” which aired on 1 April 1949 to mark the moment of Confederation, and their Newfoundland compositions (Cable’s Newfoundland Rhapsody, in particular) figured prominently in Canadian radio broadcasts in the ensuing years.31 It was this subjective window into Newfoundland culture, conditioned by the aesthetic preferences of Doyle and filtered through the creative lens of Cable and Bell, that many Canadians first heard as emblematic of Newfoundland folk music, and through that process a very select group of Newfoundland songs entered the Canadian mainstream. Would things have unfolded differently had Emerson pressed his case for the inclusion of traditional songs more insistently during his meetings with Cable and Bell in 1947? Did the interests of the broadcasting and recording industries play a role in privileging some Newfoundland voices while simultaneously marginalizing others? While conclusive answers to these questions will likely remain elusive, what is clear is that the moment marked a decisive turning point in the construction of a Newfoundland musical identity as perceived by mid-century Canadian listeners. It would be up to the next generation of folksingers, song collectors, and composers (with a friendly nudge from culture brokers like Emerson) to reshape this perception by shining the spotlight ever brighter on the hidden gems that lay at the heart of the traditional song repertoire of outport Newfoundland. Although he composed little music of his own, MacLeod’s pianistic virtuosity and passion for Newfoundland folk music merged convincingly in his own Newfoundland Rhapsody, an improvisatory piano piece combining locally inspired melodies with virtuosic pianism reminiscent



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of Franz Liszt. In comparison with the widespread acclaim accorded Cable’s composition, MacLeod’s rhapsody has been all but forgotten (not surprisingly perhaps given the fact that it was never transcribed into musical notation and exists only in a private archival recording). The piece is constructed in the form of a rondo, with varied restatements of “The Ryans and the Pittmans” theme interspersed with quotations from Scammell’s “Squid Jiggin’ Ground” and Burke’s “The Kelligrew’s Soiree.” Like Cable’s rhapsody, recurring references to “The Ryans and the Pittmans” articulate the structure of the piece, reflective perhaps of the central place in Newfoundland culture that both Cable and ­MacLeod accorded it. Another similarity is MacLeod’s exclusive reliance on the Doyle songbooks for source material (a natural tendency given his close association with the latter and his integral role in the songbooks’ compilation). Opening and closing quotations from the “Ode to Newfoundland” serve as a framing prelude and postlude of musical nationalism. Although seldom heard today, MacLeod’s Newfoundland Rhapsody stands as a fitting tribute to his pianistic prowess, a lifelong passion for indigenous folk music, and the rare capacity to merge both impulses into a uniquely personal expression of Newfoundland culture. Stylistically Emerson’s Newfoundland Rhapsody differs markedly from both of the preceding pieces, although both his and Cable’s works conclude with climactic quotations from “The Banks of Newfoundland.” Cable and MacLeod crafted their compositions exclusively from the folksong idiom of the Doyle songbooks and through that selective process favoured songs of relatively recent origin that were predominantly lively, upbeat, and tonal. Emerson’s rhapsody, in contrast, takes its inspiration from songs of an older and decidedly more introspective tradition – the modal Child ballads and love laments collected by Maud Karpeles. There can be little doubt that Emerson was expressing a genuine affinity for the older songs through this selective process, yet one wonders whether he may have been motivated in part by a desire to respond to Cable by expressing his artistic vision of what a Newfoundland Rhapsody should entail. In this respect the source of Emerson’s quotations invokes interesting comparisons to Peacock’s appropriation of “The Green Shores of Fogo” and the Child ballad “Lady Margaret” in his Essay on Newfoundland Themes, just as his passionate advocacy for outport traditional music closely mirrored the aesthetic preferences of his Canadian colleague. The piece begins with a dramatic opening suggestive of the dotted rhythm and descending fourth motion of the Child ballad “Earl Brand,”

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after which the lyrical melody of the love lament “Morning Dew” (with subtle rhythmic alterations) is introduced by flutes and violins in a chordal texture reminiscent of Vaughan Williams’s piano arrangement of the same song. All of the quoted song melodies in Emerson’s Newfoundland Rhapsody, in fact, were taken from songs in the Karpeles collection that were arranged for voice and piano by Vaughan Williams. This theme is extended as transitional material leading to a gigue in which fragmented motives from “The Banks of Newfoundland” theme are presented (as if a dreamlike reminiscence of the original melody). Following a lyrical lento section based on the Child ballad “The Cruel Mother” and a modified reprise of the opening section, the tune of yet another Child ballad, “The Lover’s Ghost,” is played by flute and first violin. Further development of the “Morning Dew” theme sets the stage for the culminating section, an elaborate gigue in which motives from “The Banks of Newfoundland” merge to form Francis Forbes’s iconic themes (using the dotted figures found in Charles Hutton’s published version, not Forbes’s original manuscript). A culminating coda comprised of sequential repetition of the opening motive from the “Banks” theme yields to the beautiful simplicity of the closing measures, in which the lyrical lento theme is recalled in one final, fleeting reminiscence. While preserving the identity of the original tunes from which he quotes, Emerson’s treatment is not without striking moments of originality. Newly composed countermelodies blend seamlessly with the quoted folksongs, while the unmistakable strains of “The Banks of Newfoundland” are, at various times, imbued with a hint of Renaissance polyphony (m. 159) and even transformed (in the manner of Franz Liszt) into a dramatic series of descending chromatic passages (m. 192). Considered from an alternative perspective, Emerson’s developmental treatment suggests the possibility of an intertextual reading whereby the composer, in a situation akin to what Harold Bloom describes in poetic terms as “the anxiety of influence,”32 comes to terms with a precursor work by appropriating the source of Cable’s musical quotation yet swerving in a fundamentally different direction to create new expressive possibilities for the “Banks of Newfoundland” theme. By doing so, a Bloomian interpretation might posit, Emerson created imaginative space for himself (and by extension, the expression of Newfoundland folk culture) within the art music tradition. Although perhaps lacking in refinement in certain aspects of orchestration, there can be no disputing the sincerity of expression and a­ uthenticity



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of spirit that bring this piece to life. Historically, Newfoundland Rhapsody stands as a monument to an emerging tradition of orchestral music (and orchestral playing) in twentieth-century Newfoundland and an exceedingly rare example of orchestral music composed by a native Newfoundlander of his generation. Cable’s Newfoundland Rhapsody, Fitch’s Terra Nova, and Peacock’s Essay on Newfoundland Themes were unquestionably more polished compositions (not surprisingly, given that they were all the work of professional composers), however as a piece of folk-inspired orchestral music by a native Newfoundlander, E ­ merson’s work was without precedent. Here we are reminded again of the striking parallels between Newfoundland Rhapsody and Proud Kate Sullivan. In both cases, the technical imperfections and limitations of a self-taught “amateur” are dwarfed by the cultural significance of both works as pioneering creative responses to local folklore and harbingers of future achievements in Newfoundland’s developing music and drama scenes. Having played a pivotal role in the dissemination of Newfoundland folksongs through his published writings, lectures, and advocacy in the Canada Council and Canadian Folk Music Society, Emerson was at long last adding his own creative voice to the songs’ rich histories. On 27 May 1972, Emerson made an auspicious return to Memorial University of Newfoundland to receive an honorary doctorate from the same institution he worked so passionately to establish and nourish. It was a fitting tribute to a lifetime of achievement in enriching Newfoundland’s cultural and intellectual life and his pioneering contributions to music education at Memorial University College in particular. Emerson was one of four individuals conferred with honorary degrees that day, joining Anglican Archbishop Robert Seaborn (presenter of the convocation address), acclaimed visual artist Christopher Pratt, and geologist David Baird as part of the ceremonies on the main stage of the St John’s Arts and Culture Centre. It was just two years prior, it must be remembered, that Maud Karpeles walked across the same stage to receive an honorary degree of her own for her pioneering contributions to Newfoundland folksong research. At the age of seventy-seven, the man who helped make her work (and that of so many others) possible, was at long last receiving just recognition. With Ignatius Rumboldt seated at the organ, the ceremonies commenced and noted Newfoundland literary scholar George Story rose to give Emerson’s public oration. His speech, an extract of which is quoted in the introduction to this volume, is well worth quoting in full:

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Newfoundland Rhapsody

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The cultivation in balanced harmony of the infinite capacities of man was an ideal of the ancient philosophers in their search for the good society. This ideal, rarely achieved, found perhaps its finest modern flowering among the citizens of certain Italian cities in the fifteenth century, among whom Leon Battista Alberti may stand as an exemplar of l’uomo universale, the all sided man. We read with astonishment how, with his feet together, he could spring over a man’s head; how, in a cathedral, he threw a coin in the air till it was heard to ring against the distant roof. Musician, lawyer, master of many arts and crafts, eloquent and witty, he brought to everything he touched a passion for mastery and perfection, and a sympathetic intensity in entering the whole life around him.



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Of this ancient ideal and many-sided accomplishment, it must be confessed that local society affords few illustrations. Our habitual activities are more specialized and are perhaps accurately reflected in the occupational analysis contained in an old census of St John’s in the eighteenth century, which listed among the populace: 447 fishermen, 114 ‘shoremen,’ 55 carpenters, 31 merchants, 24 tavern-­ keepers, 10 tailors, 8 smiths, 4 sailmakers, 4 planters, a mason, a doctor, a Chief Justice, one fiddler and one gentleman. The candidate I am to present may certainly be described as a gentleman; he may also be described, if not as a fiddler, then as a musician. But he is, as well, an accomplished linguist, a gifted litteratéur, a chef, a naturalist, a traveller, and above all a man of such diverse and easy accomplishments as our society has rarely displayed, and perhaps even more rarely treasured at their full value. Born in St John’s, Frederick Rennie Emerson was educated at Bishop Feild College and in Great Britain. Trained in the law, he for many years practiced his profession in St John’s in association with two other singular Members of the Bar, Higgins and Hunt. But more characteristically, he exercised his wide-ranging and curious mind in a dozen varied arts, crafts and enquiries. Their fruit he freely shared throughout his life, in public service as a member of the old Council of Higher Education, as a member and Vice-Chairman of the Governors of the Memorial University College, and in the community at large through the rich example of his cultural and intellectual life, whether among the students of the old College, the fraternity of international folksong and musical scholarship, or the wide circle of his friends. Most men, it has been remarked, are obliged, in order to live at all, to make a cage of laws for themselves and to stand on the perch. This candidate has made his broad perch a lamp to enrich and illuminate in a generous fashion his native society, a reminder in the words of an old Italian humanist, that ‘Men can do all things if they will.’ Mr Chancellor: It is with special pride that I present to you, for the Degree of Doctor of Letters (honoris causa), Frederick Rennie Emerson.33 With those stirring words of praise, Chancellor G.A. Frecker conferred the degree and Frederick Emerson, KC, became “Dr Emerson.” The native son had returned home triumphant once more in what

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Newfoundland Rhapsody

Figure 9.4 Frederick Emerson receiving the degree Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, from Memorial University of Newfoundland, 27 May 1972

would turn out to be his final curtain call. After returning to Greenfield, ­Emerson travelled to Ottawa in November of that same year to visit a sick relative. On 30 November during the return flight to Nova Scotia, he succumbed to a heart attack and passed away onboard the aircraft as it approached Halifax International Airport. One of the most eloquent and inspiring voices in Newfoundland history had been silenced, but his enduring legacy remained. On 20 October 1974, a concert was held to commemorate the 275th anniversary of the founding of his home parish, the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in St John’s. Approaching the second anniversary of Emerson’s death, it was a fitting tribute to his



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musical legacy as Carla Emerson Furlong performed her father’s Newfoundland Scene and her own harp arrangement of “In Flanders Fields” in a program that also featured organist Patricia Young and Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra violinist Peter Gardner. Chancellor Frecker, in an obituary published in the Memorial University Gazette, echoed the sentiments of many Newfoundlanders in remarking that with Emerson’s death Newfoundland had “lost a very distinguished son, one whose gifts of an unusually high order were freely but unobtrusively placed at the service of his fellow citizens.”34 Fittingly perhaps given Emerson’s multifaceted contributions to the Anglican Church in Newfoundland over a lifetime of service, his final musical composition was the four-part hymn “God of Our Fathers.” Well suited to congregational singing, Kipling’s text serves as a useful reminder of the composer’s deeply rooted spiritual beliefs and devout Christian values: God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of the far flung battle line, Beneath whose awful Hand we hold, Dominion over palm and pine. Lord God of Hosts, Be with us yet, Lest we forget, Lest we forget. For Frederick Emerson, life was an unending journey of discovery: a cultural quest that circumnavigated the globe many times over, but with all roads ultimately leading to the winding streets of his native St John’s; an intellectual journey that sparked a multitude of diverse scholarly and creative pursuits that made him the ideal embodiment of l’uomo universale. Yet for all of his accomplishments and distinguished acquaintances, he retained a modest demeanor, coupled with an almost childlike exuberance for life that informed everything he did and touched the lives of those who met him. Creative space, intellectual freedom, and interdisciplinary thought were much more than abstract concepts to him, but rather deeply held truths by which he lived each and every day of his life.

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Figure 9.5 The last known photograph of Frederick Emerson, taken on 29 November 1972, one day before his death

A P P E NDIC ES

A p p e n d i x one

Selected Works of Frederick R. Emerson

S O L O S O N G S ( w it h p iano accompani ment) “Grey Thoughts for Grey Weather,” for solo voice and piano. Unpublished manuscript. Private collection, 1920. “In Flanders Fields,” for solo voice and piano (in memory of Charles H. Emerson), 1919 (words by John McCrae). Transcribed and edited by Glenn D. Colton, 2005. “Mein Herz wie ein Hündlein,” for solo voice and piano (words by Gustav Schuler). Unpublished manuscript. Private collection, 1915. “Two Songs in D,” for solo voice and piano (words by P.L. Dunbar). Unpublished manuscript. Private collection, 1920.

S A C R E D V O CAL MUS I C “God of Our Fathers,” for SATB chorus (words by Rudyard Kipling). Unpublished manuscript. Private collection, 1968.

S O L O IN S T R U MENTAL MUS I C In Flanders Fields, arranged for solo harp by Carla Emerson Furlong, 1974. Transcribed and edited by Glenn D. Colton, 2005. Newfoundland Scene, for solo harp (composed for harpist Carla ­Emerson Furlong), 1963. Transcribed and edited by Glenn D. Colton, 2005.

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Appendix One

O R C H E S T R A L MUSI C Newfoundland Rhapsody, for chamber orchestra (composed for the St John’s Symphony Orchestra), 1964. Transcribed and edited by Glenn D. Colton, 2005.

B A L L ET The Triumph of Spring (choreography by Freida Berry), 1938.

D A N C E MUSI C The Slave Girl (composed for dancer Freida Berry), 1938.

D R A MA Proud Kate Sullivan, a drama in one act (written for the St John’s ­Players). St John’s: Trade Printers and Publishers, Ltd, 1940.

S E L E C T E D W RI TI NG Address at Opening of Special Session of Synod, 23 May 1956. In The Year Book of the Diocese of Newfoundland. St John’s: Trade Printers & Publishers, 1957. Interim Report on Markland on behalf of the Trustees of Markland. Unpublished report, 1934. “Newfoundland Folk Music.” In The Book of Newfoundland, vol. 1, edited by Joseph R. Smallwood. St John’s: Newfoundland Book Publishers, 1937. “Policy in Education.” Diocesan (June-July 1943): 228.

S E L E C T E D L E C T U R E S AND ADDRESSES “A Discussion of the Music of Sweden, Russia, Hungary, Middle Europe, and England.” Unpublished lecture. Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. “The Art of Music Appreciation.” Unpublished lecture. Private collection, c. 1940s.



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“The Conventions and Customs of the Republic of Columbia.” Unpublished lecture. Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. “Folksong in Newfoundland.” Unpublished lecture, 1934. Private collection. “Folksong in Newfoundland, Part Two.” Unpublished lecture. Private collection. “The Importance of the Clergyman’s Knowledge of the Law.” Unpublished lecture. Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. “Intelligent Books and How to Read Them.” Unpublished lecture. Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. “Johann Sebastian Bach.” Unpublished lecture. Private collection, c. 1940s. “The Life of Mozart.” Unpublished lecture. Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive, c. 1940s. “Ludwig van Beethoven.” Unpublished lecture. Private collection, c. 1940s. “The Meaning of Music.” Unpublished lecture. Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. “More Thoughts on Czechoslovakia.” Unpublished lecture. Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University Folklore and Language Archive. “Music Appreciation.” Unpublished lecture. Private collection, 1945. “Music Appreciation, Part Two.” Unpublished lecture. Private collection, c. 1940s. “Music Education in Newfoundland.” Unpublished lecture. Private collection. “Music in Newfoundland.” Unpublished lecture. Private collection. “Peace and Economy in Scandinavian Nations.” Unpublished lecture. Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. “Personal Recollections of Travels to the Republic of Czechoslovakia.” Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive.

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“The Record of Musical Achievement in Newfoundland.” Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. “Reminiscences of Travel Abroad: Norwegian Chimes, Christmas in the Pyrenees, and the Islands of St Pierre et Miquelon.” Unpublished lecture. Private collection. “A Revival of Interest in Music.” Unpublished lecture. Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. “Some Thoughts on Nationalism.” Unpublished lecture. Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. “Thomas Moore.” Carla Emerson Furlong Collection, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive.

A p p e n d i x two

Frederick R. Emerson, “Newfoundland Folk Music” (Annotated version of an article published in Joseph R. Smallwood, ed., The Book of Newfoundland, vol. 1. St John’s: Newfoundland Book Publishers, 1937, 234–8.)

The two works of outstanding interest referred to below1 reveal that the fisher-folk of Newfoundland have inherited a wealth of music of which they may well be proud and have musical gifts of a very interesting quality. Many traditional songs, inherited chiefly from British and Irish forefathers, are still sung, and the variants of many well-known English ballads, such as “Lord Bateman,” “Lambkin,” “The Cruel Mother,” William Taylor” and others are, if not particularly individual, unusually appealing and often reach heights of great beauty. As might be expected from sea-faring people, some of their songs are gleaned from outside sources – from the fishermen of Gloucester, Canadian lumbermen and, latterly, the gramophone and the radio. Not the least interesting are the songs composed by the people themselves. From an artistic or cultural point of view, the traditional songs are the most interesting. They are never, as far as I am aware, sung in harmony; therefore a very large proportion of them have retained their modal character. When modal, they are usually Mixolydian, Aeolian or Dorian. Songs in the rarer modes, such as the Phrygian, or in the pentatonic scale, have not been found. Curiously enough, in some songs, two modes are used. The antiquity of some of these ballads is a matter of speculation. “Lambkin” for instance, appears to go back to the fourteenth century. Miss Karpeles noted four Newfoundland variants of this well-known ballad.

244

Appendix Two

Although there is a strong similarity between the folk music of Newfoundland and that of Nova Scotia and the manner of performance is also somewhat similar, yet Newfoundland – probably because its people are more isolated – appears to be the richer in older music. In the summer of 1920 Mrs Greenleaf, one of the volunteer workers of Dr Grenfell’s Mission, began collecting folk songs of the people in the northern part of the island. On her return to America, she showed Professor MacCracken of Vassar College and Dr Martha Beckwith of the Vassar Folklore Foundation some of the songs she had collected. They were both quick to recognize the value of her discovery and encouraged her to continue seriously in her work. The result was the organization of the Vassar College Folklore Expedition in the summer of 1929, when Mrs Harvey Mansfield (then Miss Grace Yarrow) accompanied Mrs G ­ reenleaf to record the music, and the publication of Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland. This book contains the words of 185 songs and ballads, and some eighty tunes. Mrs Greenleaf’s introduction gives not only a fascinating account of her experiences, but also a comprehensive view of such of the folk music in Newfoundland as she was able to investigate. In 1929 and 1930 Miss Maud Karpeles of the English Folk Song and Dance Society visited Newfoundland and noted over 200 songs, including variants; and in 1934 a collection of thirty of them, with piano accompaniments by R. Vaughan Williams, Clive Carey, H.J. Foss and M. Mullinar, was published by the Oxford University Press. These songs are frequently heard in London and are always well received. It was the intention of Cecil Sharp, the great English collector of folk songs, to visit Newfoundland after his historic stay in the Appalachian Mountains. Unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances and his untimely death prevented this wish from being fulfilled. But Miss Maud Karpeles, who had accompanied him in his journey to the Appalachian Mountains and had been associated with him for many years in England, was able to visit Newfoundland and carry out the work he had planned. Miss Karpeles brought with her knowledge and experience that were unique, and her books present in scholarly form the result of her researches. Although Miss Karpeles collected some two hundred folk songs, many of them were mere fragments or variants. She herself felt that had her visit been made half a generation before, songs that are now forgotten would have been noted, as she was told so often in so many places that “the people who knew the old songs” had died only a few years before. Hardly less interesting than the traditional songs are the songs composed by the people themselves. It can unquestionably be stated that in



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many places the gift of facile composition, if not of improvisation, is possessed in a very high degree. It is true that the composers or singers lack a certain literary sense in that they borrow phrases and lines freely from old ballads, and, provided the tune “fits” adequately, care little if at all about its originality. Yet on the other hand, the fisherman has his own particular musical culture and a special vocabulary which contains words absent from his everyday speech. It is the habit of the fisher-folk in many localities to record in song local events, especially those of a tragic nature and it may be premised that these songs, if collected, would give a very vivid sidelight on the history of our people.2 The manner in which the songs are sung is interesting. Mrs ­Greenleaf says: “The traditional mode of singing used by the older men differs from the straight-ahead rendering employed by the younger. The traditional singer half reclines on the raised end of the typical wooden sofa and protests modestly that he ‘has the cold’ and ‘never could sing anyway.’ Then, fixing his eyes on vacancy, he begins his song. He sings with unchanged volume of tone without effort at impersonation. The chief characteristic of his singing is the embellishment of the basic melody with the greatest possible variety of turns, slurs, grace notes, quavers, unexpected accents, and subtle syncopations. His audience listens with sympathy and kindled imagination, just as Americans listen to ‘Home Sweet Home,’ and as the story develops, emotion is roused. When he comes to about the middle of the last line, he stops singing and mumbles the rest in his speaking voice, thus indicating the conclusion of the song and his descent to earth from the heights of Parnassus. Although a perfectly familiar convention to a Newfoundland audience, this conclusion is so surprising to Americans that they invariably laugh, however tragic the song. It is probably impossible to reproduce such a song on paper. The basic melody and the most constant embellishments can be shown, but even Cecil Sharp’s careful notation cannot convey the flavour of the style to one who has not heard it. It is a true style, just as ‘crooning’ or ‘bel canto’ are styles, and its essence must be conveyed to the mind through the ear, not through the eye.” While the two volumes above referred to appear to cover comprehensively the ballads and folk-songs sung by the people, yet all our music does not seem to have been explored. Sea shanties are common, and the French descendants of the exiled Acadians are said to possess a large number of songs. I have also been informed that Gaelic songs are still sung in the Codroy Highlands.

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In folk dances, Newfoundland appears to be rather poorly endowed. Miss Karpeles noted only two, “The Self” and “Kitty’s Rambles.” Both these have been published by the English Folk Dance Society in London, and they are frequently performed by members of the Society. Mrs Greenleaf in her book notes fourteen tunes. In her introduction she says: “Newfoundland square dances are similar to our old-fashioned reels, so popular just now, and are full of vigorous movement and rhythm. They can be very graceful when the four, eight, or sixteen dancers know their parts and have a sense of form and finish. When there is no one to play even on a jews-harp, some man has to furnish ‘chin-music.’ As a ‘set’ may take half an hour to dance, endurance is one of the essential qualities of a good singer. The technique of the singing is something entirely different from that of any other kind I ever observed. The singer thinks of the rhythm required for the first figure and commences to tap it out with heels and toes of both rubber-booted feet. Many people say that, if you tied a singer’s feet down, he could not sing at all. A suitable tune soon comes to mind and he begins it, sometimes singing words, but more often vocables to carry the tune and mark the rhythm. The tunes are complicated with syncopations, rapid notes, slides, and turns, and the singer takes breath when he can. Their effect is mesmeric and of all the dance tunes I heard, I was able to record but one correctly. The pitch is always true, and the masters of dance-song can sing for every other dance all the evening, conclude by favouring the company with a long ballad, and show no signs of hoarseness at the finish.” Locally, these songs are usually called “Come-all-ye’s” as the first line of a great many of them begins “Come all ye (jolly fishermen).” In view of the increasing value which other countries attach to their folk music, and the growing popular interest in it, it is to be hoped that our educational authorities will consider the advisability of having these songs taught to the school-children of Newfoundland.3 The collecting of ballads and folk songs is a fascinating occupation, and Newfoundland provides the collector with the opportunity of discovering many a rare old ballad, such as “Hind Horn,” and many a tune of surpassing beauty, such as “the Morning Dew.

A p p e n d i x three

Selected Lectures of Frederick R. Emerson

F ol ks o n g in N e w f o u n d l and (Address to the Holy C ro s s L it e r a ry A s soci ati on, 1934) I am going to talk to you for a short time today about the music of our own country. It may possibly come somewhat as a surprise to you to learn that in Newfoundland we have quite a distinctive type of music and one well worthy of serious study. That such is the case is evidenced by the volume which I have here in my hand. I think this book speaks for itself. It is published by the Oxford University Press and is the work not only of an experienced collector of folk songs but the songs have been set to piano accompaniments by some of the foremost English composers of today.4 As this music is of the folk song type, it is well before discussing it that we should be quite clear in our minds as to exactly what a folk song is. In its broad sense a folk song is any song which is sung by the people, but in its technical sense it is narrowed down to those traditional songs which are sung by the people and passed down through the years from singer to singer. Until the comparatively recent study of folk songs which has resulted in their being collected, these songs have not been printed. As they are handed down from generation to generation, it is obvious that in many cases they are of some antiquity. In fact, there is no doubt that the great majority, if not all, of these Newfoundland songs are the same songs that were sung by the people whose sons and daughters first came to this country. Consequently we find them to be Irish, English, and possibly Scotch in origin. It is important to differentiate between the folk song and the popular song. For example “In the Good Old Summer Time” or “Pack Up

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Appendix Three

Your Trouble in your Old Kit Bag” are popular songs which everybody knows. But they are not folk songs in the sense that the songs I am talking about today are. If they had been published a long time ago and learned by heart by the folk and passed on from generation to generation, they might have become folk songs. It is quite possible that some of the folk songs we are going to discuss today originated in the equivalent of the popular songs of a bygone day. But generally speaking, the folk song in its strict sense means that the song can be traced back for generations and generations and its existence is known only to the people who sang it. Folk songs are of two main sorts, ballads and lyrics. Most of these ballads are known wherever colonists from Great Britain have settled. You will find them in the Kentucky Mountains, you will find them in the heart of Nova Scotia, you will find them in the bays of Newfoundland. Ballads, I think, always have a special appeal of their own. You will remember how Walter Scott, who was reputed to have been practically tone deaf, loved the rhythm, the swing, and the atmosphere of the old ballads. Under the stress of our modern life the ballad is no longer popular, but those of you who are familiar with Dickens’ novels, for example, “The Old Curiosity Shop,” will remember how the vendor of ballads figures frequently. These ballad vendors were popular figures at fairs and country festivals. The words were printed on sheets and sold for a penny or tuppence. The people who bought them probably fitted them to some old tune they knew if the local singer did not invent a new tune of his own. The ballad habit has not died down in Newfoundland. Hardly a shipwreck or incident of adventure at sea occurs in this country without some local poet recording the event in verse and probably, although I cannot say myself that this is so, the people who write these ballads sing them to some old “come all ye” to their friends just as the local singer generations back sang them in the villages of England and Ireland. The local singer is always an interesting figure and even today he has some of the prestige of the minstrel of days of old. The really interesting thing about folk music is that during the years in which it has been handed down from singer to singer it maintains an atmosphere and form of its own. I think all who study it will agree that it is a very interesting form, in fact a great many of our modern composers look to folk music for inspiration and a very large percentage of modern English music is directly influenced by the idiom of folk music. Most of the music as we know it today is an art of comparatively recent date, being in fact only some three or four centuries old. As we



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all know, it is written either in a major or a minor scale. Now major or minor scales were worked out and developed only about four hundred years ago. Before that, songs were sung in peculiar scales called “modes.” Primitive people today usually sing in modes, and find it hard to sing tunes in our modern scales. For example, when the Zulus were honoured with a visit from Royalty a few months ago, they sang “God Save the King” in their own way and it was something like this ... [Emerson demonstrates by singing]. In fact, our present scales are developed from one of these old scales known as the Ionian mode [Emerson demonstrates on the piano]. Most of our Newfoundland music is written in the Mixolydian mode and any song written in this peculiar mode is almost certain to be at least over four hundred years old. Most of the “come all ye’s” that we are all familiar with end in the following way and this ending is in the Mixolydian mode [Emerson sings]. Although music as we know it is an art of quite recent development, the Middle Ages were rich in song and dance. England in particular was before the Reformation famed throughout Europe for its wealth of music, yet this music was of an entirely different nature from the extraordinary art developed by the old Italian masters of Florence and afterwards by the great German masters. So suddenly did the art of music develop, so amazing the richness of its growth, so extraordinary its inspiration, that the old music of the people was completely thrown into the background and neglected by the cultivated musician until comparatively recently, when folk music became the object of serious study. That folk music was neglected in this fashion is really rather curious. Certainly before the end of the last century students, philosophers and musicians gave it very little heed. It is an extraordinary fact and one which reflects curiously upon the form of education which we now call “academic” that in that great seat of learning itself, Oxford, learned anthropologists were deep in the study of the lore and customs of ancient peoples and could no doubt discuss in encyclopedic detail the festival of the Roman Saturnalia or the festival of Adonis, yet when the country people on May Day danced down the streets of Oxford to the Market Square, the dances and strange songs of these people did not arouse the curiosity of these erudite men. One not very well-known musician, however, was struck by the beauty of these songs and sensed in these dances something strangely significant. Cecil Sharp, the founder of the English Folk Song and Dance Society, is of course, today a figure of historic significance. In his honour a large and imposing building has been erected in Regent’s Park and the

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Society which he founded is growing in importance and authority. It is to him that we are indebted for a study which perhaps reveals more of the temperament and character of our ancestors than any other memorial of the past which this present age possesses. Swift upon his discovery followed the study of the learned. They were quick to realize that these country dances were the living survivals of long forgotten rituals, the music the remains of rites now known to us perhaps only by name. The study of folk dances is extremely interesting and in the remote parts of Europe dances survive that have their origin in the days when the religion of Mithras and the cult of the Greek and Roman gods were at their zenith. Time does not permit me to dwell upon the subject of folk dances. I have seen danced in London two Newfoundland country dances, and while one could not but be impressed with their charm, they have not by any means the dramatic appeal that some of the folk dances of other countries have. Take for example the English Sword Dance, probably one of the most attractive folk dances in the world. This is danced by a group of men carrying swords and it terminates quite suddenly in a beautiful figure in which the sword blades become interlocked and one of the dancers is caught in the centre of these swords. The dance symbolizes the slaying of the central dancer. There is little doubt that this dance is the survival of an ancient sacrificial dance and in remote ages the central dancer was actually slain at the termination of the performance. Recently, these dances have been the object of serious study and the results of scientific research in this connection are fascinating and surprising. There are lots of people who are interested in what we locally call “come all ye’s,” but I have usually noticed that their interest is not without a kind of condescension. They confess their interest with a sort of patronizing smile as though they felt that while the “come all ye’s” were quaint enough they were definitely of a lower order of music. Perhaps their attitude is natural. The folk song is quite a special sort of music. It requires very often real knowledge for its proper appreciation. Many people who graduate from conservatories of music are utterly incapable of appreciating a folk song. That is because they have been educated in the music of the great masters and have been taught nothing of the music of the people, and when we consider the behaviour of the Oxford professors I have referred to above – those worthy gentlemen who did not look up from their tomes of learning to gaze at the living survivals of the customs they were studying – perhaps we can give them the benefit of a little tolerance.



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Cecil Sharp, the real great founder of the study of folk music, was to visit Newfoundland in 1918. He had felt that in the remote parts of Newfoundland the ancient songs of the British Isles should still survive. He had visited the primitive people of the Kentucky Mountains – early settlers who had been cut off for centuries from contact with the outside world – and had made rich and interesting discoveries there. He was accompanied by a collaborator, Miss Karpeles, who acted as his secretary. It is this Miss Karpeles who is the collector of the songs published in this volume. Their adventures among the primitive folk of the Appalachian Mountains were interesting and at times not without excitement and even danger. However, Cecil Sharp died in 1924. In 1929 and again in 1930 Miss Karpeles visited Newfoundland. She collected over 200 songs and a few dances, and at the beginning of this year this volume containing 30 of these songs was published. I think that we Newfoundlanders have been very fortunate that these songs have been collected by Miss Karpeles. She has had experience in the collecting of folk songs that probably no living person today can claim, and only the expert can properly collect folk songs. I have seen several volumes of what were reputed to be Newfoundland folk songs, but it was quite obvious to me that the collectors were not at all clear as to what folk songs really were and many of the songs included in their collections were of no musical interest. Collecting folk music is a fascinating task. It is not easy. Country people are usually shy about singing their songs to strangers. Miss ­Karpeles had the gift that many great artists have, that of being completely sincere. She could enter a fisherman’s house and be just as much at home as in her drawing room at Hampstead. She impressed the people she met as deeply as they seemed to have impressed her. In her Preface to these songs she says: “It would be impossible to find a kindlier, friendlier people than the Newfoundlanders. Wherever I went, although I was a complete stranger without introductions, I was instantly welcome.” This is a generous and, I feel, a just tribute, but it also speaks eloquently for Miss Karpeles herself. The ease with which she could win the hearts of these people incline me to the view that if ever she had had any aspirations to a political career in Newfoundland, she could have sat in our House of Assembly, had it lasted, without the effort that some of our politicians have found necessary. People were kind and friendly to her because she was kind and friendly herself. They lost their shyness because I think they must have instinctively appreciated the fact that she genuinely appreciated the songs they sang. I think it may be said that she

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was one of those who realize that the folk have a culture of their own and that while it may be circumscribed and in certain respects primitive, yet it is definitely a culture that no wise person can ignore. This is a viewpoint to which perhaps we are all of us slowly coming. We are beginning to realize that many of the criticisms that have been directed against our educational policy in the past expressed a sense of our failure to appreciate what I can only vaguely term our native culture. Musically speaking, it is a tragedy that Miss Karpeles came so late. Had a collector come fifty years before, I feel sure that instead of collecting several hundred songs, several thousand would have been recorded. It is strange how the old customs and traditions of our ancestors persist and live. I have myself heard sung the old ballad of “Lord Bateman” and the words are identically the same as those still sung in England. I think you will agree with me that there is something strangely moving in the fact that this song is sung in exactly the same words but with varying tunes in the remote Kentucky mountains and our own outports as in the heart of the English countryside. The fine old story of the noble lord and his young Sophia, the proud porter and the bride’s mother, who “was never heard to speak so free,” should be familiar to all of us. Perhaps the best way to show how these folk songs originate and endure is to take the story of one of them called “Lambkin.” This is an extremely old song. Its origin has now been determined. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Flemish masons were much employed in England and Scotland. The story of “Lambkin” originates in a legend of one of the ancient North country barons who employed a Flemish mason to erect a castle for him. That the workmanship was carried out in what lawyers call “a true and proper manner” is proved by the fact that up to a comparatively short time ago the ruins of Lambkin’s castle still remained. But in those days the Scotch were not as free with their money as they are today and the Flemish mason found such difficulty in collecting payment that he took the law in his own hands. Finding the courts of the day powerless to assist him in the prosecution of his rights, he revenged himself with the assistance of a false nurse and murdered the lord’s wife and child, young Sir Johnson, and for these extreme steps he was very properly hanged, together with the false nurse, on the neighbouring gallows. The ballad of this somewhat sanguinary incident was for centuries popular in Scotland and the North Country and the dread figure of Lambkin was very much alive in the minds of the people who lived near Lambkin’s castle, a sinister spot which no God-fearing person would approach after nightfall.



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One of the tunes we sing in Newfoundland to the Lambkin ballad is exactly the same as that sung in England. It is one of the most popular and best known of folk songs. As it is not modal, it is the sort of tune that you can appreciate at the first hearing. It is a very simple little melody and its chief virtue is that it is an unobtrusive medium in which the ballad singer can relate his story. I will sing you some of the verses of Lambkin in this collection and show you some of the versions in different parts of Newfoundland. A word as to the manner in which these are sung. Our fishermen sing them in a manner we would designate as “without expression.” He sings them without any pretense to dramatic effect – almost impersonally. That is the way that those artists who specialize in folk songs consider the most correct  – in any event it is the traditional folk song manner of the English folksinger. It is not easy to do. Personally, I suggest that they be sung naturally and simply. Sincerity will always make a song acceptable. Another ballad with which many of you are probably familiar is the ballad of “The Cruel Mother.” Some of these ballads have very beautiful tunes, for example, “Sweet William’s Ghost,” of which I will sing one verse. This ballad has a refrain, which is worth noticing. Also “Willie of Winsborrow” has similarly a refrain. “Sweet William’s Ghost” was sung to Miss Karpeles by Mr Michael Carrol of Placentia. It was also sung by Mr McCabe of North River and by Mrs Emma Boone. Miss Karpeles notes that this is a very popular song in Newfoundland. She noted nine versions. “Willie of Winsborrow” was sung by Mrs Janie Augot of Rencontre, Fortune Bay. I think the most extraordinary song that Miss Karpeles collected and by far the most interesting of the ballads is one called “The Bloody Gardener.” This song is too long for me to sing in its entirety, but I will play you this air. [Emerson demonstrates] The air is one which cannot be easily grasped, probably because it is modal in form. You will remember when I was talking to you about modal music I referred to the ancient scales. This song is an excellent example ... I confess that when I first used to hear it sung I very naturally took it for granted that these songs were being sung out of tune, because today we would naturally sing this phrase in the following manner [Emerson sings]. Some of these ballads have very jolly tunes, for example “William ­Taylor,” which tells the story of a young sailor who was “pressed” into the Navy. In those days young fellows were caught by officers known as “press men” and forced into the service of the King on land or sea. William Taylor had this unfortunate experience, and the faithful if ­

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s­ omewhat persistent damsel with whose affections he had trifled, dressed herself up in men’s attire and followed him into the Navy. Unfortunately, ‘While she was on the main yard reefing doing her duty among the rest, Her waistcoat did blow open And the Captain saw her lily-white breast.’ Naturally this discovery evoked the captain’s curiosity and the maiden revealed that she was in search of her lover, one William Taylor, who seven years ago had left her. The captain very inconsiderately suggested to this faithful damsel – ‘ ... that she rise at break of day And there she would see young William Taylor Sporting with his lady gay.’ I will sing the eighth and ninth verses, which relate the tragedy that ensued upon this unfortunate revelation and indicate the further career of this intrepid damsel. Before leaving the question of ballads, I would like you to hear the melody of “The Nobleman’s Wedding,” as I think this will interest you. It seems to me obviously of Irish origin and somewhat suggests that very beautiful air known as the Londonderry Air. Time does not permit me to sing the song of “Riley the Fisherman,” “The Sea Captain” or “Proud Nancy,” but those of you who are curious will soon be able to purchase the volume at Mr Hutton’s music store. It is very beautifully printed at the Oxford University Press and costs about $3.50. Among the lyrics, or love songs, I think you will be attracted by one called “The Morning Dew.” Accompaniments have been set to these songs by some of the most prominent musicians of today. The finest of them have been set by Dr Vaughan Williams, who in my humble opinion, is the most outstanding of England’s present day musicians. Those of you who listen in to the concerts broadcast from England have heard much of his music. I feel that no greater proof can be brought of the beauty of our folk music than the fact that Dr Vaughan Williams has written the piano accompaniments of these songs and I think that he has not done finer work in this line than he has on those of our folk songs he has selected for his special care. “The Morning Dew” was sung to Miss



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Karpeles by Mrs Sarah Newell of Upper Island Cove. This song is also probably Irish in origin and personally I think it one of the most beautiful folk songs I have ever heard. Unfortunately the words of some of our folk songs have been lost and the words of this song are fragmentary. “The Maiden’s Lament” was sung at King’s Cove, Bonavista Bay, by Mr James Sullivan. Miss Karpeles says that Mr Sullivan was an old man but he sang this song with great feeling. I think you will agree with me that the melody is exquisite. The beauty of Dr Vaughan Williams’s accompaniment will be more apparent to you after the song has been heard many times. Another very beautiful one is “The Winter’s Gone and Past,” also a song which I think is undoubtedly Irish in origin. “The Winter’s Gone and Past” was sung by Mrs Elizabeth Farrell of Beau Bois, Placentia Bay. It is tragic that she could not remember correctly any more than the words of the first verse, which is a lyric that I think Burns would not have disowned. The refrain of the song “She’s Like the Swallow” (“I love my love and love is no more”) fits perfectly the melody of the last line. In this song the singer conveys exquisitely the sense of loveliness lost forever: ‘Far above me/ like the high-flying swallow– Her presence lives like the ever flowing river, a memory of beauty vivid as the sunshine on the lee shore.’ I think that this introduction, if I may be so bold as to call it so, would today be incomplete if we did not all sing one of these folk songs. Let us all learn “Soldier, soldier, will you marry me, with your musket, fife and drum.” This song was sung by Mrs Violet McCabe of North River. I hope I have conveyed to you today the fact that in our folk music we have something which is very much alive. These songs, while retaining their character, yet vary with each singer and in each place, and they are imprinted with the personality of all the people who have sung them throughout the centuries they have survived. They are the most living things which we today can share with our earliest Newfoundland forefathers. They are worthy of our study because they are the very heart of our real Newfoundland culture. When we sing these songs we are at one with all the people of our country and one with all the folk of the earliest days of our island history. As the speech of our forefathers would fall strangely upon our modern ears, so often do the turns of melody strike oddly upon our twentieth-century ears. If I have succeeded today

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in indicating something of their true beauty and their unique value to us Newfoundlanders, I shall have felt that perhaps I have not inexcusably trespassed upon the valuable hours which you men of the Holy Cross Literary Association devote to serious study. Let us remember that many of our forefathers found in those songs perhaps the most significant memories they could bring of the homelands which they were leaving forever. They were the vessels in which they stored for their descendents the memories of the dance and song of their home in the green valleys of Ireland or the leafy lanes of old England. And it is no dead memorial of days long vanished that they have left us, but living songs of great beauty – folk songs that I think we can with justice claim to be not inferior to the folk songs of any country in Europe and songs that may well inspire our Newfoundland composer, when he appears, as the folk songs of Hungary inspired Liszt and Brahms. Although their appeal grows with closer acquaintance, yet it is to us today as complete and as fresh as in the days of the earliest settlers. They have the quality of all great art in that their appeal is not limited to any particular race or country, and perhaps let us admit that for us at any rate they are better than any other songs because they are our own songs, and we may well be proud of them just as we may be proud of our local singers who have preserved them for us and our children.

T he A rt o f M u s ic A p p r e c i ati on (Lecture to s t u de n t s o f M e m o r ia l U n iv ers i ty College, 1945) During this term I shall give five lectures on musical appreciation and before giving these I think it would be well if we had a little chat about the purpose and aim of them. Before beginning the study of any subject, it is always well to try and discover just what it is about, why one proposes to study it and what one expects to get out of it. Let us take these three aims in order: (1) What is music? Well, I am afraid it is difficult to give anything like a correct definition of music. One can only attempt to describe it. It is, if you like, the language in which certain emotions are recorded. It is impossible to listen to any tune without feeling that it has a sort of atmosphere or mood; some songs, like the “Squid Jigging Ground” are gay and sprightly and they suggest humour and good spirits; other music, such as “Old Folks at Home” or “My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night” suggest sadness or wistfulness, and anybody hearing these tunes at once feels the haunting sadness they express.



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Music is, of course, not a language in the sense that definite mathematical things can be said, the sort of things we can say in our spoken language – we cannot, for example, express in music the sort of thing we sometimes translate from English into French, such as “My aunt has three cherries, two apples and one plum.” Music is an art and it is the function of art to convey abstract ideas, moods, and atmosphere.5 And yet this doesn’t mean that music is merely a pleasant noise – something that so soothes or pleases our ear that it is agreeable to listen to. If it were just that, nothing more, you wouldn’t have huge concert halls with packed audiences listening to performers who have given all their time to the study of their art. It has come to be a medium by which musicians – that is people who think musically – express their thoughts. As many of these musicians are great men – geniuses as we say – their thoughts are great. The aim of this course is to see if we cannot catch a glimpse of these thoughts and learn something about the people who thought them. Music as we see it today is a highly developed art. It was not always so. Music in the days of ancient Greece was a far simpler affair than the music of today. In the five lectures our attention shall range over many sorts of music – from the sort of music that people sing in the outports and in their dories and on ships to the music that some of the world’s greatest thinkers have written in order to express their deepest thoughts. As I have said, to a musical person music is not just a form of entertainment or a sort of pleasing noise that is rather soothing to listen to; it is just as definite as language itself and when we consider those great compositions that have taken a master-mind many years to produce we must expect this music to require intellectual effort. You will find that the real pleasure to be derived from music comes from the careful study of it. The more you study, the more carefully and intelligently you listen, the greater will be your pleasure and the greater your profit. What can the ordinary person who does not play any instrument or who has not studied singing expect to get out of music? My answer to that is he can if he wants to, get a great deal indeed. There is the art of listening as well as the art of performing. By learning how to listen and developing the sort of mind that looks for the meaning of music, the ordinary person with an ordinary ear can find that the radio, the gramophone, the concert room and the performances of any good amateur can become the sources of fascinating and delightful hours. One of the strangest things about life is the way we take things for granted. One who has never paid attention to wild flowers can have no

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idea of the pleasure of the botanist as he roams over the fields or barrens or in the woods. One who knows nothing of geology knows nothing of the stories that the stones on which we walk can tell us. Those who have never learned how to listen to music are really deaf to the message it conveys. We all take it perhaps too much for granted that we know how to listen, just as we take it for granted that we know how to see and observe. If you place before the average person one of the reproductions of a great painting that you have in this college and ask him to look at it, he will tell you after glancing for a minute or so that he has seen it. If he were a painter he would spend hours looking at it; he would study the lines, the colours, the placing of the figures in it, and examining all those parts of the picture would take him a great deal of time and his delight would consist in the discovery of those things which make a picture a great work of art. It is therefore necessary when you listen to music to concentrate as closely as you possibly can to it. How much can one expect to get in a series of five lectures? One can, I think, acquire at least the awareness of the possibility of pleasure that music affords and the discovery of what may be called the magic land of music. As I have said, we are very much inclined to take things we see and hear for granted. There are about 490,000,000 persons in the British Empire, few of whom have not heard or sung “God Save the King,” yet how many of us have ever wondered what this simple, straightforward tune really signifies? I wish I had time to tell you its rather fascinating history; how over five hundred years ago a stately dance known as the Pavane was so popular in Spain that it became a ceremonial dance used on solemn occasions, such as funeral ceremonies and court functions. This was in turn followed by a somewhat similar dance known as the Galliard which attained immense popularity in all western Europe. These dances were usually danced to a rather definite sort of tune which was very like the tune which we know as “God Save the King.” “God Save the King” in fact became almost in the form we know it about 1744 and gradually became adopted as the national anthem. British royalty perhaps attained the height of its prestige in the days of Queen ­Victoria and the national anthem was always played when she appeared in public. When the Queen entered the concert hall during a performance, the performance was stopped and “God Save the Queen” was played as a sort of tribute to royalty. Now the tune itself has something of the character of so many of our English kings and queens: it is stately, not



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very emotional (the Englishman does not like to express his emotions obviously) and it has the solemn nature of a hymn. When you compare it with the dramatic and lively character of the French national anthem, the “Marseillaise,” or the militant and exciting character of the German “Watch on the Rhine,” you will see that this tune very aptly expresses something of the distinctive character of the British people. At first sight one does not, perhaps, think of it as being a very remarkable tune, but when one considers how old this tune is and its extraordinary popularity in various forms, one realizes that it must express something that human beings have felt to be really important and worth expressing to have survived so many centuries and reached such a place of honour. Let us take a song we all know, the “Squid Jigging Ground.” This song is not popular by mere chance; it is a very fine and attractive tune. What does it suggest? Again let us look at the content. It is not unlike an Irish jig. We Newfoundlanders have from the Irish people who have made this Island their home acquired something of the gaiety and humour of the Irish. A Newfoundlander’s sense of humour is not altogether too different from the Irishman’s. This song also has something of the gay little tunes that sailors dance to and in this way we see that it suggests the sea, and all Newfoundlanders are sea-folk. And so we see that this song reveals what we might call the music of sea folk and, if you like, the humour of the Irish character. But there is something even more remarkable than this: a trained musician hearing the song for the first time is struck by this little phrase ... [Emerson demonstrates]. These five notes are what are known as the pentatonic scale, that is, a scale made of five notes, and you may not have realized it, but some of the tunes we know best are written on these five notes: “Ye Banks and Braes of Bonny Doone,” “Auld Lang Syne,” for example, and many folk songs. So we see that this simple little song, “The Squid Jigging Ground,” tells us its own story, just as “God Save the King” tells its story, and a very interesting story it is. Out of all the great conflicts of history songs come forth and remain forever popular. Songs like “Auld Lang Syne,” “The Old Folks at Home,” “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes,” “Oft in the Stilly Night” are songs we all know and perhaps always will know as long as people love to sing and love to listen, because they convey to us emotions that we all understand and that we all feel. And so one can see that music records what people have felt at different periods of their history. How perfectly it records their emotions and their feelings about things. If any tune suggests the last war to all

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of us, I suppose it is “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” This is a jolly tune, gay, almost carefree and its gaiety and lightness record how little war meant to the average English boy in 1914. When war was declared few people thought it would last long. The German army – and not many people knew much about it – would, of course, be destroyed in a matter of days or weeks. War was an adventure, a holiday; the soldiers marched towards the Rhine almost with gaiety. Far different is the song “There’ll Always Be an England” which this war has produced. There is nothing gay or carefree about this song. In its measured beat it shows the determination of a people who realize that if they are to survive it will be through blood, sweat, and tears. This song marches on with the grim determination with which the British people faced the awful years of the war just over [Emerson sings]. The songs I have chosen are songs which have come from the heart of the ordinary man, not the great artist, the great thinker or the great poet – just the ordinary man in the street. They are the sort of songs you understand at once and learn easily and that is why they become popular. We cannot, of course, devote attention solely to these; we must consider the compositions of the great composers and, puzzling perhaps at first sight as some of the music which people call “classical” may appear, yet we must always remember one thing, and that is that it does make sense. The meaning may not appear to us at first hearing, a taste for some of it may require cultivation and study, yet so much of it tells its own story, and the story that it tells is the message of a man who knew what he wanted to say (and what he says is worth hearing). In great music we find a record of what great thinkers felt about life. One of the things we shall study later on will be a symphony in which a great composer tells the whole story of his life, his childhood, his love affairs, the imaginative years and dreams of adolescence, his experiences as a soldier and as a man of action and finally how he feels when his life draws to a close and he is confronted with the final problem, death. We shall study “Finlandia,” a poem telling of the suppression of the Finnish people, of their dreams of liberty and of a free Finland. We shall learn some of the music of Chopin, who gave us such wonderful pictures of life in the tragic land of his birth and the cosmopolitan world of Paris. We shall study the story of the river on which the capital of Czechoslovakia stands; the river that begins in the mountains as a small woodland stream, passes through the forests famed for their hunting and game, flows through valleys and among historic castles and finally broadens out to the place on which the proud city of Prague stands; and we shall see how the story



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of this river symbolizes the story of the Czech people, how it reflects the deep feelings, the dreams and aspirations of a Bohemian patriot. We shall study too Tchaikovsky’s poem “1812,” which tells the story of Napoleon’s advance on Moscow. We see the Russian people fleeing to the church to pray that God may avert the threat of Napoleon’s advancing army; how the dancing of the village people and their work in the fields is broken; we shall hear the French army represented by the Marseillaise struggling against the Russian national anthem and eventually we hear the Russian national anthem emerging victorious while all the bells of liberated Moscow peel forth and sing of the joy of the Russian people. Anyone with an average ear for music who likes listening to a tale that is told will find, I hope, much in these masterworks to stimulate his curiosity about other people and other lands and feed his imagination on the dreams and experiences of master minds. And you will, I hope, after learning about these things realize that music is not the exclusive property of the highbrow or the learned; all good music has a common sense message for all of us, that is such of us who care to make the effort of finding out what it is all about.

Re m in is c e n c e s o f T r avel Abroad: Norwegi an Ch im e s , C h r is t m as in the Pyrenees, and the I s l a n d s o f S t P ie r r e e t Mi quelon (undated) I thought perhaps you would like to have this evening a few casual impressions of travel in countries which are not very generally visited by Newfoundlanders. I think we all are inclined in our daydreams to play with the fancy of finding ourselves in some foreign places among strange people, observing scenes invoked by our reading. As far as my own experience goes, I may truthfully say that no country ever turned out in fact to be in the least what I had anticipated. It is a curious thing that you can soak yourself in books about a certain place, and there is no doubt you can absorb a lot of curious knowledge about it, much of which is often quite unknown to the people who live there; yet when you arrive, and actually see for yourself the places about which you have been reading the reality is always novel and unexpected. I know it is an old axiom that all human beings are alike and I suppose that fundamentally they are; but so varied are the customs and conventions of people in the different parts of the world, that it is almost impossible to form a correct picture of them without visiting them for yourself.

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This idea struck me quite forcibly when I spent Christmas in Norway some twelve years ago. You all know what we feel Christmas Day should be: the trees laden with freshly fallen snow; the joy-bells ringing; the churches adorned with spruce and holly; the Christmas dinner with turkey and plum pudding; the Christmas stockings for the children; the exchange of gifts, and the gay and cheery holiday atmosphere which we call the spirit of Christmas. One has the idea that the legend of Santa Claus emanated from Scandinavia and Germany, and surely there it must be far gayer than anywhere else. I remember waking up Christmas morning, in a historic little town in Southern Norway. A kind Norwegian friend had asked me to go to Church with him and his wife. When I drew the curtain from the window, it was brilliantly sunny without; “a real Christmas morning,” I said to myself. I had just finished my coffee when I heard a strange dinning sound, like somebody striking a large, tin sheet. I asked the maid what the noise was; “Those are the chimes” she said in a surprised voice. I had read in Norwegian novels about the chimes and I had thought of it as music of sweet bells, stealing across the snowy landscape. In reality, the chimes have as much music as the gong of the penitentiary. And the Christmas Service in the Lutheran Church! How different from (our) own cheerful service! No decorations; no lively and seasonable music; and the sober service of the Lutheran Church did not even on that day of cheer depart from its customary dreariness. The sermon was a cold, academic exhortation to virtue that would have done for any day of the Lenten season. I remember a nice long sleigh drive through the woods, to a country house where I was to dine. Dinner takes place there at about 3 in the afternoon. The sun, which rose late, was already setting; and the winter sunsets of Norway have all the colour and brilliance of our own country, but are much more prolonged. The Norwegians are the most hospitable people in the world; and it was a very gay house-party. But yet, the formal meal to which we sat down was not my idea of Christmas dinner. Talking of Christmas reminds me of Christmas in the South of France, in a charming little city lying in the shelter of the Pyrenees;6 the city famous for the fine old Castle of Henry of Navarre; and I remember how we walked to Midnight Mass on a night as balmy and as scented as a warm June night in Newfoundland. The Pyrenees wore their snowclad peaks like a silver crown; the bells pealed; the streets were crowded;



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there was hardly standing-room in the Cathedral; and once inside the building, it was all the world like Midnight Mass in our own country. I woke up the next day with a Christmas Day feeling of anticipation, but alas, in France Christmas is one of the lesser festivals: it is on New Year’s Day that gifts are exchanged, and families reunited. The first of the year is the centre point of the family year. I have of course mentioned Christmas as an example of things taken for granted, but one can never take for granted in a foreign land the things to which one is used to in our own home. For example, with us, when a stranger arrives, we call on the stranger; and if we like him, we invite him to our homes, and he invites us back, and thus we become friends. On the Continent, the procedure is otherwise: when the stranger arrives, he calls on the natives; and should they like him, they return the call; if they don’t, they leave a card. Don’t ask me how the stranger knows whom he should call on, because I do not know. I remember in 1918 having recovered from a rather protracted attack of rheumatic fever, a friend and I decided to go to St Pierre. We knew nobody there when we arrived. By chance my friend met the American Consul, while having his hair cut at the barber shop; and the Consul invited him to his house for bridge. We were both very surprised to find that the guests whom we had been asked to meet felt quite keenly the fact that we had not called on them; and when we explained that we had not previously known they existed, I am afraid it did not help very much. I spent two months in St Pierre, it is really a very delightful little place; and if you are interested in French life, it is well worth a visit. While there is much that looks French to the North American, yet there is certainly much that looks North American to the Frenchman. Yet when you are in the house in the evening, chatting with the people, you might be back in some French town, a thousand miles away from North America. They have retained all the customs of the French life; food is cooked in the French fashion, and the laws of France are faithfully observed. I am always surprised at the small number of Newfoundlanders who really know St Pierre. It is not only historically interesting as the last one of the great possessions of France in North America, but it is interesting in itself, being a little centre of French life. It has a steady population of about five thousand, and had a large floating population at one time of people from France who were chiefly engaged in the fishery. The floating population is now quite small. When I visited St Pierre during the war years the life of the Islanders was charming in its simplicity. Prohibition in the United States brought a certain amount of temporary prosperity

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and many of the Islanders made quite a lot of money, but it seems to me that the amount of wealth did not add to the charm of their lives. Perhaps in a way Miquelon is more interesting than St Pierre itself. St Pierre is about ten square miles, but Miquelon consists of two very much larger islands joined by a neck of sand about three miles long. I remember walking from Miquelon village, which is in the northern part of the northern Island, down to the southern island – a distance of some twenty-one miles. It was a two-day jaunt. We spent the night at a farm house owned by a Basque. I do not think I have ever taken a more attractive walk. The brilliance of the sunshine on the yellow sand, and the blue sea all around wherein one could descry what we call bay seals sporting in the clear water. The southern island had some rather nice country houses to which the wealthier people from St Pierre repair for the fine weather. The Miquelon people being much more cut off from the mainland and the people of St Pierre are, if more primitive, naturally less spoiled by contact with North America than the people of the capital. There seemed to me something curiously touching about this community, the life of which centres around its church and parish priest. It reminded one of what life must have been three or four centuries ago in so many places in Europe. There is no close season there for fishing or shooting. In the fine summer weather when there is not a cloud in the sky there is probably no nicer place in the world to spend a holiday. You climb the hills – the sea lies all around like a blue sapphire, and in the distance northward the white houses on the Newfoundland Coast gleam in the sun.

A p p e n d i x four

Selected Correspondence (1934–1970)

Ral p h V au g h a n W il l ia m s to Emers on, Regardi ng Vau g h a n W il l ia m s ’ s “ N e w foundland Folk S ong” S e t tin g s ( 3 F e b rua ry 1 9 3 4, pri vate collecti on) Dear Mr Emerson, Thank you for your kind and appreciative letter. You have indeed some beautiful folk songs in your country and we all owe a great debt of gratitude to Maud Karpeles for recovering them. If my and my colleagues accompaniments can help to make them better known we shall be amply rewarded. I fear that it is not likely that fate will ever lead me to Newfoundland, but it would be a great pleasure if so ever it did come. Sincerely, Ralph Vaughan Williams

E m e rs o n to M a r iu s B a rbeau, i n Res ponse to an In v itat io n to B e c o me Vi ce-Presi dent of t he C a n a d ia n F o l k M u s ic S oci ety (Greenfi eld, Qu e e n ’ s C o u n t y, N ova S coti a, 18 December 1957 ; C a n a d ia n S o c ie t y for Tradi ti onal Musi c F on d s , U n iv e rs it y o f C algary Li brary S peci al C o l l e c ti ons ) Dear Monsieur Barbeau, I have just received your wire asking me to become the Vice-President of the Canadian Folk Music Society. I have telegraphed my reply and hope you duly received it.

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I am most flattered at being asked to act as Vice-President as I have followed your work and the work of your society for many years and always with the greatest interest and admiration. I deeply appreciate the honour paid to Newfoundland through this invitation to myself. As you know through the work of my friend Miss Karpeles, Newfoundland has a store of good folk music, although alas the interest of the musical world awoke rather late and I fear many fine old folk-songs must have died out in the last fifty years. Cecil Sharp had planned to come to Newfoundland many years ago but his untimely death rendered this impossible and his collaborator Miss Karpeles came in the late twenties and published a scholarly collection of some thirty odd songs. It is my hope that thanks to the Canada Council we shall be able to make an even greater contribution to Canadian folk music in the near future. I again thank you for the honour paid to Newfoundland and I assure you nothing could give me more pleasure than the accepting of it. Yours very sincerely, Fred Emerson

E me rs o n to B a r b e au, R e gardi ng the Annual Me e t in g s o f t h e C a n a d ia n Folk Musi c S oci ety i n T ata m ag o u c h e , N ova Scoti a (“Qui nni pi ac,” G re e n f ie l d , N ova S c o t ia, 12 Augus t 1958; Mari u s B a r b e au ’ s C o r r e spondence, Canadi an Mu s e u m o f C iv il iz at io n L i brary, Archi ves , and D o c u m e n tati on) Dear Monsieur Barbeau, We had a grand time at Tata’che and I was so sorry you missed it. Helen Creighton was a splendid chairman and from the very first moment the atmosphere was friendly and easy. I was delighted to meet Père Lemieux from Sudbury.7 He seemed to know all about everything and made a magnificent contribution to our gatherings. Sir Ernest & Lady MacMillan, Miss Manny from New Brunswick8 – in fact, everyone – seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. I hope the constitution Sir Ernest and I drafted meets with your approval. It should, as you know be signed by – is it three in Québec? – persons & filed with the Registrar of companies so that we can get our Certificate of Incorporation. I presume that we can under the practice at Québec combine the memorandum & articles of association in one document. One can in Newfoundland in the use of ­charitable



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­ rganizations. The registrar may want something inserted to the effect o that the society is a philanthropic one and not incorporated for the purpose of financial gain. Miss Manny very kindly did our typing for us. Rather a difficult job as we were so interrupted all the time. By the way, she is a great asset and I am rather sorry she isn’t a councilor or something. New Brunswick is represented by Mr Allison and Helen thought we couldn’t have two people from there at this stage. The evening closed with a showing of your own film, which is a delightful record of your personality and made us feel even closer to you in spirit. I shall be in Ottawa to attend a meeting of the executive of the Canada Council on the 28th & I look forward to seeing you then. Ernest MacM. & his wife are coming here to lunch tomorrow as they are spending a few days with some friends at Mahone Bay. They leave for Europe in a few days. Our gathering at Halifax was pleasant also. Ernest very generously came to it and spoke. He wore kilts this time and looked most impressive and we all went to Alan Mills’ most entertaining recital. I was sorry I had to leave after lunch as I missed the recital of Dr Langstaff – who knows so many of my musical friends in England – and which was I believe, one of the highlights of the Festival. Please give my best regards to Madame Barbeau and forgive rather a hastily written letter. I wanted you to know how well things went so dictated a cable to you on Sunday. I hope they got down correctly what I said. They don’t always do so over the phone. Sincerely, Fred. R. Emerson

M au d K a r p e l e s to E merson, Regardi ng a Can a da C o u n c il G r a n t for the Preparati on of a Co m p r e h e n s iv e E d it io n of Folksongs from N e w f o u n d l a n d ( 1 8 N ovember 1958; Canadi an S oci e t y f o r T r a d it io n a l Musi c Fonds, Uni versi ty o f C a l g a ry L ib r a ry Speci al Collecti ons ) Dear Mr Emerson, I am in receipt of your letter of November 4 informing me that the Canada Council is making a grant of $5000 for the purpose of preparing a comprehensive edition of folk songs from Newfoundland. This is a most generous offer and I trust that it will lead to the carrying-out of the project in a really worthy manner.

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I understand it has been suggested that the preparation of the collection should be under my direction. I am greatly honoured and I should, as you know, dearly like to undertake the work, although at the moment it is difficult for various reasons for me to say definitely how much time I could give to it. Also until one has done more prospecting it is difficult to know how much work will be involved. You ask me for my views and I will endeavour to give them to you as concisely as possible. (1)  COLLECTION OF MATERIAL This would fall into two parts: (A) Selection of songs already noted and recorded. There appear to be three sources: (i) My own collection made in 1929 and 1930 from which perhaps 150 tunes out of a total of 185 would merit publication. (ii) The Greenleaf-Mansfield collection published by Harvard University Press in 1933. About 60 songs might be taken from this collection if permission can be obtained. (iii) The collection of the National Museum. I am not acquainted with this, but I understand that a fairly extensive collection has been made by Dr. Peacock. I should wish to visit the archives in order to examine the material. The whole of my collection would be available. Although thirty songs have been published by the Oxford University Press the volumes are out of print and the publishers would not place any obstacles in the way of the songs being republished. The position with regard to (ii) and (iii) would have to be gone into. (B) Further Collection of Material The amount of time to be spent on further collection would depend upon how well the ground has been covered by the expeditions that have been organized by the National Museum. I should very much like to do a spell of field-work myself and if it seems desirable I would endeavour to put aside, say, six weeks either in the summer of 1960 or 1961. However, I should not care to undertake the work single-handed and since Dr Peacock has already collected in Newfoundland and knows the region it would seem desirable that we should join forces if this can be arranged. (2) PRESENTATION OF MATERIAL We should aim at the production of a scholarly work on the lines of the Sharp-Karpeles English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, giving the melodies (without added accompaniment) and



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texts of the songs, as sung, together with annotations and, further, all available versions of the songs that are of sufficient interest should be included. As regards the selection of songs this should be restricted to authentic folk songs as distinct from ‘popular’ songs. A certain number of modern ‘composed’ songs might be included provided that they are cast in the traditional style and that the accompanying melodies are either folk tunes or adaptations of them. (3) PUBLICATION I do not know whether the Canada Council is proposing to publish the work itself. It would, I believe, be very difficult to get a commercial publisher to produce the work unless a subsidy were forthcoming; but I understand from Dr Barbeau that the National Museum might possibly consider publication. (4) BUDGET I give below a list of some of the likely items of expenditures, but I have not filled in the amounts. Further inquiries would have to be made before this could be done. (a) Return fare to Newfoundland and Ottawa (b) Expenses in Newfoundland for, say, six weeks (c) Living expenses in Ottawa for, say, four weeks (d) Expenses of co-worker (e) Fees for clerical assistance and transcription of recordings (I should need help with this.) (f) Fees to copyright owners (g) Subsidy for publication (h) Purchase of tape-recording machine Any remuneration that could be offered me would be welcome, but I suggest that we discuss this at a later stage when we have a better idea of how much work will be involved. Something would, of course, have to be allowed to my co-worker in addition to his expenses connected with field-work, but this would no doubt depend upon his relation, if any, with the National Museum. In your letter you suggest advancing me a proportion of the grant, but I should prefer not to accept anything at the present stage. (5) PLAN OF ACTION I think the first step should be to find out what is the position with regard to the National Museum, i.e. the extent of their collection, whether they would be willing to co-operate in the project by placing the material at our disposal, and whether Dr Peacock would be able

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to assist and on what terms. You will, I am sure, agree that we must be careful to avoid any overlapping. Perhaps in due course you would let me know if you would like me to take up the matter with Dr Barbeau. My own part in the work will to a great extent depend upon Dr ­Barbeau’s reply. Provided that the Museum is willing to take an active part – and indeed we should be seriously handicapped if they did not do so – I would suggest that I make a short visit to Newfoundland for further collecting and that I visit the archives of the National Museum at Ottawa in order to examine the material; that I should be responsible for the selection of material; and that I should prepare the book for publication, probably in co-operation with the National Museum. (6) INCLUSION OF FRENCH SONGS There should be a section devoted to French songs and this may be a complication. I have done no collecting in the French-speaking districts and this should be done by a French-speaking scholar. Possibly the best way would be to leave these songs to be published in a later volume. I hope that this rough outline of my ideas will be of some help you. Yours sincerely, Maud Karpeles

J os e p h R . S m a l lwo o d to Emers on, Regardi ng Ke n n e t h P e ac o c k a n d O mar Blondahl (28 De ce m b e r 1 9 5 9 ; J o s e p h R. Smallwood Fonds, Arc h iv e s a n d S p e c ia l C ollecti ons , Queen E l i za b e t h II L ib r a ry, M e mori al Uni versi ty of N e w f o u n dland) My dear Mr Emerson, Thank you very much indeed for your kindness. The words are amusing, and when I get home later today I will find out what the music is like. I am more than curious about the work your friend is doing.9 The inference is that he is compiling Newfoundland ballads. If so it is exciting. I received a long letter a few days ago from the Iceland-CanadianNewfoundland radio ballad singer, Omar Blondahl. He has considerable talent on the radio, and if his letter is accurate he also had quite a bit of experience in the musical and theoretical side of it. I will send you his letter one of these days. With kindest regards. Yours sincerely, J.R. Smallwood



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E me rs o n to J o s e p h R . Smallwood, Regardi ng N e w f o u n d l a n d G ov e r n ment Support for the I n t e r n at io n a l F o l k M u s i c Counci l Conference i n Q u é b e c C it y, a n d t h e “Cultural Ownershi p” of N e w f o u n d l a n d F o l k s ongs (Emerson, S ti rli ng, & G o o d r id g e , S t J o h n ’ s , Newfoundland, 2 June 1960 ; J o s e p h R . S m a l lwo od Fonds , Archi ves and S p e cia l C o l l e c t io n s , Q u een Eli zabeth I I Li brary, M e m o r ia l U n iv e rs it y of Newfoundland) Dear Mr Smallwood, The Canadian Folk Music Society is a Branch of the International Folk Music Society which is holding its Annual Meeting next year at Quebec City. Dr Marius Barbeau, the President of the Canadian Society, has arranged a special Music Festival and Canadian folk music will be featured prominently. I am very anxious that our Newfoundland folk music should be well to the fore at this Festival. I know you will agree with me that our Government should take a special interest in this event as our heritage of folk music is one of the most important contributions that this island can make to the culture of Canada and I think it would be a good thing if the Government made every gesture possible to show how alive this island is to the value of our folk music. Should we fail to do so, there is, I fear, the danger that our music will be ignored. The expense of the Festival will, of course, be very high. The Canada Council is making a generous contribution as is also, I understand, the Government of Quebec. It seems to me that this Government should also contribute. The secretary and moving spirit of the International Folk Music ­Society is Miss Maud Karpeles, whose collection of Newfoundland folk songs published in 1930 really put our music on the map. Several of the songs in this collection such as “She’s like the Swallow” have had worldwide recognition. Apart from French Canada, no province has folk music comparable in musical worth to that of our people. You will excuse my writing to you personally but I do so in the hope that you may have some suggestion about what can be done apart from a financial contribution and when you have thought the matter over, I would very much appreciate hearing from you. I may point out that I have seen “She’s like the Swallow” claimed as the folk music of another province. It is a matter of record that this

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song was collected by Miss Karpeles in the late 1920s and is, in fact, legally her copyright. I feel that our neglect of these songs may result in other provinces claiming some of our best songs. If you would like to discuss this matter with me before referring it to your Government, I would be delighted to call upon you at any time you may find convenient. Yours very truly, Fred R. Emerson

E m e rs o n to S m a l lwo od, S upplementary Cor r e s p o n d e n c e to t he Letter of 2 June 1960 A b ov e ( E m e rs o n , S t i rli ng, Goodri dge & G o o d r id g e , 2 4 J a n uary 1961; Joseph R. S ma l lwo o d F o n d s , A rchi ves and Speci al Col l e c t io n s , Q u e e n E l izabeth I I Li brary, Me m o r ia l U n iv e rs it y o f Newfoundland) Honourable Joseph R. Smallwood Premier of Newfoundland Dear Mr Smallwood, You will remember my informing you some time ago that a Folk Music Festival will be held in Québec next August when the International Folk Music Society holds its annual meeting there. The Canadian branch of the Society of which Mr. Marius Barbeau is President, is organizing this Festival to show what Canada has in the way of folk music and I am anxious that Newfoundland music be prominently featured. A number of distinguished European musicians will be invited, amongst whom, I am glad to say is Miss Maud Karpeles, the Secretary of the International Folk Music Society. You will recall that she visited Newfoundland several times and collected some two hundred songs, the best of which were published in 1934 by the Oxford University Press. We owe to her songs such as “She’s Like the Swallow,” “The Morning Dew,” and others that really placed Newfoundland “on the map” as far as Folk Music is concerned. I need not say that Miss ­Karpeles’ position as an authority on British Folk Music is unique and we in Newfoundland owe her an enormous debt of gratitude. I feel that our government should be officially associated with this Festival. I would have written you before but it is only lately that I



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have had the formal assurance of Dr Kenneth Peacock of Ottawa – a very brilliant collector of folk songs – who has spent a great deal of time in Newfoundland, that Newfoundland songs and music based on them will be prominently featured at the Festival. I understand that you share my feelings that we should identify ourselves with this festival. We have a unique treasure of folk music in Newfoundland and we should not, through lack of interest, weaken our title to it. (I have been told the song “She’s Like the Swallow” which has established itself as one of the best known folk-songs of the English speaking world, was announced as a Nova Scotian song on the radio last summer.) I don’t know if any member of the Government will be in Québec during the festival but if so, and he could conveniently attend officially, I think it might be a valuable gesture. As you know when I was on the Canada Council I did what I could to impress on the Committee the value of our unique heritage of folk music and our interesting musical tradition. I have also been very anxious that our folk music be presented to the public only by competent musicians specializing in that field. I would ask you to consider having a representative at the Festival and making as well a grant towards the expenses. The Canada Council is giving $15,000. The Province of Québec is contributing $5000.00 and Dr Helen Creighton is obtaining a grant from the Nova Scotia Government. Yours very truly, Fred. R. Emerson

Barbe au to E m e rs o n , R e gardi ng the Meeti ngs of t he I n t e r n at io n a l F o l k Musi c Counci l i n Quebec Ci t y ( 2 0 S e p t e m b e r 1 9 6 1 ; Canadi an S oci ety for T radi t io n a l M u s ic F o n d s, Uni versi ty of Calgary L ib r a ry S p e c ia l Collecti ons) Dear Mr Emerson, We missed you greatly at our Québec Conference, which you would have enjoyed with us. It was a great success all round. Inscriptions reached the high figure of 212. And there were many other attendants at the Concert at Palais Montcalm, at the Indian Day of Lorette, at the Canadian Dinner, and the Doctorate awards at the University, and the Governor general’s reception at the Citadel. We were really happy

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together. But Miss Karpeles and I in particular were sorry you were not with us. As you have now come back home, I take it that you are now well on your way to complete recovery. Please let me hear from you! I received your brief communications. We are already planning for the near future of our Canadian Folk Music Society, and we should have our annual meeting some time in the autumn. Greetings and good wishes, Marius Barbeau

E me rs o n to H e l e n C r e i ghton, Regardi ng Mau d K a r p e l e s , F a m ily G uests, and the “Helen Cre i g h to n A d m ir at io n S o ci ety” of Greenfi eld ( “Qu in n ip iac ,” G r e e n f ie ld, Nova S coti a, 11 J u n e 19 7 0 ; H e l e n C r e ig h to n Fonds, Nova S coti a A rc h iv e s a n d R e c o r ds Management) My dear Helen, Maud left Halifax airport just after seven. We saw her enter the plane and then we made for home as Isabel doesn’t relish driving after dark. Poor Maud looked very forlorn and tearful and we felt simply awful. For we knew she had not only the long night flight, but an hour’s trip in a bus to the terminal at Victoria and then a taxi drive to her room. I was very shocked when she arrived as she had aged so much since I had last seen her and it seemed to us that she was getting deafer all the time. However, she was a most delightful and appreciative guest and we were thrilled having her. I, especially, owe her so much hospitality for, for forty years, her house or her flat was a home for me. It is very sad being eighty-five. So many friends are no more and life is no longer easy for the aged now that help is unattainable. Yes, we hated seeing her go. She seemed so alone and pathetic. The Allaires seemed to enjoy themselves. They missed the turning at the bridge and found themselves at Middlefield before they knew where they were. However, they phoned from the county home and we told them what to do. They arrived in a trice for he is a fast driver. They are a delightful pair and thoroughly enjoyed their stay at your house. I can assure you that your hospitality was very greatly appreciated. Clara will be leaving Ottawa when Charles has his holidays on July the 15th.10 She will go to Amherst first and then on to Dartmouth.



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I was wondering if you could bring her down (Don’t hesitate to say if it isn’t quite convenient!) and have lunch with us. I want to have a little party of your local admirers. When I happened to mention to my young gardener that you had been here, he looked at me incredulously and said: “Do you mean DR HELEN CREIGHTON?” When I said “Yes,” he looked at me starry-eyed and said in awed tones: “Do YOU know Doc-tor Helen Creighton?” Even when I said “Yes” again he said: “The author of Bluenose Ghosts?” This time I could only humbly nod my assent and he said: “Gosh! That’s the finest book I ever read.” And he repeated “Gosh!” over and over again and finally said: “Fancy knowing DR HELEN CREIGHTON!” So I told him that when you next came down he must come in and shake hands with you and he left us that day quite the happiest boy in all Queen’s County. And there are the Misses Freeman who share his enthusiasm. It will be a rare treat for them to meet you and they will never forget the experience. So I expect Clara sometime after the 20th. I hope the flies will be over then. They are simply awful this year; probably on account of all the rain. Poor Maud couldn’t put her nose outside the door. The flies made straight for her. She had an awful time with bites. But ... as they say, there is nae rose wi’oot a thorn. It is sweet of you to offer us hospitality. If we can stay overnight any time, we shall let you know. Meanwhile, if you feel like coming here, just phone. Yours, F.

A p p e n d ix fi ve

Frederick R. Emerson, Proud Kate Sullivan (A Drama in One Act)

Gratefully dedicated to R.P. Duder, Esq, and the St. John’s Players Cast of the Original Performance at The Memorial College at St. John’s in December, 1940: AUNT ELLEN Mildred Samson AUNT LIZZIE Kathleen Hayes MARY WHELAN Daphne Pratt KITTY WHELAN Cherry Callanan SMITH Frank Hue WHITE Leslie Dawe GREGORY SULLIVAN Ted Conroy MRS. KATE SULLIVAN Florence Mercer Directed by R.P. Duder SCENE – The kitchen of the Whelan home, near St. John’s. TIME – The present. The action takes place in the kitchen of the old Whelan farmhouse, which is to be thought of as situate some five miles from the city in a small settlement on the Atlantic coast. The kitchen is simply furnished. A fire is blazing on the hearth. In the right hand corner against the wall is a narrow table or bench on which stands a bucket of water. Beneath it is a supply of firewood and above it a cupboard containing some crockery, bread and other provisions. At centre back is a door, which, when open, gives a view over a moonlit field of snow and distant spruce trees. On either side of the door is a window, across which the curtains have been drawn. On the left is a door leading into a bedroom.



Proud Kate Sullivan 277

As the curtain rises Aunt Ellen is examining the lock of the door and Aunt Lizzie is completing the decoration of the walls with small spruce boughs, festoons of red paper and other Christmas decorations. In spite of its simplicity, with the large fire burning on the hearth, the place has quite a festive air. It is a few days before Christmas and about nine o’clock at night. The Whelan farmhouse had been a fine one in its day – perhaps the largest in the settlement, but since the tragic death of Michael Whelan (who had married Aunt Ellen’s sister Mary) and the strange disappearance of the young hired boy, Gregory Sullivan, the old house had long been deserted, as the two children had been sent for by relatives in America. When the play opens the aunts are expecting the return of the two girls and it is in honour of their home-coming that the kitchen is being decorated. When the curtain rises Aunt Ellen is in a boisterous mood and is singing in a rather comical fashion, much appreciated by Aunt Lizzie: ‘The wren, the wren, the king of all birds On St. Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze. Although he is little, his honour is great, Rise up, pretty lady, and give us a treat.’ Perhaps she would have been less aggressively cheerful were it not that Aunt Lizzie is by no means at her ease alone with Aunt Ellen in this house after nightfall. For strange and sinister rumours about this empty house have been current in the settlement for many years. Aunt Ellen is a hearty woman of about sixty with a wealth of good sense. Aunt ­Lizzie is a smaller and somewhat melancholy woman, very much under the domination of the stronger-minded Aunt Ellen. ELLEN: There now. That’s the best I can do with the lock. My Tim could have mended it, if he hadn’t been took sick on me. There isn’t much he can’t do in the way of odd jobs. LIZZIE: That song you’re after singing reminds me of the old days. What times we did be having here, all of us, when we were young! ELLEN: It was Mary  – God rest her soul  – that was the life of the house in those days. LIZZIE: They do say her daughter Mary would be the dead spit of her. ELLEN: If she is, she’s a fine-looking girl. Won’t she be pleased with the house the way it’s all done up with boughs? Well, Christmas is a fine

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time for all its memories and for all we’re no longer as young as we used to be. How would your fire be coming on now, Lizzie? LIZZIE: Oh, it’s burning all right now. ELLEN (continuing her singing): ‘Although he is little, his hon –’ (sharply) What do you mean, “now.” That fire is burning up grand, so it is. LIZZIE: Oh, it was burning up grand yesterday when I lit it. You know what came over it then. ELLEN: I know what you said came over it. Don’t forget that yesterday was the first time a fire was lit in that old chimney this twelve years past. When Tim and I move in here with the two girls, the first thing we’ll do is buy one of those nice big stoves you get in town. (Contemptuously). Of all the dirty old-fashioned chimneys! How would you expect a fire to burn up in it at all, at all? No wonder it went out on you yesterday. But Lizzie, you know if the fire went out in any other house, ’tis nothing at all you’d be thinking about it. LIZZIE: Have it your own way, Ellen, though I must say it didn’t seem to me to go out natural. (Vehemently) Oh, Ellen, I don’t like it. It isn’t right. If you and Tim could be here tonight with the girls it would be different. I say if Tim’s too sick to shift up here then you should be fixing it so the girls can come down and stay with me – or tell them not to come at all, maybe. It isn’t right for two young girls to be all alone, away up here in this big, lonely house, (pauses) this house above all houses! ELLEN (sharply): What’s that? ‘This house above all houses.’ LIZZIE: Well – I don’t like this house. ELLEN (defiantly): And why? LIZZIE (cowed): You know. ELLEN: I know. A lot of nonsense. A lot of silly talk. Although I suppose the place do be looking lonely with no one living in it this twelve years, the long stretch of mash, the big black spruces and all, but – LIZZIE: Ellen, come now and be reasonable. Why don’t we fix up something right now? It isn’t too late to arrange for the girls to sleep down at my place. Sure they can come back here in the morning. This place won’t be so bad in the daytime. The bedroom is not ready anyway. Besides the door don’t lock right. ELLEN: We had this out before, now. Didn’t I read the girls’ letter to you? Sure, ’tis heartbroken they’d be if they couldn’t stay in their own home, and they counting so much on getting, as Mary says, “back to her own hearth.” Of course, not that I mind what the girls do! They can come down to my place if they want to, for that matter. But if Mary’s



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her mother’s daughter, as they do say she is, you and I might as well hold our tongues. You forget it’s up in the States they’ve been reared and up there I don’t suppose they’d believe in all this nonsense about ghosts and haunted houses. And what’s more, I don’t either. Divil a ghost I ever saw – or anyone else, for that matter. LIZZIE: (Intensely): Wasn’t I telling you about the time I saw G ­ regory? I’ll swear I saw him come creeping up out of the mash and walk right up to the door of this house. ELLEN (not much impressed): That poor omadhaun of a Greg – and he dead this twelve years. LIZZIE (with ghoulish delight): Dead he might be, but I saw him myself, creeping up out of the white fog. ELLEN: Out of the fog! How could you tell who it would be in the fog? LIZZIE (in a dramatic whisper): I felt it was Greg. I saw him come creeping up along by the Devil’s Pool, and that’s where they do say he was drowned. He isn’t the first man that’s after being lost in the mash either. Don’t you mind the time poor Pat Rourke was lost, horse and all – his hat and a bit of the catamaran was all they ever found of him. There’s no bottom to the Devil’s Pool and everyone knows that! ELLEN: It would be fifty years ago since Pat Rourke was lost. I always wondered myself whether Greg was really drowned there at all. LIZZIE: Not drowned! Sure, it was his poor mother herself that saw him walk right out into the mash  – saw him sinking and struggling. Didn’t she almost perish herself that very night when she ran out to save him and saw him sink in the bog before her very eyes! ELLEN: Well, something happened  – that we know  – seeing she’ll hardly speak to a soul ever since and she keeping to her bed half the time. LIZZIE: People that do be passing her house in the night have heard her and she crying, “Gregory – Gregory!” And well they know she do be dreaming she’s out in that mash and seeing him drowning and struggling. ELLEN: Oh, stop this nonsense. You give me the creeps. LIZZIE (with a shiver): This place gives me the creeps. I’m sure there was something moving outside a minute ago. I heard steps ... I know I did. ELLEN: ‘Twould be your fancy ... that’s all. I thought something was after upsetting you. LIZZIE: I’m not the only one that says this place is haunted. And I’m not the only one who wonders how Mike met his death. I know the

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judge said the death was accidental – that ’twas off the roof he fell and died right away. But there is some that do say there was more in it than that. I says Greg must have known or seen something he wouldn’t tell and that’s why – the very day poor Mike was buried – he walks out into the bog and drowns himself. ELLEN: That’s all nonsense. Everyone except his poor mother knew Greg was weak in the head. They’re all queer, the Sullivans. Didn’t his mother and all of us grow up together and play in this very farm – and, sure, for the last twelve years she would no more than pass the time of day with you – if that. No one but poor old Mike would have thought of hiring a boy like Greg – let alone bringing him into the family and treating him like his own flesh and blood. LIZZIE: Your sister married a kind man the day she married Mike. (She draws the curtain at window R., peers through it and gives a cry). Look – for the love of heaven – look! ELLEN: At what? LIZZIE (quivering): It’s gone now. Ellen, I saw a black form – a tall black form – standing at the corner of the house. My God! I’m scared. I’m going home. ELLEN: Go, if you like. If you’re not afraid to go down the lane alone. What you saw was just your fancy and it serves you right for talking all this foolish nonsense. I’m going to stay and give the two girls a real welcome. – Well, it’s past nine now and Dick will be bringing them along any moment. Come on, Lizzie, pull yourself together and cheer up. You look as if you are after seeing a ghost. LIZZIE (sotto voce): Maybe I have. ELLEN: I wonder now who the girls will take after  – their mother’s family or the Whelans. Both the Whelans and the Kellys had looks to their credit and I’d be disappointed if both of the girls didn’t turn out – LIZZIE: If they turn out as good-looking as your poor sister was, they’ll be all right. What a shame it was, she dying when the girls were just babies; and then poor Mike dying so soon after and they so small. ELLEN: ’Twas sad indeed, but you must take the rough with the smooth in this life. We were glad enough when those relations in the States with all their money wrote down and sent for them. And the girls were lucky to have Tim and me to look after the old home for them against the day they’d be wanting to come back. Oh, Lizzie, it’s longing I am to see my sister’s two girls! Tim and myself are getting on now and



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it’ll be fine having young people about. (Sleigh bells are heard outside) – I hear sleigh bells – there they are! They are coming! (Enter Mary and Kitty Whelan. They are very excited and their faces are glowing after the drive in the keen, frosty air). MARY: Hello, everybody! ELLEN: Come right in. MARY: Aunt Ellen. It is marvelous to see you again. KITTY: And Aunt Lizzie! (Embraces her). MARY: Dead old Aunt Lizzie. How are you? ELLEN: Come over, Kitty, my child, till I have a good look at you. MARY: But where is Uncle Tim? ELLEN: Sure, Tim is all right. Took sick a week ago but coming on grand now. Still in bed though. Doctor’s orders. KITTY: How lovely the old place looks. We had a wonderful drive down here – I never saw a side-sleigh before. MARY: Oh, we were so excited when we heard the sleigh bells. KITTY: They’re terribly romantic. And how are you, Aunt Ellen? ELLEN: Fine child. But I’ve been up a lot of nights with your Uncle Tim the way I haven’t been able to get only one bedroom ready. LIZZIE: And we are after decorating the place with spruce boughs the way it will all look nice and Christmassy. ELLEN: And your aunt’s after baking you a grand gingerbread cake. MARY: Oh – isn’t it a lovely cake! Just like mother used to make! (Enter Dick with suitcases, boxes, a small portable gramophone, etc.) ELLEN: Come on in, Dick. Pull the door to and give yourself a warm by the fire. (Dick enters the room somewhat apprehensively and with obvious curiosity). (To Mary) Well, if it isn’t the living image of your mother you are! We were saying ’twas only like yesterday your poor mother and all of us were girls together. The fun we’d have! And the snow – you don’t get winters now like we’d be having in them days. And such friends we all were ... Kate Sullivan, your Aunt Liz and all of us! LIZZIE: Sure and we were! Kitty’s her father all over again  – same dark eyes like all the Whelans. ELLEN: Well, warm yourselves, both of ye, after the cold drive from town. I hope you’re not after forgetting the lock I told you to bring. You didn’t! Good! Well, perhaps Dick would be good enough to stop staring like a great big gawk and put it on for us.

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DICK: I don’t be very handy with them locks. (Examines lock slowly). No, I don ‘t think I can. Me brother Pat’ll come up in the morning and ’tis glad he’ll be to fix it for ye. MARY: But it doesn’t matter. Why, I thought you people down here didn’t ever have to lock your doors. LIZZIE: And no more we would before the war. Nowadays they’d steal the cross off a donkey’s back, so they would. (Sudden sound of sleigh bells. Dick rushes to the door). DICK: Holy Saints! Me horse is after running away on me. Well, I’ll catch him. Don’t worry! (Exit hastily). ELLEN (watching from the open door): He’ll catch the horse all right. Sure he will. Ah! he’s got him. LIZZIE: Who ever knew Dick’s old horse to run off like that before. That settles it. Those two girls are coming back with me this night, Ellen. Now girls, since your Uncle Tim’s after turning sick the way your poor Aunt can’t leave him, I think you’d better be coming down and sleeping at my place. ’Tis only a shakedown I can give you to be sure; but you’ll be more comfortable. MARY: Oh, no! Not at all – thanks all the same. We couldn’t put you out. Besides, Kitty and I have been counting the hours until we got home again. Oh, we can’t leave here now, can we, Kitty? KITTY: We’ve been dreaming of this first day back. There’s no place like Newfoundland, is there? ELLEN: Well, they do say a Newfoundlander is never happy away from his own country. You can bring the bed in here anyway, if you want to. I thought the rooms would be cold and with your uncle sick and all I hadn’t time ... . MARY: But everything is grand (looking around) and everything all ready for us. Wood for the fire; water. Oh, we must stay here. We must sleep in our own house the first night we are back. LIZZIE (slyly): But it’s lonely, perhaps. KITTY: We don’t mind that. Besides, in the States we used to go camping a lot. We’re used to the woods. MARY: Of course. We’ll be very happy and comfortable here. ELLEN: Well, I must be getting off. I told Tim I’d be back at nine and here it is, getting on for ten. MARY: I’m afraid it was all our fault. We kept Dick waiting for us in town while we were buying that lock. LIZZIE: Are you sure now you won’t feel strange – all alone up here?



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MARY: Good heavens, no! Besides, we’re not so very isolated, you know. There’s a house just up the road. I saw a light in it. LIZZIE: That’s poor Mrs. Sullivan’s. You remember her, of course. She’s well-nigh bedridden, for all that she’s no older than I am. Do you mind her son Greg that used to be the boy about here? MARY: Of course I remember  – Aunt Kate Sullivan. People used to call her “the proud Mrs. Sullivan,” didn’t they? And Greg – he was a bit simple, I remember. He used to play with us when were children. Wasn’t he drowned? ELLEN (interrupting): Well, well. I must be going. Be sure and come down and see us the first thing in the morning. It’s fair dying your uncle is to see the two of ye. KITTY: We’ll be down. (Ellen and Lizzie kiss the girls good-bye and depart. Ellen is anxious to get back to her husband, Lizzie unwilling to leave the girls alone). KITTY (enthusiastically): It’s just like heaven being back here again, Mary. A house of our own – our own hearth – our own folk around us. MARY: Haven’t we dreamed of this day, Kitty? What a lovely old place it is! Dear old Aunt Ellen hasn’t changed a bit. Or Aunt Lizzie either. The place seems a bit smaller than I thought it was. KITTY: I love those old-fashioned fireplaces. I’d quite forgotten how warm they are. MARY: And the Christmas decorations! Oh, we must have a real Christmas party and have all the people we used to know in. We can dance to the gramophone. KITTY: That’ll be grand! Well, let’s unpack and get ready for bed. Then we can talk by the fire. MARY: Let’s. (They unpack. They are very gay and excited. A sudden knock at the door gives them a start. Mary opens it. Enter White and Smith, two rather suspicious looking men, who are obviously awkward all ill at ease). WHITE: I wonder if we might trouble you for a drink of water, Miss. MARY: Certainly. (Goes to the bucket and fills a cup with water). You’re from town, I expect? WHITE: Yes. We’ve just been taking a tramp in the country. MARY: It’s a long way there and back. SMITH: Oh, we don’t mind that. We’re used to it. That’s a grand warm fire you have. (Curiously) Would you girls be all alone?

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M. AND K. (exchanging glances): Yes ... no. MARY: We’re expecting our uncle back every minute. We thought you were him when you knocked. SMITH: Oh, he lives here now, does he? (He takes their silence for consent). WHITE: You haven’t seen anybody snooping around, I suppose? MARY: No, of course not. What do you mean? WHITE: Nothing. SMITH: We’re looking for our little dog. He ran ahead of us and we lost him. We thought we saw him run up towards this house. White there thought he saw him run in the door. MARY: No, we saw no dog. SMITH (persistently): But he might have crept in unbeknownst. WHITE: He couldn’t have gone into this room, could he? (Pointing to the bedroom door). SMITH: You have just been in there, perhaps? MARY: No. But if you think he’s here you can look inside. (White enters room by the light of a torch, Smith follows with a lamp). MARY: This is very odd. Don’t let on we are alone, Kitty. KITTY: Of course not. But it’s funny their looking for a dog like that. MARY: I don’t like the look of them at all. It all seems mysterious to me. What are they really looking for? (Re-enter Smith and White) SMITH: Nothing there. Well, we will be off again. Sorry to disturb you, Miss. Good night. WHITE: Good night. MARY (watching from the window): Well, they’re gone. I don’t suppose they are up to any mischief, do you? KITTY: Lock the door. MARY: I can’t lock it. KITTY: Well, put a table against it. MARY: Nonsense. It’s only a quarter to eleven and these men were taking a tramp, just as they said. Didn’t you notice the frozen snow on their pants? Anyway, they have gone now. (Picking up the glass). They didn’t drink much water, I see. KITTY: Well, come on and let’s get ready for bed. I’ll put the glass back for you. (Crosses to cupboard). Here is the wood all cut for the morning and here is the water from the well. I’ll put out the tea and some eggs and here is the milk. Everything will be ready for breakfast.



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MARY: Let’s sit in the firelight for a little while. (They sit by the fire). How cozy and warm it all is! I expect it will be pretty cold when we get up in the morning and have to light the fire. (Pause). KITTY (suddenly): Mary, I don’t believe that man was looking for a dog at all. MARY: Well, what does it matter. (Yawns). I’m sleepier than I thought I was. I don’t think I’ll stay up and talk much longer. KITTY: But if they were thirsty, why didn’t they drink? MARY: Oh, do be quiet! I am half dead with sleep. The air is so heavy. It’s the smell of the firs and spruce. (There is a pause. Mary is obviously overcome with sleep, Kitty is restless). KITTY (after a pause): Are you asleep, Mary? (No reply. There is a long silence, during which Kitty obviously grows more and more apprehensive. Then in the distance Mrs. Sullivan is heard crying, “Gregory, Gregory,” in a low, melancholy voice). KITTY (in a whisper): Listen Mary! Did you hear that? MARY: No ... I ... heard ... nothing. (There is a sound of footsteps. Kitty crosses stage to R. window. She peers out but does not see Mrs. Sullivan, as she is already in the doorway, She is very ill and leans heavily on a stick. Under one arm she has a basket of food. Her face is very white and her eyes distraught). MRS. S. (In a hollow voice): Gregory, Gregory! ’Tis your mother calling you, Gregory, my boy! (She advances as she speaks, not seeing at first the two girls who look at her with horror. Mrs. Sullivan suddenly sees them. She stares at Mary with awe). MARY (Slowly – as she recognizes Mrs. S.): Mrs. Sullivan! MRS. S. (Terrified): Mary Whelan! Are you Mary Whelan back from the grave? MARY: I am Mary Whelan, all right, but I am as alive as you are. This is my sister Kitty. (Mrs. Sullivan after a pause recovers herself. She sits down at the table exhausted). MRS. S.: Glory be to God, child! I thought you were your mother. Of course, Mary and Kitty. Poor Mary Whelan’s little girls, all grown up. KITTY (Her teeth chattering): You gave us a great shock creeping in like that, Mrs. Sullivan. MRS. S.: Did I, my child? But, sure, I never knew there was anyone here at all, at all. But, sez you, why did you come? Well now, my dears,

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it’s hard to explain it all. For it’s a sick woman I’ve been this many a year. It’s in my sleep I must have been walking. That is, more or less, my dears. But don’t tell anyone now, will you? Don’t tell on a poor old woman and make her the laughing stock of the place. You see, my dears, I saw the light burning over here and I must have fallen asleep wondering about it. Just fancy it being you two! And aren’t you the grand-looking young ladies! Are you come back here to stay for good and all? MARY: We hope so. We only arrived an hour or so ago from away. Aunt Ellen has been fixing the place up for us. MRS. S. (As if suddenly remembering something and glancing nervously about): Well! I must be getting along. Don’t tell a soul that you saw me now, will you? It’s glad I am to see you and no mistake. (Rising). (Confidentially) I have not been very strong in body or mind since my poor boy went. MARY (Sympathetically): I remember Greg when he used to live here with us. Aunt said he died the same day poor father was buried. Of course we didn’t know it then, we were too young to realize it all. MRS. S. (Very slowly): Aye. Dead – dead to all the world except me. (Pause). Well, I must be getting along. MARY: We will go home with you. MRS. S. (Quickly): I couldn’t think of it. I live so close. It’ll be all right; quite, quite all right. To think of it – Mary Whelan’s girls – grown up and all. (To Mary, who is preparing to dress – with sudden vehemence). I won’t have you coming with me, I won’t have it. MARY: (Yielding with reluctance): Well, just as you like, Mrs. Sullivan. MRS. S. (Repentantly): My dear, it’s a sick old woman I am and no mistake, but I’m used to looking after myself. You must let me have my way. Now good night. God be with ye both. Good night! MARY AND KITTY: Good night! (Exit Mrs. Sullivan). MARY: Well, Mrs. Sullivan isn’t as bedridden as our aunts would have us believe! She didn’t frighten you, did she, Kitty, coming in like that? KITTY (With a forced laugh): No – not really – only at first. Now I really am going to turn in. MARY: In two minutes I’ll be dead to the world. First I’m going to close that door as best I can. You can turn down the light. (Goes into bedroom with suitcase and candle). Don’t be long! (There is silence). But Kitty is obviously restless. After a long pause she calls out softly: KITTY: Mary? You didn’t hear anything, did you? (There is no reply. Suddenly the fire goes out. There is no light now except the light of the lamp, which has been turned low and faint moonlight through R. window).



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KITTY (Nervously): Mary, the fire has gone out – right black out. MARY (Putting her head through the doorway): The fire gone out? (Sleepily) well, what of it? KITTY: Well, it’s horribly dark here and it’s getting very cold. MARY: (Waking herself with difficulty): That’s odd, that big blazing fire. But of course! The chimney has not been used for a long time, I expect. KITTY (Pause): The fire seemed all right a minute ago, didn’t it? MARY: Yes, yes. But what difference does it make, anyway? KITTY: Wasn’t it strange Mrs. Sullivan coming in like that. MARY: Now be quiet, Kitty, come on to bed. (Pause. Kitty looks around and shivers apprehensively. She doesn’t see Greg pass the window because she is bending to pick up a suitcase. A hand appears around the knob of the door. Greg Sullivan enters and walks to the front of the stage. He is obviously quite mad. Kitty regards him in terror and stifles a scream. Mary enters from bedroom). GREG (In a hoarse voice – with staring eyes): I’ve come back ... I’ve come back. I’ve come through fire. I’ve come through water. I’ve come through water. Here is peace. Here is peace. (Suddenly calling out) ­Skipper Mike, Skipper Mike, here I am! It’s poor Greg. Come back, ­Skipper Mike, like I done. Come back to the old house. MARY: Don’t be afraid Kitty. It is Greg Sullivan. Turn up the lamp. (The girls approach Greg). Greg, Greg, don’t you know me? GREG (Looking at her vacantly, then addressing an imaginary master): Oh, Skipper Mike! It’s the Missus. She is come back to us out of the grave. Oh, Skipper Mike! The old days are coming back – the old days of joy and plenty! Where are the little girls with their white dresses and long hair? MARY (Very gently): My poor Greg, you don’t quite understand. We are the little girls. We are Mary and Kitty. We are grown up. The little girls have grown up. GREG (Louder): Skipper Mike, Skipper Mike, tell her she lies! Tell her the old days are after coming back! (Greg advances to the centre of the stage and cries out suddenly in a blood-curdling voice so unexpectedly that the girls shrink back in terror). GREG: Mother! Mother! Where are you, Mother? I’m hungry. I’m cold. (Breaking down). I’m tired. KITTY: Oh Mary, this is horrible! He looks as though he was someone from the dead.

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MARY: Greg dear, don’t cry. Do be quiet; Kitty, give him some of the gingerbread that Aunt Lizzie brought. (Pause) Look, Gregory, we have some nice gingerbread for you. GREG: (Weeping): Mother, I’m so tired! I’m so hungry! MARY: Where have you been Gregory? Where have you come from? GREG (Staring slowly round and speaking as if in a dream): A long way off, in the big house beyond the town, where ... . MARY (Quickly): I know, I know. Now Gregory, if you will be very quiet we will have something nice to eat and we will all go over to you mother’s. We know she will be glad to see you. GREG (Half understandingly): Oh, she’ll come here. She’ll come. She always knows when I’m here and comes to me. I can’t go to her. KITTY: Why Greg? GREG: They’d put her in jail, maybe. Or even in the big house. No one must know. I’ll call her. (He advances to the front of the stage and calls as before, only louder. The girls instinctively hold hands). GREG (Loudly): I call ye to me! I want ye, Mother! (He bursts into tears. There is a pause). KITTY: Oh, Mary, this is horrible! I can’t stand it. MARY: (Mastering herself with an obvious effort): I don’t know what to do. Listen! (Footsteps are heard). GREG (In ecstasy by now): I said she’d be coming. She is coming. Mother! (Knock at the door). MARY: Come in, Mrs. Sullivan, come in. (The door opens. Smith and White stand in the doorway). WHITE: Ah, here you are! Come with us and don’t let us have no nonsense either. Come along with us. Don’t be frightened, Miss. Sure, he’s as quiet as a lamb. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He makes a getaway like this every now and again but we know he always comes here. Sometimes he comes back to us of his own accord. SMITH (With heavy jocularity): This is not the uncle you were expecting, is it? Did he give you a fright? I saw him coming across the marsh but I had to go down by the road, the round-about way. Come on now, Greg Sullivan. You can take the gingerbread with you, if you like. (Greg, a pathetic, shrinking little figure, follows them. He doesn’t seem able to grasp the fact that he is to take the gingerbread). SMITH: Good night, Miss.



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MARY: Good-bye, Gregory. We were glad to see you again. Wait! Here is some candy for you to take with you. (Greg takes the sweets in silence. Then he smiles for the first time and takes the hand she holds out. The door opens and Mrs. Sullivan enters). MRS. S.: Greg, Greg, my poor Greg! And are you come back to me again. (To the girls). Don’t mind him, girls. It’s only my poor Greg. You see, he’s never been able to understand that the Skipper is dead, although it was seeing him fall and watching him die that made him like this. He comes back every now and again to look for his Skipper Mike. (To Greg) Are you hungry, boy? Are you tired? Look at the basket of nice things I’m after bringing you. (To Smith and White): It won’t hurt to let him stay here a few minutes. He’s always quiet, aren’t you, Greg? GREG (In a soft ecstatic voice): Mother, the old days are coming back – the days of peace and plenty. The old house is coming alive again. MRS. S.: Sure, lad. I know it. GREG: It will be all again just as it used to be – joy, peace. All as it was. But I am after changing, Mother. Ever since the day they buried Skipper Mike – the day I went out into the foggy mash – I am after changing. The mists of the bogland have got into me and my heart is frozen – and my eyes are frozen too the way I can’t see straight half the time. Mother, it’s terrible to change like this – inside. MRS. S. (Weeping): I know, boy, I know. But God is good and He’ll make it right in time. We must be patient. GREG: Yes, Mother, all will be as it used to be – but it’s myself that’s changed. And changed so that this is not the right place for me any more. I must go – I must go back. (To Smith and White): Let me go back to the big house beyond the town. It’s all right there. Mother, I’m going along with them. I don’t belong here any more. (Exit with Smith and White). MARY: Poor Greg – the lad we used to play with as children, Kitty! KITTY: I thought, Mrs. Sullivan, you said Greg was dead. MRS. S.: Dead he is – dead to all the world except me – and now you. Promise me, girls, you’ll never tell them down there that Gregory is still alive and like he is. I couldn’t bear for the people round here to know. MARY: But it is no shame, Mrs. Sullivan ... MRS. S.: I know it’s God’s will, child. I can bear it, and it’s a hard cross to bear. He was such a pretty baby – I was so proud of him. He’s all I’ve had to care for this many a year. When you get old and a great sorrow like this comes to you, you find out you’re alone, yes, all alone. But what

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Appendix Five

I couldn’t stand would be if every time the people down here saw me, they said, “There she goes – and her only boy’s ... like that!” MARY: You’re very brave, Mrs. Sullivan. MRS. S. Brave, child, or proud – God knows! MARY: Well, of course, we shan’t say anything about this to anybody. (The voices of Aunt Ellen and Aunt Lizzie are heard off-stage. Aunt Ellen calls). AUNT ELLEN: And can we come in? (She enters and is amazed to see Mrs. Sullivan). AUNT ELLEN: Kitty Sullivan, by all that’s – MARY (Quickly): Wasn’t it nice of her? She saw the lights burning up here and she came to see what it was all about. She came to welcome us home – didn’t you, Mrs. Sullivan? MRS. S.: As if it would matter if I welcomed you or not! MARY: But it does, it does! Don’t you understand that we’ve come home ... back to our own folks ... You were my own mother’s closest friend ... you are all we have of her ... your welcome makes her live again for us. MRS. S. God bless you for saying that, child! What those words mean to me you’ll never know. AUNT ELLEN (coming back to the world of action): Well, well ... now, girls, your uncle won’t hear of your staying up here alone by yourselves. He says you’ve got to come down and spend the night at our place. We’ll fix you up comfortable, somehow. KITTY (in a practical voice): That’s a very good idea (They both proceed to dress hastily). AUNT LIZZIE: And what did I say? MARY: Well, girls get frightened easily, you know ... AUNT LIZZIE: Just what I said ... . MARY: And the Whelans are inclined to be a little fanciful, perhaps. AUNT L.: I always said ... AUNT ELLEN (brusquely): You’ve always said too much and most of it was nonsense. AUNT L.: But it wasn’t nonsense when I said we’d better be coming back after all and bring the girls home with us, was it? (They prepare to depart). Come on girls. MRS. S.: Well, it’s a grand home you have waiting for you. AUNT L. (Aside): There are them that thinks different. MARY: Yes, Mrs. Sullivan, it’s home! Our home; our father’s house and our mother’s house. It’s had its days of sorrow – but it had its days of joy.



Proud Kate Sullivan 291

KITTY (looking at Mary with shining eyes): You are right, Mary. When you get to understand that, well, you can’t feel afraid in it any more, can you? (Exit Aunt Ellen and Aunt Lizzie) MRS. S.: Afraid, is it? ’Tis well for you you’d know what ails you. For twelve long years I’ve thought ’twas a proud woman I was, but now I know I was just – afraid. K.: Afraid ... ? MRS. S.: Yes, child, afraid. Afraid to face the sorrow God had put on me. ’Twas my father used to say that God sends us sorrows and He sends us the strength to bear them. But it’s only now I see the way the strength comes to us. You see, when this trouble came on me, I shut myself away from all my friends and that’s a lonely thing for a body to do – every year I’d get lonelier and lonelier and life would grow drearier. Proud I was – too proud to share my sorrow with my friends. Now I see that ’tis from the friends around you that the strength comes. ’Tis sharing their small joys and being closer to them all that heals your own sorrow. Down here aren’t we all just one large family? K: I think I understand. MARY: We’re ready now, Mrs. Sullivan. We’ll all walk down the road together. MRS. S. (Happily): Down the road together! Sure and we will – Mary Whelan’s two girls and – proud Kate Sullivan.

A p p e n d ix si x

Selected Musical Works of Frederick R. Emerson

In Flanders Fields Words by John McCrae

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Music by Frederick R. Emerson (1895-1972)

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9

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Frederick R. Emerson (1895-1972)

2 28

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54

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48

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60

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> œ œ œœ

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2

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∑

Notes

Prelude 1 Story, public oration on the conferring of an honourary degree upon ­Frederick Rennie Emerson, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 27 May 1972. 2 Doyle (1892–1956) was a native of King’s Cove, Bonavista Bay, and one of Newfoundland’s most prominent business leaders. His company, ­Gerald S. Doyle Limited, was incorporated in 1929 and included among its business interests the manufacture and bottling of cod liver oil. With a lifelong passion for Newfoundland culture and folklore, Doyle collected songs, music, and poetry and subsequently published them his landmark Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland (1927, 1940, 1955, 1966, and 1978). The Doyle songsters were central to the popularization of an emerging canon of Newfoundland folksongs and helped shape the perception of Newfoundland folk music in Canada during the post-Confederation era. In 1926 he established a monthly newsletter entitled The Family Fireside. which disseminated community information and local folklore to readers island-wide, and in November 1932 inaugurated the Gerald S. Doyle News Bulletin on newly founded radio station VONF. The Doyle News broadcast local news, weather reports and personal messages across Newfoundland. For his multi-faceted contributions to Newfoundland society, Doyle received a Papal Knighthood of the Order of St Gregory the Great and was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. (Guigné, Introduction to Gerald S. Doyle’s Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland, vii–xi.) 3 Scammell, interestingly, was a Memorial University College student during the early 1930s and may well have heard one of Emerson’s early

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music lectures there. His contributions to Newfoundland culture, in particular the influence of his iconic song “Squid Jiggin’ Ground,” are explored in chapter 7. MacLeod’s multifaceted contributions to Newfoundland culture are explored in chapters 4 and 8. Interestingly, several members of this intellectual circle were close acquaintances who met on a regular basis to share ideas and engage in creative acts. The home of Gerald S. Doyle, in particular, was the scene of many such gatherings in which song sessions and poetry recitations were frequently held (not unlike a modern Newfoundland version of the nineteenth-century Parisian salon). Smallwood, ed. The Book of Newfoundland. Gould’s Newfoundland-inspired radio documentary The Latecomers (1969) was one of three “contrapuntal radio documentaries” (a personalized hybrid of radio documentary, drama, and music) that comprised his Solitude Trilogy. The other documentaries were The Idea of North (1967) and The Quiet in the Land (1977) (the latter dealing with the Mennonites of Manitoba). (Bazzana, Payzant, and Beckwith, “Glenn Gould.”) Emerson Furlong, personal communication. Jessup, Nurse, and Smith, eds, Introduction to Around and About Marius Barbeau, 2. Canadian composer Howard Cable (b. 1920) visited Newfoundland in 1947 with his colleague (and former teacher) Leslie Bell (1906-1962). As discussed in chapter 9, they met with Emerson (and others) to solicit opinions on Newfoundland folksongs and the results of their findings spawned an array of creative responses that helped shape the way Newfoundland culture was perceived by Canadians post-1949. See, for example, Best and Morgan’s work in Lehr, ed., Come and I Will Sing You: A Newfoundland Song Book, and Russell’s two-volume collection entitled The Fiddle Music of Newfoundland & Labrador. Among the many recordings one could mention are Best and Morgan’s The Colour of Amber, Payne’s Empty Nets, and a folk-rock fusion album entitled Kelly Russell and the Planks. Ryan’s Fancy was founded in 1970 by Dermot O’Reilly, Fergus O’Byrne, and Denis Ryan. Both O’Reilly and O’Byrne were previously members of the Sons of Erin, another popular Irish folk group active in Toronto in the late 1960s. Ryan’s Fancy became one of Canada’s best-known Irish bands, travelling throughout Canada, the United States, and Ireland and releasing twelve albums before disbanding in 1983 (Wade, “Fergus Anthony O’Byrne,” and Graham, “Dermot Anthony O’Reilly.”) O’Byrne



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has remained a dynamic force in the Newfoundland music scene through his many collaborations with local musicians and active involvement with the St John’s Folk Arts Council and Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival. In 2011, a disc entitled What A Time: Ryan’s Fancy, a Forty Year Celebration was released by Singsong Inc. of St John’s. Blondahl (1923–1993), a native of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, lived in St John’s from 1955 to 1964 and was best known to his listening audience by the adopted pseudonym of “Sagebrush Sam.” Blondahl worked with local radio station VOCM during his time in Newfoundland and subsequently recorded nearly fifty songs from the third edition of Doyle’s Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland. He also collected songs, composed songs about life in Newfoundland, and published a songbook entitled Newfoundlanders Sing!: A Collection of Favourite Newfoundland Folksongs. In describing Blondahl’s legacy, Neil Rosenberg notes that he was “the first full-time professional performer to specialize in Newfoundland folksongs, and the single individual most responsible for introducing the guitar as the accompanying instrument for folksongs in Newfoundland.” (Rosenberg, “Omar Blondahl’s Contribution to the Newfoundland Folksong Canon,” 20) Since the inaugural event in 1977, the annual Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival has grown into an internationally acclaimed festival that attracts performers and audience members worldwide to share in the province’s rich folk culture. Held annually each August in the outdoor venue of Bannerman Park in St John’s, the Festival is a much anticipated summer celebration in the Newfoundland capital. Founded in 1966, the St John’s Folk Arts Council subsequently changed its name to the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council before adopting the current moniker of The Folk Arts Society in 2008. In addition to organizing and presenting the annual Folk Festival, the Society hosts a weekly “Folk Night” in St John’s. See Quigley, Music from the Heart: Compositions of a Folk Fiddler for a detailed account of Benoit’s legacy, and Russell, Rufus Guinchard: The Man & His Music, for further information on the latter. Performances by Benoit, Guinchard, and White have been preserved on recordings such as Vive la Rose (Benoit), Humouring the Tunes (Guinchard, with Jim Payne), and The Hills of Home (White). Named for a popular local pudding, Figgy Duff was founded in 1975 by Noel Dinn (piano, drums), Pamela Morgan (vocals), with Philip Dinn (vocals, percussion), Kelly Russell (violin), Art Stoyles (accordion), and Dave Panting (mandolin, bass guitar). The band rose to international

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prominence during the 1980s and 1990s with their critically acclaimed recordings and live performances. The Wonderful Grand Band (WGB) was founded in 1977 by Ron Hynes, Kelly Russell, Bryan Hennessey, Rocky Wiseman, and Sandy Morris. Its origins can be traced to a weekly CBC television program entitled The Root Cellar, which featured traditional musicians such as Rufus ­Guinchard, Emile Benoit, and Minnie White. Later musicians to join the group included Jamie Snider, Glenn Simmons, Ian Perry, Boomer Stamp, Howie Warden, Steve Annan, and Kevin McNeil. An eclectic mixture of comedy and rock music rooted in Newfoundland culture, the group featured an acclaimed cast of comedians that included Tommy Sexton, Greg Malone, Mary Walsh, and Cathy Jones (of whom Walsh and Jones are perhaps best known for their more recent work with the CBC television program This Hour Has 22 Minutes). Following the release of the group’s self-titled debut album in 1978 and the airing of an immensely popular local television program in 1980, a second album, Living in a Fog was released in 1981. After disbanding in the 1980s, WGB reunited for a benefit concert in 1993. More recently, in 2009, several of the musicians joined forces once more for a much anticipated reunion tour. (Wonderful Grand Band website, www.wonderfulgrandband.com.) Similar tendencies can be discerned in the recent music of folk-inspired groups such as the Irish Descendants, Rawlins Cross, and The Punters, among others. Great Big Sea was founded in St John’s, Newfoundland, in 1993 by Sean McCann, Alan Doyle, Bob Hallett, and Darrell Power. The group has achieved unprecedented commercial success for a band rooted in the Newfoundland folk music tradition. Most of their albums have received gold or platinum certification (a rare distinction for a group specializing in traditional music) and their engaging live performances have attracted large concert audiences throughout North America and Europe. Among the more prominent musicians and musical groups from Cape Breton that have fused aspects of popular and traditional music are fiddlers Ashley MacIsaac and Natalie MacMaster, the Rankin Family, and the Barra MacNeils. Gwyn, “The Newfoundland Renaissance,” 38–45. The Union Jack remained the official flag of Newfoundland and Labrador until 1980, when it was replaced by the current flag designed by artist Christopher Pratt. The new design, in turn, incorporates aspects of the Union Jack as emblematic of Newfoundland’s colonial heritage.



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23 For a detailed account of Weinzweig’s life and music, see Keillor, John Weinzweig and His Music: The Radical Romantic of Canada. 24 McGee, The Music of Canada, 113–14. 25 For further discussion of related topics, see Rosenberg, “The Canadianization of Newfoundland Folksong; or the Newfoundlandization of Canadian Folksong.” 26 For related examples, see Colton, “Great Big Sea.” 27 Berland writes: “Canada appears in postwar transnational media culture in two distinct discursive contexts. In the first, Canada is a model international citizen responsible for founding the United Nations and initiating an international peacekeeping force… In the second discourse, Canada is a poignant instance of what happens when a country loses control of its media and natural resources. Here Canada is a colony that struggled to become a nation and disappeared back into a colony… American political humour seems to bring these two meanings together. We could invade Canada, but it wouldn’t matter, and anyway we already have.” (North of Empire: Essays on the Cultural Technologies of Space, 2–3.) 28 Similar perceptions have informed government policy in Canada since the mid-1950s. Motivated by the fear that Canada’s cultural industries were under threat of absorption into the mass culture of the United States, the federal government enacted legislation to actively support and promote Canadian popular music. Although slow to evolve, a defining moment came in January 1970 when the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruled that 30 percent of all music radio programming must be Canadian (i.e., that at least two of the following criteria applied: the music was composed by a Canadian, the lyrics were written by a Canadian, the music was performed by a Canadian, or the music was recorded in Canada. The legislation produced mixed results and was not welcomed by all Canadian musicians (Shepherd, “Government, Politics, and Popular Music in Canada,” 314.) 29 The irony of the “Anti-Confederation Song” appearing in Fowke and ­Johnston’s Folk Songs of Canada likewise has a parallel in the Guess Who’s invitation to perform at the seemingly unlikely venue of the White House in Washington shortly after the commercial success of “American Woman.” 30 Hynes, Songs of Ron Hynes, vol. 1, 26–7. 31 The film, a production of Black Spot, Inc., was written by Edward Riche, directed by Michael Jones, and produced by Paul Pope and Mike Mahoney, with music by Hynes and Paul Steffler. The production featured a number of well-known Newfoundland actors, including Andy Jones,

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Cathy Jones, Mary Walsh, Kevin Noble, Robert Joy, and Rick Mercer, among others, while Hynes also acted in the film. (National Film Board of Canada website,www.nfb.ca.) Peacock, unpublished letter to Barbeau, 11 February 1959. Historian Keith Matthews has offered the following observations in this regard: “Today Newfoundland is a province of Canada and many might feel that we cannot talk of it as a nation at all. All will admit that Newfoundlanders share a certain outlook on life; an attitude towards themselves and others which mark them out from other Canadians, but that nevertheless they are not a nation but a region within the larger nation. In that case should we not talk about the rise of Newfoundland regionalism or group Newfoundland identity rather than a Newfoundland nationalism? This may be true today, but we must remember that between 1855 and 1949 Newfoundland was as much a nation as any other part of the Commonwealth and Empire – certainly as much as Canada or the mainland colonies – and that its identity developed before and during that period of separation.” (Lectures on the History of Newfoundland, 1500– 1830, 181.) Taruskin, “Nationalism,” 689. Reeves, History of the Government of the Island of Newfoundland, 1. Emerson, “Some Thoughts on Nationalism.” Thomsen, Nationalism in Stateless Nations: Images of Self and Other in Scotland and Newfoundland, 56. For sociologist Anthony P. Cohen, Newfoundland’s geographical insularity and historical isolation have provided a context for “a communality over and above the enormous internal variety and diversity in which Newfoundlanders have always rejoiced.” (Cohen, “The Anthropology of Proximate Cultures: The Newfoundland School and Scotland,” 221). While “rejoicing in diversity” may be perhaps somewhat of an overstatement, given sectarian conflicts of the past (the combatants in the infamous Harbour Grace Affray of 1883 could hardly be characterized as “rejoicing in diversity”), the notion of communality continues to resonate in the twenty-first century. Beckwith, Music Papers, 94. Paddon came to Labrador from England in 1912 to undertake medical missionary work with Sir Wilfred Grenfell. Montague’s version appeared on a 1993 album entitled Our Labrador, with Inuktitut and Innu-Aimun translations by Margaret Metcalfe and Ann Rich, respectively. Between 1954 and 1975 there were three government-sponsored resettlement programs introduced in Newfoundland and Labrador that resulted



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in the abandonment of approximately 300 communities (mostly small, isolated fishing communities) and the relocation of approximately 30,000 people. Motivated by a government agenda that saw economic potential in relocating rural Newfoundlanders to larger “growth centres,” the program was highly controversial. (Bursey, “Resettlement.”) The Wonderful Grand Band’s comic rock song “Babylon Mall” (a satirical reference to Newfoundland’s largest shopping centre, the Avalon Mall) became a local cult classic. The shirts were designed by St John’s company Living Planet, among other similarly themed attire that includes “Free Newfoundland” and “Accordion Revolution” T-shirts. The merchandise is commonly found at the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival and at local retailers. For further discussion of this and other images of local identity in Newfoundland popular culture, see Chafe, “Rockin’ the Rock: The Newfoundland Folk/Pop Revolution.” Thorne, “Gone to the Mainland and Back Home Again: A Critical Approach to Region, Politics, and Identity in Contemporary Newfoundland Song,” 56. Kenneth Peacock published the song in his Songs of the Newfoundland Outports based on a version sung to him by Lucy Heaney of Stock Cove, Newfoundland, in July 1952. In 2009, Hey Rosetta! was selected to compose a song about Newfoundland’s Gros Morne National Park as part of a unique CBC Radio 2 event known as the “Great Canadian Song Quest.” Listeners from across Canada were first invited to vote on a location within their province or territory to immortalize in song and then vote on a musician or group to compose and perform a song about the chosen location. Thirteen musical artists from across Canada were selected (one representative for each province and territory). The other people’s choice selections were Lucie Idlout (Nunavut), Chantal Kreviazuk (Manitoba), Joel Plaskett (Nova Scotia), Martha Wainwright (Québec), Hawksley Workman (Ontario), Oh Susanna (British Columbia), Jay Sparrow (Alberta), The Deep Dark Woods (Saskatchewan), David Myles (New Brunswick), Catherine MacLellan (Prince Edward Island), Dana Sipos (North West Territories), and Kim Barlow (Yukon). Sound Symposium was founded in St John’s in 1983 under the artistic direction of the percussionist/composer Don Wherry (1935–2001). A native of Hamilton, Ontario, Wherry was a member of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra before moving to Newfoundland in 1973. A dynamic presence in the Newfoundland new music scene for close to three decades,

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he served as principal percussionist for the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, collaborated with several local theatre and dance groups, and founded the Scruncheons percussion ensemble. The Harbour Symphony concept was conceived by Newfoundland-based architect Joe Carter with the first compositions written by Paul Steffler in 1983. Among the many subsequent “harbour symphonies” was a special piece composed by Steffler and Wherry in 1997 to mark the occasion of the arrival of the “Matthew” (a replica ship of Giovanni Caboto’s famous vessel that sailed from Bristol, England, to Newfoundland to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Caboto’s landing). Tens of thousands of spectators were on hand for the performance. Doyle, The Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland, 1. Emerson, “Folksong in Newfoundland.” The song deals with an infamous episode in the 1830s in which Henry Winton, an outspoken and controversial newspaper editor, was assaulted and had his ears “cropped” or mutilated. Vaughan Williams, National Music and Other Essays, 68. McKay, The Quest of the Folk: Antimodernism and Cultural Selection in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia, 12. Ibid., 29. Helen Creighton was one individual who expressed concerns about the effects of technology (radio in particular) as a threat to the “ideological sense of innocence that characterized collectors’ invented cult of the folk.” (Smith, “Place,” 149.) Gordon Smith describes a “frontier” mentality in the work of many collectors “between themselves and their roles as collectors and preservers, and their consultants. The folk are presented as the bearers of stories and songs characterized by oral transmission, traditionalism, and anonymity. At the same time, there was the belief on the part of the collectors that this lore did not truly belong to the folk and that it could be saved only if it was transferred to other hands and other, more modern (that is, urban) means of cultural transmission and preservation. In the minds of many collectors, the folk were a disappearing breed living on the edges of civilization; they had to be searched out and persuaded to part with what they knew.” (Ibid., 147.)

CHAPTER ONE

1 Colonial correspondence reveals that on 29 October 1787 John Emerson petitioned the Nova Scotia government for an allowance to cover the cost of a grist mill he had built in the township of Windsor.



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2 William Emerson, 1743–1776. 3 John Emerson, 1745–1826. William Emerson’s son (father of Ralph Waldo Emerson) was also named William (William Emerson, 1769–1811). 4 Riggs, “Charles Henry Emerson,” 775. 5 For a personal account of Stirling’s life, see Peyton, Nightingale of the North. 6 Emerson, “The Life of Mozart,” 1. 7 Ibid. 8 Now King’s College, Edgehill. 9 David Holt, Emerson’s grandson, describes Hubley as having “the ­Emerson persona,” in reference to his musical and intellectual gifts as well as shared physical features. 10 Katherine Hubley and Elizabeth (Hubley) MacMillan. 11 Emerson’s children Carla, Anne, and Harry (to be discussed presently). 12 Hubley, personal communication, 18 May 2005. 13 A Church of England Girls’ School, originally known as the Bishop’s Girls’ School and later by the more familiar name of Bishop Spencer College, was founded in 1845. Other prominent denominational colleges founded in mid-nineteenth century Newfoundland included the Methodist College (founded in 1852 as the Wesleyan Training School) and the island’s first Roman Catholic College, St Bonaventure’s College for boys (founded by Bishop J.T. Mullock in 1856). 14 “Bishop Feild College compared with schools in England,” The Feildian (1908-09): 4–5. 15 The first Rhodes Scholar in the college’s history, Harry A. Winter, received the honour in 1907 and would later become minister of Home Affairs and Education in the Newfoundland Government (1941) and a justice of the Supreme Court (1947–64). Subsequent Rhodes Scholarships were awarded to Bishop Feild graduates Robert Holland Tait (1910), Ralph LeMessurier (1922), Cecil J.F. Parsons (1923), Gerald White (1924), ­Gerald Edwin LeMessurier (1925), John B. Watson (1931), Rudolph Duder (1932), Moses O. Morgan (1938), Herbert B. Morgan (1947), James R. Wood (1948), Anthony Dunfield (1948), E. David Morgan (1950), George M. Story (1951), J. Douglas House (1965), and Keith J. Mercer (1967). (House, Edward Feild: The Man & His Legacy, with Extended Reference to Bishop Feild College, 121–2) 16 Church of England College Magazine (July – August 1894), quoted in House, 40. 17 Blackall served as headmaster at Bishop Feild College from 1891 until 1908.

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18 In 1891, he married Ida Hele, daughter of the late N.F. Hele, Esq, a surgeon from Rowley House, Aldeburgh, Suffolk. 19 Other publications by Blackall included The Early Story of Newfoundland (St John’s: J.W. Withers, 1918), and Stories from Newfoundland History (Danville, New York: F.A. Owen, 1924). 20 The Feildian 2, no. 4 (1895): 7. 21 The Feildian 10, nos. 3–4 (Christmas 1902): 41. 22 House, 110. 23 David Walker Blackall, like his brother, was a University of London alumnus and served as assistant master of the Southwell and Wells Cathedral Schools prior to immigrating to Newfoundland. In 1893, he was appointed assistant master of Bishop Feild College. 24 The Feildian 10 (Christmas 1902): 35. 25 For further information on the Church Lads Brigade in Newfoundland, see Pritchett, A History of the Church Lads Brigade in Newfoundland. 26 Tilley, “The Avalon Battalion Band,” in Pritchett, The Church Lads’ Brigade in Newfoundland, 163–4. 27 Born and raised in St John’s, Newfoundland, George Edward Shea was elected as the city’s first mayor in 1902. His voice was frequently heard in local concerts in the late nineteenth century. 28 For further information on Hutton’s life, see Woodford, Charles Hutton: Newfoundland’s Greatest Musician and Dramatist, 1861–1949. 29 For further examples of nineteenth-century Canadian musical nationalism, see Hall and Poirier, eds, The Canadian Musical Heritage. 30 Hutton’s piano arrangement makes several subtle but not insignificant changes to Forbes’s original published version, including an enriched chordal texture in the left hand accompaniment and slight rhythmic changes in the right-hand melody. The most noteworthy of these occurs in the third section of the piece, in which Hutton adds a touch of rhythmic variety by substituting dotted patterns for Forbes’s triplet eighth notes. 31 Stacy, bandmaster of the Queen’s Own Volunteers Rifle Brigade and organist and choirmaster at the Queen’s Road Congregational Church in St John’s, composed the Newfoundland Volunteer’s Band March and Quick Step in 1860. Dedicated to the Governor Bannerman, it was first published in an arrangement for violin and piano by Chisholm’s Bookstore of St John’s. 32 The Feildian (September-October 1894): 3–4. 33 Blackall, “Headmaster’s Report for the Year Ended July 4th,” 39. 34 Blackall, “What’s the Good of Music,” 17–18.



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35 The Feildian 12, nos. 1–2 (1904): 48. 36 The Feildian (February 1902): 75–6 37 Alfred the Great, the Inventive King was written by Fred Edmonds and C.T. West. 38 College receipts show that the piano was purchased from the Archdeacon Botwood (for whom a town in Central Newfoundland is named) for the sum of $200. 39 Krippner was bandmaster of the Catholic Cadet Corps Band and proprietor of a small music shop adjacent to his residence on Military Road in St John’s. 40 Boyle wrote at least two other Newfoundland-inspired poems during his brief tenure on the island: “To the Boys of Newfoundland” and “Newfoundland Is Calling, Welcome Home Again.” The latter, written for a “come home” celebration of expatriate Newfoundlanders in 1904, was set to music by Peter LeSueur. 41 Daily News, St John’s, Newfoundland, 22 January 1902, quoted in ­Graham, “We Love Thee, Newfoundland”: Biography of Sir Cavendish Boyle, kcmg, Governor of Newfoundland, 1901–1904, 133–4. 42 Evening Telegram, St John’s, Newfoundland, 22 January 1902, quoted in ibid., 134. 43 I wish to thank The Rooms Provincial Archives Division for granting me access to Krippner’s musical scores, as well as other settings of the “Ode to Newfoundland.” 44 In addition to Krippner, other community volunteers who made up the orchestra included a Miss Pilot and Frank Bradshaw (first violins), J. Monroe (second violin), W. Benson (first cornet), and Miss M. Boone (cello). C.M. Wright, the college music teacher, taught the boys their vocal numbers and served as piano accompanist. 45 In the late 1890s, Stirling assisted his celebrated cousin in a series of concerts given in St John’s. 46 The Feildian (1901): 82. 47 Emerson Furlong, personal communication. 48 The Feildian (1908–09): 3. 49 The Feildian 11 (July 1904): 139–40. 50 For further information on the Sisters of Mercy in Newfoundland, including discussion of music instruction and the Trinity College examinations, see Bellamy, Weavers of the Tapestry. For discussion of related topics, see Hogan, Pathways of Mercy in Newfoundland, 1842–1984. 51 A report on the school’s annual Speech Day in 1904 observed that “Frank Hutchings rendered a dainty piece of Kuhlau’s on the piano in splendid

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style, his touch being clear and crisp and his rhythm and time perfect.” (The Feildian 12, September–December 1904, 69–70.) That same year saw Bishop Feild student Jack Blackall, a private voice student of Charles Hutton, pass the Trinity College Junior Grade Solo Singing Test. Also receiving Trinity College certificates that year were Hutchings, Blackall (both of whom, like Emerson, received their intermediate diplomas), and S.R. Steele, who received his senior diploma. Tait practiced law in St. John’s for several years before moving to Boston in 1923 and later New York in 1935. His other publications included Unknown Newfoundland (1928) and Newfoundland: A History of the Development of Britain’s Oldest Colony (1939). At the beginning of the chorus in m. 17 (“Fling out the flag o’er creek and crag”), Hutton alludes to the ascending minor third – descending perfect fifth melodic progression of the opening of “O Canada,” a connection further strengthened by the presence of dotted rhythms. For a probing textual analysis of Boyle’s poem, see Whalen, “Rhetorical and Discursive Constructions of Newfoundland Regionality,” 30–41. Murphy, Songs and Ballads of Newfoundland, Ancient and Modern, 1. The Feildian 11 (February – March 1904): 83 Review of William W. Blackall, “Newfoundland, Isle of the Free,” Evening Herald, St John’s, as quoted in The Feildian (September 1907 – July 1908): 95. O’Sullivan’s version, for solo voice, piano, and SATB chorus, commences with a Con Spirito piano introduction that establishes a mood of buoyant nationalism with thundering octaves and driving dotted rhythms. In comparison with the Hutton setting, O’Sullivan’s song evokes a heightened sense of contrast deriving from varied dynamics, rhythm, and timbre. Choral voices join in at the refrain, at which point there is an emphatic reprise of introductory material. The flag is believed to have been created by Roman Catholic Bishop Michael Fleming during the nineteenth century as an amalgam of banners from the Newfoundland Natives Society and the Irish flag. The unifying symbolism it represented was monumental as competing identities merged in the formative stages of a new society. For further discussion of the flag legend, see Fitzgerald, “Conflict and Culture in Irish-Newfoundland Roman Catholicism, 1829–1850.” For recent examples of the appropriation of the flag for merchandise sales, see Chafe, “Rockin’ the Rock: The Newfoundland Folk/Pop Revolution.”



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63 Krippner’s almost jovial treatment of the words “When blinding storm gusts fret thy shore, And wild waves lash thy strand” (marked by a triadic, F major melody and lilting 6/8 metre) is particularly incongruous in this respect. 64 Review of A.H. Allen, “Newfoundland,” Evening Telegram, St John’s, 25 April 1907. 65 Graham, “We Love Thee, Newfoundland,” 157–66. 66 C. Hubert Parry, letter to Cavendish Boyle, 15 April 1904, quoted in ibid., 171. 67 Ibid. 68 For Rosenberg, nativity was central to Doyle’s conception of a “national” culture: “He borrowed phraseology from the Irish literary revival (“racy of the soil”) to convey his interest in preserving and perpetuating that which was purely local and therefore truly national.” (Rosenberg, “The Gerald S. Doyle Songsters and the Politics of Newfoundland Folksong,” 47.) 69 Deputy Colonial Secretary Arthur Mews, in a letter to the Hon. W.H. Horwood, administrator of government, notes that Boyle declined to give his approval due to “motives of delicacy.” (Mews, quoted in Graham, 176.) 70 Kevin Major, quoted in Newhook, “Ode to the Rock Is Still Rolling,” A13–14. 71 Bernice Morgan, quoted in ibid.

CHAPTER TWO 1 I wish to thank Ms. Ann Hoole, Framlingham College librarian, for kindly answering my queries regarding the college and providing me with much valuable information. 2 The college grounds were formerly attached to the castle. 3 Built at a cost of £500, the library was the gift of one of the college governors, Charles Hugh Berners (1842–1919), High Sheriff of Suffolk and High Steward of Harwich. 4 Booth, Framlingham College: The First Sixty Years, 43. 5 Framlingham College website, www.framcollege.co.uk. 6 Booth, 104. 7 Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. 8 Educated at Selwyn College, Cambridge, Johnson (1868–1935) served as organist at Bridlington Parish Church before being appointed organist of the Albert Hall, Nottingham. He composed extensively for chorus and solo voice, as well as organ.

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9 Booth, 123. 10 The Mantle Prize was founded by William Grimwood Mantle (1809– 1881), a native of Framlingham, one of the founders of the English lawfirm of Stagg and Mantle, of Leicester-square, and a large landowner in Suffolk County. Mantle was one of the founders and original governors of the school. 11 Foundation de la France libre, www.France-libre.net. 12 Emerson, “Reminiscences of Travel Abroad: Norwegian Chimes, Christmas in the Pyrenees, and the islands of St Pierre et Miquelon.” 13 The text of the song was written by Gustav Schuler. 14 “Two Songs in D” was a setting of poetry by P.L. Dunbar. 15 Newfoundland Scene is discussed further in chapter 9. 16 Colton, “‘In Flanders Fields’: Music of Remembrance in the Vocal Music of Frederick R. Emerson.” Reed was at the time a voice student of Professor Caroline Schiller at the Memorial University School of Music. 17 McCrae later served as consulting physician to the British armies in France. 18 McCrae, quoted in Campbell, “In Flanders Fields,” 627. 19 For further examples of McCrae’s poetry, see McCrae, In Flanders Fields and other poems, with an essay in character by Sir Andrew MacPhail. 20 This portion of text is further highlighted by a heightened level of rhythmic activity in the piano part. 21 The opening of the verse is marked “come voci da lontano.” 22 Riggs, “William John Higgins.” 23 Riggs, “Charles Edward Hunt.” 24 Riggs, “Gordon Higgins.” 25 Canada’s gold-medal winning men’s curling team at the Torino Olympics consisted of Brad Gushue (skip), Russ Howard, Mark Nichols, Jamie Korab, and Mike Adam (alternate). 26 In 1976, the Newfoundland rink of Jack McDuff (skip), Toby ­McDonald, Doug Hudson, and Ken Templeton became the first team from Newfoundland to win the “Brier” Canadian Men’s Curling Championship. 27 Morgan, “Gordon Mckenzie Stirling.” 28 Ted and Helen Goodridge, personal communication. 29 Riggs, “Noel Goodridge.” 30 Tulk, “Tribute to Chief Justice Noel Goodridge.” 31 Stewart McKelvey firm profile, www.stewartmckelvey.com. 32 Riggs, “Hugh Alexander Emerson.” 33 Riggs, “George Henry Emerson (1798–1889).” 34 Riggs, “Prescott Emerson.”



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35 Riggs, “George Henry Emerson (1853–1916).” 36 As Emerson Furlong recalled in a recent interview, Atkinson also introduced her to horse riding and “other activities deemed suitable for young ladies.” 37 Among the park’s landmarks are two prominent sculptures by Basil Gotto, the Caribou and The Fighting Newfoundlander, both of which pay tribute to the soldiers of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. A Peter Pan monument by George Frampton was erected in memory of Sir Edgar Bowring’s godchild Betty Munn, who died tragically at sea. Bowring Park today is a dynamic and expansive green space that features scenic walking paths, a swan pond, fountains, an amphitheatre, a bungalow for receptions and special events, an outdoor swimming pool, tennis courts, playgrounds, and picnic sites. 38 For a period of time, the Emersons had a housekeeper who assisted with household tasks. As family friend Margaret Halleran recalled, the housekeeper had a peculiar habit of peeling labels from tinned food so that she could submit them as entries to a local radio contest. This resulted in some rather comical moments in the kitchen as Emerson, a gourmet cook, tried to deduce the identity of assorted “mystery foods” with no labels. (Halleran, personal communication) 39 Fairchild, personal communication. 40 Karpeles, Field Diaries, 29 October 1929. It was in this same spirit of generosity that Isabel Emerson donated a “beautiful cabinet gramophone” to Queen’s College in 1930. (Facey, Diocesan (May 1930): 177–8.



CHAPTER THREE

1 Emerson’s multifaceted contributions to academic life at the college are discussed in chapter 7. 2 MacLeod, A Bridge Built Halfway, 65. 3 Riggs, “Harold Berwick Goodridge.” 4 Family friend Margaret Halleran, in a recent interview, described Emerson as a superb pianist who frequently entertained visiting guests with his playing. When not engaged in music making, Emerson and close family friends played the occasional game of bridge. 5 For further information on M. Baptist McDermott, see Sr Kathrine E. ­Bellamy’s exceptionally thorough account of the Sisters of Mercy in ­Newfoundland, Weavers of the Tapestry. 6 The orchestra’s tour included concerts in New York City, New Orleans, and Madison, Wisconsin, among other locations.

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Notes to pages 79–90

7 Peter LeSueur, Newfoundland Is Calling, Welcome Home Again. 8 In 1955 Rumboldt and his CJON Glee Club produced an LP entitled Newfoundland Folksongs and Other Selections: cjon Glee Club. The recording, comprised of arrangements of songs from the Doyle songbooks, was so popular that a second was issued the following year. Similar in focus was an RCA Victor recording by the St John’s Extension Choir entitled Newfoundlanders Sing Songs of Their Homeland (1966). 9 Woodford and King, “Ignatius Rumboldt.” 10 Emerson Furlong, personal communication. 11 Betty Barban, personal communication. See also Gerhard P. Bassler’s discussion of the Barban story in Sanctuary Denied: Refugees from the Third Reich and Newfoundland Immigration Policy, 1906-1949. 12 Barban likewise offered private music appreciation lessons from his home on Prescott Street in St John’s. 13 Other honorary members of the Newfoundland and Labrador Registered Music Teachers Association, an affiliate of the Canadian Federation of Music Teachers Associations, include Andreas Barban, Ignatius Rumboldt, Douglas Osmond, Kathleen Parsons, and Jane Steele. 14 Emerson Furlong, personal communication. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Mann, “Benno Moiseiwitsch,” 885. 18 Collins emigrated to Newfoundland in 1946 with her husband, Newfoundlander Wickford Collins. The couple had met when Collins, later a journalist, was stationed overseas during the Second World War. 19 The words “when we were talking about the Colombian navy” are crossed out in the manuscript at this point. 20 Emerson, “The Conventions and Customs of the Republic of Columbia.” 21 Flight Lieutenant Bogedar (“Dan”) Nowosielski, of the Polish Squadron of the RCAF, was awarded the Polish Cross of Valour for outstanding military service. Nowosielski’s father was a colonel in the Polish army. 22 Booth, Framlingham College Register, 281. 23 David Holt, personal communication. 24 The first, in 1931, was a round trip from Orbetello, Italy, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 25 Segrè, Italo Balbo: A Fascist Life, 244–50. 26 The expedition reached the United States via stops in Amsterdam; Londonderry, Northern Ireland; Reykjavik, Iceland; Cartwright, Labrador; Shediac, New Brunswick; and Montreal.



Notes to pages 90–7

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27 Balbo’s biographer Claudio G. Segrè notes that Balbo arrived in Shoal Harbour on July 26 and, despite an expected a stay of only a few days, finally departed Newfoundland for the Azores on August 8 (Segrè, 254–5.) 28 Balbo, My Air Armada, 240. 29 Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic wireless message (from Poldhu, Cornwall, England) at Signal Hill on 12 December 1901. 30 Balbo, 243. 31 Segrè, 345.

CHAPTER FOUR 1 Holt, personal communication. 2 Bevan, LRAM, ARCO, lectured in music appreciation at the college during the late 1920s. 3 Bevan likewise sat on the organ reconstruction committee. 4 Earle, “Queen’s College.” See also House, Edward Feild: The Man & His Legacy, with Extended Reference to Bishop Feild College. 5 Facey, (December 1929): 465. 6 Facey, (March 1932): 96–109. 7 Facey, (February 1933): 56. In a similar vein, Emerson donated twentyfour leather-bound volumes of the Review of Reviews to the college, dating from 1892 to 1916. 8 Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music. 9 Facey, (January 1934): 23. 10 The Virgil Society, www.virgilsociety.org.uk. 11 An influential poet and visual artist, Rossetti (1828–1882) was a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in the arts and brother of the celebrated poet Christina Rossetti. 12 Godfrey, “‘Lo, here is felawschippe,’ Eleanor Mews Jerrett and ‘a cappella’ Choral Singing in St John’s, Newfoundland, 1933–1954: Perspectives on Elements of a Musical Whole,” 20. 13 Christian (1890–1936) was also well known in the Newfoundland capital as music teacher at the Methodist College, where he directed a series of annual operettas. He served as organist and choirmaster at George Street United Church from 1913 until his death. 14 For further information on the early history of radio in Newfoundland, see Webb, “Inventing Radio Broadcasting in Newfoundland and the Maritime Provinces, 1922–1939,” and, by the same author, The Voice

320

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Notes to pages 98–9

of ­Newfoundland: A Social History of the Broadcasting Corporation of Newfoundland, 1939–1949. See also Power, Squires, and O’Mara, cbc Radio (cbn 640), St John’s, 1932–1992, for a concise account of the history of Radio Station VONF. “Formal Opening of New Broadcasting Station,” Evening Telegram, St John’s, 14 November 1932. See Hiscock, “The Barrelman Radio Programme, 1937–1943: The Mediation and Use of Folklore in Newfoundland,” and Narváez, “Joseph R. Smallwood, The Barrelman: The Broadcaster as Folklorist,” 60–78. The first compiler and announcer of the Bulletin was W.F. Galgay, who adopted the radio persona Frank L. Barclay. Other announcers included W. Evan Whiteway, Robert MacLeod, Doug Brophy, Aubrey MacDonald, Harold Morris, Derm Breen, and Leo Thistle. The regular musical cast of the Irene B. Mellon program included Withers, Pat DeBourke, Jim Ring, Frank O’Toole, Ted Coleman, and Ern ­MacDonald, as well as an array of special guests. Among the musical instruments played during the program were the button accordion, violin, guitar, and mouth organ. For a probing discussion of the program and its impact on Newfoundland culture, see Hiscock, ““Folklore and Popular Culture in Early Newfoundland Radio Broadcasting: An Analysis of Occupational Narrative, Oral History and Song Repertoire.” Power, Squires, and O’Mara, cbc Radio (cbn 640), St John’s, 1932–1992. The daughter of Daniel James Davies, Newfoundland’s High Commissioner in London during the Second World War, Davies was born and raised in St John’s and educated at Bishop Spencer College in the Newfoundland capital and later in England at Southlands, Harrow-on-theHill, and the Abbey School, Malvern Wells. Calling Newfoundland was begun under the direction of Maxwell Littlejohn of St John’s. MacLeod studied music with Lucille Laidley and Moncrieff Mawer, organist at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in St John’s during the early years of the twentieth century. As a young boy of six, one of MacLeod’s earliest musical experiences was playing popular songs of the First World War era by ear. The instrumentation of MacLeod’s Orchestra consisted of piano, drums, trumpet, and alto and tenor saxophone. For further information on the story of VOWR, see Klassen, “I am VOWR: Living Radio in Newfoundland,” 205–26. Upon his retirement in 1971, MacLeod was appointed Organist Emeritus of St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in honour of twenty-seven years of distinguished service.



Notes to pages 99–102

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25 Other musicians to perform on air during the early years of VONF included the singer Maxwell Young (“The Gospel Singer”), fiddler Don Randell, Ignatius Rumboldt, Andreas Barban, Joan Connors, Chris Andrews, Ed Scurry, Ralph Bishop, Reg Ivany, Ralph Ivany, and Myer Frelich. 26 For further discussion of the Gerald S. Doyle song collections, see ­Rosenberg, “The Gerald S. Doyle Songsters and the Politics of Newfoundland Folksong,” 45–57. 27 Lady (Quita) Hope Simpson, quoted in Neary, ed., White Tie and Decorations: Sir John and Lady Hope Simpson in Newfoundland, 1934–1936, 39. 28 Some of Mews’s other musical colleagues in Newfoundland included Charles Hutton and Elsie Tait Wylie (Stuart R. Godfrey, “‘Lo, Here is Felawschippe,’ Eleanor Mews Jerrett and ‘a cappella’ Choral Singing in St John’s, Newfoundland, 1933–1954,” 3. 29 Arthur Mews (1864–1947) was a senior civil servant in the Newfoundland government from 1898 to 1935 and organist at Cochrane Street Church in St John’s for nearly six decades, beginning in 1883. 30 Douglas Mews (1918–1993) studied in London, England, and became a professor and examiner at the Trinity College of Music. After receiving his doctorate in music from the University of London in 1961, he emigrated to Auckland, New Zealand, in 1969 to join the music faculty of the University of Auckland (where he retired in 1984). 31 Licentiate of the Trinity College of Music. 32 Eleanor Mews Press Notices. 33 Harry Plunket Greene (1865–1936) was an oratorio singer who gave his first public appearance in a performance of Handel’s Messiah and won accolades for his renditions of works by Parry and Elgar. In 1899 he married Parry’s daughter Gwendolyn. One of the leading interpreters of English song of his generation, Greene was the recipient of many of Stanford’s finest songs. (Shawe-Taylor and Blyth, “(Harry) Plunket Greene,” 365.) 34 Mews served as Head of the Department of Music at the same institution during her tenure in West Virginia. 35 A native of Bay Roberts, Newfoundland, Sr Kathrine E. Bellamy ­(1924–2010) received her early musical training from her mother, an accomplished pianist and singer, and the Sisters of Mercy. Graduate studies were later undertaken at the University of Wisconsin, where she received a PhD in 1973. Bellamy was a dynamic presence in the musical life of Newfoundland and Labrador in the multifaceted roles of music teacher, choir director, and music director at the Basilica of St John the

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Notes to pages 102–5

Baptist in St John’s. In Newfoundland’s emerging music festival movement, the Our Lady of Mercy Glee Club under her direction won numerous awards and in 1964 became the first Newfoundland choir to win the Mathieson Trophy at the National Music Festival competition. Her exhaustive study of the Sisters of Mercy in Newfoundland, Weavers of the Tapestry, was published in 2006. In 2007, she was appointed to the Order of Canada. Bandmaster and music educator Eric O. Abbott (1929–1988) studied music with Douglas Osmond at Prince of Wales College in St John’s before receiving bachelors and masters degrees in Music from Acadia University (1952, 1956) and a doctorate in Education from Boston University (1969). In his native Newfoundland he was highly regarded for his involvement with local Salvation Army bands and as a school music teacher and band director. Abbott was band director for the Booth Memorial Brass Band and the Avalon Consolidated School Board. A versatile musician, he concertized frequently as a cornetist, organist, and pianist. Other builders during the early years of the music festival movement in Newfoundland included David Peters, William Chafe, D ­ ouglas ­MacPherson, Kevin Osmond, Eric Pittman, and Jessie Hough, among others. Laine, “Community Concert Associations.” Among the many Community Concert instrumentalists and instrumental ensembles to concertize in Newfoundland were pianists Eugene Istomin and Leonard Pennario, Duo Cassado, and the Nieuw Amsterdam Trio. Following Hutton’s retirement, vocal instruction for prospective teachers at the college was given by Marguerite Jennings, LRAM, formerly music teacher at Bishop Spencer College. Some of these “friends of the Glee Club” included John S. Colman, ­Kathleen Howley, Eric Jerrett, Molly O’Dea Kelly, Brenda Marshall, Douglas Mews, and Kathryn Mews. Memorial University College Calendar, 1938–39. Hatcher, Report of the President, Memorial University College, 1938. For further information on the St John’s Glee Club and Eleanor Mews Jerrett’s multifaceted contributions to choral singing in Newfoundland, see Godfrey, “‘Lo, here is felawschippe,’ Eleanor Mews Jerrett and ‘a cappella’ Choral Singing in St John’s, Newfoundland 1933–1954: Perspectives on Elements of a Musical Whole.” The inaugural Board of Directors of the St John’s Glee Club included P. Lloyd Soper (president), Stuart R. Godfrey (vice-president), Mary Darcy



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Notes to pages 106–9

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(hon. secretary), Stan Fowler (hon. treasurer), Eleanor Mews Jerrett (music director and choral conductor), and Elsie (Tait) Wylie (pianist). Eileen (Cantwell) Stanbury (1926–2008) was born in Brigus, Newfoundland, in 1926 and studied at the College of Our Lady of Mercy, Little­ dale College, and Memorial University College in St John’s. She later received a Licentiate of Voice degree from Dalhousie University (1949) and a Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music (1951). While in Boston, she sang with the Boston Pops and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. After graduating from the conservatory, she returned to Atlantic Canada to teach music in Halifax and sing in the Nova Scotia Opera Company, before returning to Newfoundland in 1960 to become music director of the newly opened United Collegiate (later known as Prince of Wales Collegiate). She remained in that position until her retirement in 1981. Stanbury founded and directed the Cantabury Singers, a women’s choir that represented Newfoundland nationally at events such as Expo 67 in Montreal and Canada’s Centennial celebrations in Ottawa. Like Mews she championed the emerging music festival movement in Newfoundland and served on the Advisory Committee of the St John’s Kiwanis Music Festival for many years. (Kiwanis Music Festival of St John’s Hall of Honour, kiwanismusicfestivalsj.org/hall_stanbury.html; see also Bown, “Cantabury Singers.” Godfrey, 62. For further discussion of this topic, see Cardoulis, A Friendly Invasion II: A Personal Touch. Godfrey, 73–4. The festival concept was proposed by Newfoundland choral director Susan Knight and endorsed by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador as an initiative designed to “contribute to provincial economic development and nurture cultural identity.” Other builders in the inaugural festival (and its companion academic symposium “The Phenomenon of Singing”) included Ki Adams, Douglas Dunsmore, Andrea Rose, Peter Gardner, Dena Simon, and Angus Bruneau. (Festival 500: Sharing the Voices website, www.festival500.com/about-us/history.aspx.) Potvin, “Singing and Voice Teaching.” Godfrey, 21. In this endeavour, Emerson had an ally in the person of Marguerite ­Jennings, LRAM, formerly music teacher at Bishop Spencer College and Hutton’s successor in providing singing lessons to teachers-in-training at Memorial University College. Jennings taught music at the college from 1940 until 1944.

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Notes to pages 110–13

CHAPTER FIVE 1 Arguably England’s foremost composer of the first half of the twentieth century, Vaughan Williams was perhaps best known for his orchestral works (including nine symphonies), songs, and choral pieces. His style drew inspiration from English literature, hymnody, and traditional song, as well as Western Art Music traditions. 2 Karpeles, unpublished letter to Helen Karpeles, 11 September 1929. 3 The English Folk Dance Society merged with the Folk Song Society in 1932. The Gold Badge Award, the highest honour conferred by the Society, is awarded for unique or outstanding contributions to folk dance, music, or song or for distinguished service to the Society. Other recipients included Sharp (1923), Karpeles (1928), and later Vaughan Williams (1943). 4 Fox Strangways and Karpeles, Cecil Sharp. 5 Karpeles, Introduction to Folk Songs from Newfoundland, 13–16. 6 Founded in 1893 by the British physician Wilfred Grenfell, the Grenfell Mission introduced quality healthcare to Labrador and northern Newfoundland and strove to affect social change by initiatives such as the construction of schools, the establishment of communal farms, lumber mills, and cooperative stores, and the development of a local handicraft industry. For further information on the Grenfell Mission, see Rompkey, Grenfell of Labrador: A Biography, and, edited by the same author, Jessie Luther at the Grenfell Mission. 7 The Newfoundland expeditions of these pioneering women followed in the wake of British folk revivalists such as Sharp and, prior to that, the landmark nineteenth-century publications of Harvard English professor Francis James Child (1825–1896) and his student George Lyman Kittredge (1860–1941). Nineteenth-century pioneers in the British folk revival included John and Lucy Broadwood, Sabine Baring-Gould, and Frank Kidson. 8 While Kodály focused his efforts primarily on Hungarian musical traditions, Bartók’s wide-ranging interests included the collection of Romanian, Slovak, Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Turkish, and North African traditional music, in addition to that of his native Hungary. 9 For a probing discussion of Bartók’s synthesis of folk influences, see Schneider, Bartók, Hungary, and the Renewal of Tradition: Case Studies in the Intersection of Modernity and Nationality. 10 Gibbon (1875–1952) was a publicist for the Canadian Pacific Railway during an era in which expanded rail service coincided with the growth of radio, folk festivals, and art music inspired by folklore.



Notes to pages 113–20

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11 In 1928, Lunsford organized a folksong and dance festival in Asheville, North Carolina. (Rosenberg, ed., Transforming Tradition: Folk Music Revivals Examined, 6) 12 In 1930 Doyle provided Karpeles with a letter of introduction to Mrs Burdock of Belleoram on the South Coast of Newfoundland. (Guigné, Introduction to Gerald S. Doyle’s Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland, xi) 13 Doyle, quoted in ibid., xi–xii. 14 Karpeles, Folk Songs from Newfoundland, 17. 15 Karpeles, Field Diaries, 11 September 1929. 16 Ibid. 17 Karpeles, ed., The Collecting of Folk Music and Other Ethnomusicological Material: A Manual for Field Workers, 8. 18 Karpeles, Field Diaries, 27 October 1929. 19 Ibid., 26 October 1929. 20 Karpeles, Introduction to Folk Songs from Newfoundland, 19. 21 Obituary of Maud Karpeles (1885–1976), The Times, London, 2 October 1977. 22 Karpeles, Field Diaries, 29 October 1929. 23 In this sense there are important parallels between Emerson’s efforts and those of Doyle, MacLeod, and Rumboldt in their respective fields. 24 Howes, “Clive Carey, 1883–1968,” 290. 25 Adams, “The Stages of Revision of Vaughan Williams’ Sixth Symphony,” 383. 26 Colles and Howes, “Hubert J(ames) Foss,” 115. 27 Karpeles, ed. and coll., Fifteen Folk Songs from Newfoundland. 28 Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 29 Keel, “The Folk Song Society, 1898–1948.” 30 Review of Folk Songs from Newfoundland, 157. 31 Haywood, “Ralph Vaughan Williams and Maud Karpeles,” 5–8. 32 Ibid., 6. 33 Ibid. 34 In this sense Karpeles attitudes echoed Child’s unequivocal dismissal of the “vulgar ballads of our day.” (Wilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898, 7–9.) 35 Kennedy, 34. 36 Vaughan Williams, quoted in Kennedy, 31. 37 Vaughan Williams, unpublished letter to Emerson, 3 February 1934. 38 Emerson, “Folksong in Newfoundland.” 39 Kallmann and Willis, “Folk-Music-Inspired Composition,” 481–3.

326

Notes to pages 123–34

40 Vaughan Williams, quoted in Kennedy, 120–1. 41 A piercing G-sharp in the piano part signals the onset of the countermelody. 42 Karpeles, Folk Songs from Newfoundland (1934), 75. 43 Karpeles, Folksongs from Newfoundland (1971), 289. 44 Ibid. 45 Hunt’s version of the fourth stanza was sung as follows:   “There are a man on yonder hill,   He got a heart as hard as stone.   He have two hearts instead of one.   How foolish must that girl be   For to think I love no other but she.” 46 Karpeles, Folk Songs from Newfoundland (1934), 143. 47 Kodály, “Ralph Vaughan Williams, OM,” 4. 48 Ibid., 3. 49 Unlike the 1934 edition, the songs in the 1971 publication appear without piano accompaniment. 50 Leach (1897–1967) collected over 500 Newfoundland songs between 1950 and 1951, during which time he also visited Cape Breton. Years later, he returned to Labrador to collect songs which were later published as Folk Ballads and Songs of the Lower Labrador Coast (1965). For further information on Leach’s work, see MacEdward Leach and the Songs of Atlantic Canada, www.mun.ca/folklore/leach. 51 Karpeles, Introduction to Folk Songs from Newfoundland, 9–12. 52 Ibid., 20. 53 Emerson, “Folksong in Newfoundland.” 54 Emerson, “Newfoundland Folk Music.” 55 Karpeles, Introduction to Folk Songs from Newfoundland, 18. 56 Karpeles, ed., The Collecting of Folk Music and Other Ethnomusicological Material, 16. 57 Karpeles, Introduction to Folk Songs from Newfoundland, 17. 58 Lovelace, “Unnatural Selection: Maud Karpeles’ Newfoundland Field Diaries,” 292. 59 Karpeles, Introduction to Folk Songs from Newfoundland, 18. 60 Emerson, “Newfoundland Folk Music,” 238. 61 Ibid., 234. 62 Ibid., 238. 63 Ibid., 234. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid.



Notes to pages 136–40

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66 Nicholson, The Fighting Newfoundlander: A History of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, 433. 67 Ibid., 336. 68 Another likely factor that contributed to the absence of an Emerson song collection was his relationship to Gerald S. Doyle. Differences of aesthetic preference notwithstanding, it was not in Emerson’s nature to be seen as competing with his Newfoundland contemporary in this area. 69 Rosenberg, “‘She’s Like the Swallow’: Folksong as Cultural Icon,” 75–113. 70 See Colton, “‘She’s Like the Swallow’: Creative Responses to Newfoundland Folksong in the Choral Music of Harry Somers.” 71 Parker, Lyre: Chamber Music for Clarinet. 72 Best and Morgan, The Colour of Amber. Among the many other versions of “She’s Like the Swallow” are choral arrangements by Edward ­Chapman, Steven Chatman, Lori-Anne Dolloff, Richard Johnston, Stephen Smith, Judy Specht, and Carl Strommen, a student piano piece by Nancy Telfer, an organ arrangement by Timothy Cooper, a version for accordion and piano by Andrew Hugget, and an arrangement for carillon by Gordon Slater, Dominion carilloneur at the Peace Tower in Ottawa.

CHAPTER SIX 1 Rowe, A History of Newfoundland and Labrador, 384–8. 2 Ibid., 390–2. 3 The Newfoundland commissioners were selected based on credentials and at least in part for denominational representation. Alderdice (1872–1936), an Anglican born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, was Newfoundland’s last prime minister prior to the Commission; Puddester (1881–1947) of Northern Bay, Newfoundland, was secretary of state in Alderdice’s administration responsible for public health and welfare and a member of the United Church; while St John’s native Howley (1875–1941), a Roman Catholic, was a former lawyer and minister of Justice in a previous ­Alderdice administration. (Neary, Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 45.) 4 Lodge (1882–1958) was a civil servant with private business interests as chairman of Danube Oil Company; Hope Simpson (1868–1961) had served in the Indian Civil Service and as a Liberal member of the British parliament; while Trentham (1888–1963) was a financial advisor for the British treasury. (Ibid., 44–8.) 5 For a comprehensive list of successors to the original governor and commissioners, see ibid., 361–2.

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Notes to pages 140–3

6 For historian Sean Cadigan, flawed assumptions contributed to the Commission’s economic policy failures: “Approaching its task as if the real problems of Newfoundland and Labrador required only better administration and moral reform of society and politics, the commission failed to achieve significant economic reform.” (Cadigan, A History of Newfoundland and Labrador, 209.) 7 Handcock, “The Commission of Government’s Land Settlement Scheme in Newfoundland,” 123–4. 8 Lodge, Dictatorship in Newfoundland, 172. 9 At the request of the Commission, Dr W.G. Ogg, director of the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research at Aberdeen, Scotland, was brought in to assist with this aspect of the settlement. 10 Lady (Quita) Hope Simpson, in a letter dated 29 May 1934, seemed perplexed by the distance between homes at Markland: “The homes are quite far apart – one is nearly two miles away. I can’t understand that – you would think the women would want to help each other, especially in the long winter days …” (Lady (Quita) Hope Simpson, letter to son Robert Edgar Hope Simpson and his wife Eleanor (Dale) Hope Simpson, 29 May 1934, quoted in Neary, White Tie and Decorations, 93–4.) 11 As a testament to the generally poor state of healthcare in Newfoundland versus other parts of the Commonwealth at the time, Neary notes substantially higher rates of infant mortality and tuberculosis death, while fully 60 percent of Newfoundlanders lacked access to physicians or nurses when ill. (Neary, Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 79.) 12 Additional cottage hospitals were established at Stephenville Crossing (1937), Bonavista (1940), Bonne Bay (1940), Grand Bank (1941), P ­ lacentia (1942), Brookfield (1944), Gander (1946), Botwood (1946), Channel-Port aux Basques (1952), Fogo (1952), Springdale (1952), St Lawrence (1954), and Bell Island (1965). Larger medical facilities could be found in the capital of St John’s, where a number of military hospitals were opened during World War II. Some of these facilities were later transferred to the Department of Public Health and Welfare. In the post-­Confederation years of the 1950s, additional hospitals were opened in Corner Brook, North West River, Carbonear, and Grand Falls. (Joy and Janes, “Hospitals.”) 13 The Brookfield-Bonnews Health Centre and the Green Bay Community Health Centre. 14 Dr Nigel Rusted (1907–2012) was the first physician to serve on the clinic boat. One of Newfoundland’s leading physicians of the twentieth century, Rusted was a native of Salvage, Bonavista Bay, and a graduate of Bishop Feild College, Memorial University College, and the Dalhousie Univer-



15 16

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24 25 26 27 28

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Notes to pages 143–7

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sity School of Medicine. In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the medical profession in Newfoundland and Labrador, he was bestowed with an honorary doctorate from Memorial University in 1973 and was invested as a member of the Order of Canada in January 2012. Neary, Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 52–3. For a historical overview of the cottage hospitals in Newfoundland, see Lake, Capturing an Era: History of the Newfoundland Cottage Hospital System. For perspectives on individual cottage hospitals and the practice of medicine there, see Crellin, The Life of a Cottage Hospital: The Bonne Bay Experience; Murphy, Cottage Hospital Doctor: The Medical Life of Dr Noel Murphy 1945–54; and Rusted, It’s Devil Deep Down There. Emerson (on behalf of the Trustees of Markland), Interim Report on Markland, 9. Ibid., 4. The students were Basil Fearn, Roy Carnell, George Chafe, Roy Thistle, Jack Drover, W. Halley, H. Atkinson, H. Gill, W. Woolfrey, and J.C. Badcock. The monthly payroll for settlement employees as of December 1934 was distributed as follows: Cochius, $300.00; students (ten), $212.00; teachers (two), $83.00; Nurse Ash ($75.00); Hayward ($70.00); Spencer ($50.00); Boggan ($10.00). A separate fee of $50.00 per month was paid to Dr Newhook of Whitbourne for medical visitations. Neary, Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 1929–1949, 65. Lodge, Dictatorship in Newfoundland, 177. Sir John Hope Simpson, letter to son Ian Hope Simpson and his wife, Sheila (Gonner) Hope Simpson, 8 September 1934, quoted in Neary, White Tie and Decorations, 125. Lady (Quita) Hope Simpson, letter to Ian Hope Simpson and Sheila ­(Gonner) Hope Simpson, 6 July 1935, quoted in ibid., 180. Sir John Hope Simpson, letter to daughter Greta Hope Simpson, 14 June 1936, quoted in ibid., 317–18. Ibid. Emerson, Interim Report on Markland, 12. Handcock, “The Origin and Development of Commission of Government Land Settlements in Newfoundland, 1934–1969,” 131. Another interdenominational school was later established at the land settlement of Haricot. Appalachian folk schools were founded at Berea, Kentucky (1920), Brasstown, North Carolina (1926), and Monteagle, Tennessee (1933). (Shapiro, Appalachia on Our Mind, 240.)

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Notes to pages 147–55

30 Emerson, Interim Report on Markland, 13. 31 Emerson, “Policy in Education,” 228. 32 Clare (Cochius) Gillingham, interview with Philip Hiscock, 11 November 1991. 33 Lady Hope Simpson, letter to her sister Isabel Barclay, 8 June 1936, as quoted in Neary, White Tie and Decorations, 311. 34 Emerson, Interim Report on Markland, 14. 35 Ibid., 13–14 36 Ibid., 14. 37 Neary, White Tie and Decorations, 134. 38 Gillingham, interview with Philip Hiscock. 39 Emerson, “Policy in Education,” 230. 40 Frecker, unpublished letter to H.A. Winter, 7 July 1944. The letter was apparently never sent. 41 Lodge characterized the Markland settlement as “the laboratory in which every experiment was attempted, every mistake made. Only in the minds of arm-chair critics are land settlements ever carried out faultlessly. It was near enough to St John’s to attract unhealthy attention, and on occasions it suffered from the interference of agitators who were actuated more by ill-will towards the Commission in general than to this project in particular.” (Lodge, Dictatorship in Newfoundland, 184.) 42 The “truck system” in Newfoundland was a controversial method whereby merchants supplied fishermen with provisions and equipment on credit. The season’s catch would be applied against the debt, and, as the latter often exceeded the former, the net result was a continual cycle of indebtedness to the merchant that kept many fishermen and their families in a perpetual state of poverty. The system, established by merchants during Newfoundland’s early settlement history, persisted stubbornly into the 1930s and highlights one of the most striking inequities that divided the merchant and working classes. 43 For J.A. Hanley, the excellence of educational planning at Markland contrasted sharply to other aspects of the settlement’s operations he found to be lacking. (Hanley, “Report on the Development of Agriculture in Newfoundland,” 48–53) 44 Newton, Memorial University: A Survey. 45 Duder (1912–1980) was born and raised in St John’s and received his early education at Bishop Feild College and Memorial University College. A Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Oxford University (BA, 1935, MA, 1938) and Harvard University (MA, 1943), he taught English, French, and German at Memorial University College from 1935 to 1944. After leaving



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the college, he embarked upon a distinguished career as a diplomat and, in 1976, was awarded an honorary doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Other individuals active in the early development of the St John’s Players included Edna Baird, Winnifred Barker, Rupert Bartlett, Rex Carson, E.P. Conroy, Bruce Feather, Jean Hayes, Frank Hue, Ivor Jackson, Ludovic Kennedy, Helen Lodge, Arthur Murray, Sadie Organ, Selby Parsons, Rex Renough, Lloyd Soper, and Anna Wilson, among others. Miller Pitt, “Grace (née Hue) Butt.” Immediate successors included St John’s-based Theatre Guild (organized by Sylvia Wigh in the early 1950s), the Theatre Arts Club (organized by John Puddester, John Holmes, John Perlin, and Paul O’Neill in 1956), and the Wayfarers (organized by E. Fredd Davis). (O’Neill, The Oldest City: The Story of St John’s, Newfoundland, 210–11.) A precursor to the London Theatre Company, the Alexandra Players of Birmingham, England, performed in St John’s in the late 1940s. According to Paul O’Neill, two Alexandra Players alumni (Leslie Yeo and Hilary Vernon), joined forces with Oliver Gordon and George Paddon Foster to form the London Theatre Company in 1951. (Ibid., 208.) Ibid., 210. Hutton’s music store arranged for the sale of tickets on behalf of the St John’s Players. A $50 prize was offered for the best three-act play, while two $25 prizes were awarded for best radio plays. The contest was open to Newfoundland authors only, with the winning submissions considered for production by the St John’s Players. Holbrook’s one-man play Mark Twain Tonight! was conceived in the 1950s and later performed on Broadway and television, earning him a Tony Award for Best Actor and an Emmy Award nomination for the televised version (produced by David Susskind and aired on CBS). Remarkably, 2012 marked the fifty-eighth consecutive year that Holbrook has performed the play. Also known for his screen roles in films such as All the President’s Men and The Firm, Holbrook’s television credits include a starring role, with Burt Reynolds, in the CBS sitcom Evening Shade (1990–94) and, more recently, appearances on programs such as The Sopranos (2006), ncis (2006), and er (2008), among others. In 2012, he appeared in Steven Spielberg’s epic historical drama Lincoln. “Island Wide Encouragement of Drama: Local Festivals to be organized,” Daily News, St John’s, Newfoundland, 15 November 1949. O’Neill, 210.

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56 The organization changed its name to Theatre Canada in 1970; however, its days were numbered. By 1978, the Ottawa office had closed its doors. (Gardner, “Dominion Drama Festival.”) For further information on the Dominion Drama Festival, see Lee, Love and Whisky: The Story of the Dominion Drama Festival and the Early Years of Theatre in Canada, 1606–1972. 57 Canada Council, Second Annual Report, 27. 58 Soper, The St John’s Players: The Little Theatre in Newfoundland, 44–5. 59 Emerson, Proud Kate Sullivan, 2–3. 60 The 1966 publication was doubly timely in that it coincided with the opening of the Trans-Canada Highway across the province. 61 Another Newfoundland musician of the same era who established a loyal following among expatriate Newfoundlanders in southern Ontario was Bell Island native Harry Hibbs (1942–1989). 62 Hynes, Songs of Ron Hynes, 7–9, 18–19, 32–3. 63 Best and Morgan, The Colour of Amber. 64 Devine, “Necessary Evils: Strangers, Outsiders and Outports in Newfoundland Drama,” 351. 65 The plays explore issues of identity in various stages of the lives of the Mercer family from Newfoundland. The “Mercer plays” are as follows: Leaving Home (1972), Of the Fields, Lately (1973), Salt-Water Moon (1984), 1949 (1988), and Soldier’s Heart (2001). For a probing discussion of the Mercer plays and related questions of identity in Newfoundland theatre, see Devine, “Necessary Evils,” 250–326. 66 Proulx’s novel, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1994. The 2001 screenplay was written by Robert Nelson Jacobs, directed by Lasse Hallström, and featured actors Kevin Spacey (Quoyle), Julianne Moore, Judi Dench, and Cate Blanchett, as well as Newfoundland film icon Gordon Pinsent. 67 The Mummers Troupe was founded in 1972 by Chris Brookes and Lynn Lunde. Other founding members included John Doyle and Kevin Pittman. In 1977, the Troupe staged a play about Burke entitled The Bard of Prescott Street. 68 CODCO was founded in 1973 by Greg Malone, Diane Olsen, Tommy ­Sexton, Cathy Jones, Paul Sametz, and Mary Walsh (several of whom were affiliated with the Mummers Troupe). Other core members included Andy Jones and Robert Joy. CODCO performed in a weekly CBC television series from 1988 to 1993, after which Jones and Walsh partnered with



69

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Rick Mercer and Greg Thomey to write and perform the hit television ­program This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Satirist Ray Guy has gone so far as to describe the members of CODCO as “the children of Johnny Burke.” (Ray Guy, quoted in Peters, ed., Stars in the Sky Morning: Collective Plays of Newfoundland and Labrador, xvii.) Rising Tide Theatre was founded in 1978 by former Mummers Troupe members Donna Butt (artistic and executive director, 1984-present), David Ross, Terry Rielly, and Glen Tilley. Perhaps best known for its annual Revues, retrospectives of current events with a satirical bent that began in 1984, Rising Tide has taken a special interest in dramatized portrayals of Newfoundland history. In 1981, the company produced Joey, a dramatization of the life of the last father of Confederation, and beginning in 1993 inaugurated a summer tradition of producing The New Founde Lande, an outdoor pageant depicting the rich history of the town of Trinity. A festival of Newfoundland works to coincide with the Trinity pageant was launched in 1994. Helen Peters has identified a similar impulse in the recent work of the Sheila’s Brush Theatre Company (founded by Philip Dinn and Valentine Ryan in 1977), remarking that the group “drew upon the music, song, dance, stories and folklore of the Newfoundland outports and evolved into a distinctive theatre troupe with interests in traditions, music and dance of the province.” (Peters, xxiv) See Halpert and Story, eds, Christmas Mumming in Newfoundland: Essays in Anthropology, Folklore, and History; and Pocius, “The Mummers Song in Newfoundland: Intellectuals, Revivalists, and Cultural Nativism,” 57–85. Emerson, unpublished letter to Grace Butt, 15 September 1969. Other notable Newfoundland theatre companies of the late twentieth century include the Newfoundland Travelling Theatre Company (founded by Dudley Cox and David Weiser), the Resource Centre for the Arts (under the leadership of Andy Jones and Mary Walsh), Wonderbolt Circus Theatre (founded by Beni Malone), and Corey and Wade’s Playhouse (a collective founded by Ashley Billard, Rick Mercer, Christine Taylor, and Andrew Younghusband). In Western Newfoundland the Stephenville Festival, an annual summer drama festival under the directorship of Maxim Mazumdar (1952–1988), became a dynamic centre of modern theatre during the 1980s. For further information on the development of collective theatre in Newfoundland, see Peters, Stars in the Sky Morning: Collective Plays of Newfoundland and Labrador.

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CHAPTER SEVEN 1 After 1936, the college’s governing body (originally the Board of Trustees) was reorganized and expanded to become the Board of Governors. 2 Emerson’s administrative contributions to education in Newfoundland also included service on the Council of Higher Education. 3 Emerson is described as such in Lodge, Dictatorship in Newfoundland, 172. 4 Hatcher, Report of the President, Memorial University College, 1946. 5 The six principal “colleges” (residential high schools) were Prince of Wales College (Methodist), Bishop Feild College for boys and Bishop Spencer College for girls (Church of England), St Bonaventure’s College for boys and St Bride’s College (Littledale), and Mercy Convent for girls (Roman Catholic). Among the more prominent wind bands were the Catholic Cadet Corps Band (CCC), the Methodist Guards Band, and the aforementioned Church Lads Brigade (CLB) Avalon Battalion Band. 6 In a similar vein, Emerson opposed raising student tuition fees during his tenure on the Board of Governors. During the mid-1940s, he donated a quantity of reference books to the college library. 7 Paton (1863–1946) was born in Sheffield, England, and educated at Cambridge University. He arrived in Newfoundland following a term as high master of the Manchester Grammar School. 8 As discussed in chapter 1, Blackall had previously served as headmaster of Bishop Feild College during Emerson’s early schooling. Blackall, Burke, and Curtis had previously founded a joint summer school for teachers in 1917 with financial backing from local businessmen John Harvey and Harry Crow, while in 1919 Burke and Curtis sponsored a resolution of the Patriotic Association that called upon the government to construct a new education facility as a memorial to Newfoundlanders who had lost their lives in the war. (Baker, “Memorial University of Newfoundland.”) 9 A native of Moreton’s Harbour, Newfoundland, Hatcher (1886–1954) was a graduate of the Methodist College in St John’s and McGill University in Montreal. He was later awarded the degree Doctor of Laws from Dalhousie and Mount Allison Universities. Prior to his appointment to the faculty of Memorial University College, he served as a professor of Natural Sciences at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Québec. Hatcher became president of Memorial University College in 1933. A student residence on the current campus of Memorial University is named in his honour. 10 Hatcher, Report of the President, Memorial University College, 1939. 11 Paton, Report of the President, Memorial University College, 1926.



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12 The college’s Student Handbook for 1942–43 offered the following description of the Assembly Hall and its usages: “The Assembly Hall is a rather special place. It contains the portraits of the founders of the College; it contains historic flags; it is the scene of important ceremonies in the life of the College. Here the College receives its guests. It is, therefore, in a certain sense reserved. Students do not congregate there for trivial purposes, nor do they go there for study. In the Assembly Hall is a piano. Students who have obtained permission from the Committee of Discipline may play at certain specified times.” (Memorial University College Student Handbook, 1942–43.) 13 Ross was a Church of England clergyman and organist at the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in the late 1930s. He taught an evening music appreciation class at Memorial University College during the 1940–41 academic year. 14 Smith was organist at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in St John’s during the 1930s and music teacher at Prince of Wales College in the Newfoundland capital (1937–42). 15 Hunter (1892–1971) was born raised in the England, where he graduated from the University of London and Oxford University. Seriously wounded during the Battle of the Somme, he received a doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1925 and, that same year, was appointed as one of the first three faculty members of the new Memorial University College. Hunter taught English and French at the college, where he was known as an inspiring teacher and an active researcher and writer. In 1933 he became vice-president of the College and, following the granting of university status in 1949, became the first dean of Arts and Science. Hunter received an honorary doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1961. A provincial reference library in the St John’s Arts & Culture Centre is named in his honour. (Morgan, “Alfred Collinson Hunter.”) 16 Colman received a PhD from Harvard University before accepting an appointment to teach Biology at the college from 1933 to 1936. During the 1934–35 academic year, he gave a radio address on Memorial University College radio station VOGY entitled “Schubert and his Songs.” An outspoken critic of Newfoundland’s school system, Colman’s published views on the subject were controversial. 17 Woodford, “We Love the Place O Lord”: A History of the Written Musical Tradition of Newfoundland and Labrador to 1949, 179. 18 The teaching of music theory in Newfoundland – as exemplified in the private theory classes of Anthony Beyers – predates Myers’ music appreciation lectures by nearly two decades. By June 1832, in fact, Beyers was

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Notes to pages 171–5

pleased to announce that such classes were “now in successful progress,” adding that the lessons were “calculated to impart to the pupils a knowledge of the principles of harmony and composition, at the same time as they acquire a graceful and expressive style of performance.” (Royal Gazette, St John’s, Newfoundland, 12 June 1832.) Times and General Commercial Gazette, St John’s, Newfoundland, 24 July 1850. Handcock, a teacher at the Wesleyan Academy and choirmaster at George Street Methodist Church, founded the St John’s Choral Society in 1878. The St John’s Athenaeum Society grew out of an amalgamation of three existing institutions: the St John’s Library Society (1823), the Mechanics Institute (1849), and the Young Men’s Literary and Scientific Institute (1858). Founding members included some of the most influential figures in Newfoundland society, such as: the judge and historian ­Daniel W. Prowse; Rev. Dr Moses Harvey, a Presbyterian clergyman and historian; Adam Scott, principal of the General Protestant Academy; Robert Kent, a lawyer and later speaker of the Newfoundland House of Assembly; and John Bowring, a prominent businessman. Through contributions from its founding organizations, the Athenaeum Society was able to offer subscribers a 2,500-book library, a reading room of current periodicals, magazines, and newspapers (both imported and local), and a small museum inherited from the Mechanics Institute. A series of lectures, given by members of the society and occasional guest speakers, ran throughout the winter months. The subject matter was typically historical, philosophical, geographical, or scientific, depending on the expertise of the lecturer. From its earliest years, the Athenaeum Society placed a high value on music and each lecture season concluded with a spring concert. Whiteway, “The Athenaeum Movement: St John’s Athenaeum,” 536. Newfoundland was granted Representative Government in 1832 and Responsible Government in 1855. Emerson, “Music Appreciation.” Copland’s What to Listen For in Music, written just a few years prior to Emerson’s music appreciation lectures at the college, was a widely read source on the subject. The piece in question was Bedrich Smetana’s symphonic poem Vltava (“The Moldau”), from a cycle of six symphonic poems known collectively as Má vlast (“My country,” c. 1872–79). Emerson, “Music Appreciation.” Joan Stevenson McLeod, quoted in MacLeod, ed., Crossroads Country: Memories of Pre-Confederation Newfoundland, 223.



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29 Vivian, personal communication. Vivian’s musical children are Dave ­Vivian, Jim Vivian, and Beverley (Vivian) Lane. 30 Abraham, personal communication. 31 Godfrey (1913–1996) was born in England and spent his early years there and in India, before immigrating to Newfoundland in 1924. An accomplished singer, he would become a frequent performer in local concerts with musicians such as the soprano Eileen Cantwell (later Stanbury) (1927–2008), the pianist Douglas Osmond (1917–2006), and others. ­Godfrey graduated from Memorial University College in 1932 and in 1939, returned to his alma mater to accept the position of college bursar. He later became assistant deputy minister in the Newfoundland Department of Public Welfare, before moving to Ottawa to direct that city’s social services in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1985, he published a book entitled Social Policy in Newfoundland 1832–1982: Search for a Just Society. 32 Godfrey, “‘Lo, here is felawschippe,’ Eleanor Mews Jerrett and ‘a cappella’ Choral Singing in St John’s, Newfoundland 1933–1954: Perspectives on Elements of a Musical Whole,” 21. 33 Emerson, “Johann Sebastian Bach.” 34 Alfred Einstein (1880–1952), a cousin of scientist Albert Einstein, was born in Germany but rose to prominence as a musicologist in the United States. He is often considered one of the most influential musicologists of the early twentieth century. 35 Romain Rolland (1866–1944) was a French historian, critic, biographer, novelist, playwright, and writer on music. As a musicologist, he was recognized for his writings on Handel and Beethoven. In 1916, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel Jean-Christophe. 36 Arnold Schering (1877–1941) was a German musicologist known for his writings on Johann Sebastian Bach. 37 Donald Francis Tovey (1875–1940) was an English musicologist, composer, and pianist perhaps best known for his analytical studies of the music of Beethoven. 38 Ernest Newman (1868–1959) was Britain’s most celebrated music critic of the early twentieth century. Born William Roberts, he adopted an intellectual approach that championed progressive ideas in the arts and adopted the pseudonym because he regarded himself as “a new man in earnest.” 39 See, for example, Einstein’s Mozart: His Character and Work, Rolland’s Beethoven: les grandes époques créatrices, and Tovey’s Beethoven. 40 Emerson, “Ludwig van Beethoven.” 41 Ibid.

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42 Emerson, “The Meaning of Music.” 43 Ibid. 44 By 1954, the collection had been supplemented by a substantial collection of long-playing records. 45 Colles, ed., Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 3rd edition. 46 The Carnegie art set included 1800 reproductions of the world’s greatest works in painting, sculpture, and architecture, original prints showing the history of the art of engraving and the various methods used, thirty-five samples of textiles representing the work of weavers from primitive days to the nineteenth century, and a library of approximately two ­hundred art books. In subsequent years, the set was increased by several hundred reproductions and prints. In addition to art appreciation presentations and other lectures, public exhibitions were held periodically. There was likewise a loan collection of prints that students could borrow for up to one month. 47 Malcolm MacLeod notes that it was largely through Carnegie Corporation funding that the college was able to withstand severe government budget cuts. In 1932, for example, government cutbacks meant that Carnegie Corporation funding accounted for a whopping 67 percent of the college’s revenue. Tuition fees accounted for 17 percent, while the Newfoundland government contributed 12 percent. (MacLeod, A Bridge Built Halfway, 200–2.) 48 The celebrations included public displays of posters, an account of the work of the corporation by Dr V.P. Burke, and a public lecture by President Hatcher entitled “Andrew Carnegie, a Centenary Address.” 49 Hatcher, Report of the President, Memorial University College, 1943. 50 Ian Rusted, quoted in MacLeod, Crossroads Country, 249. Born in Upper Island Cove, Newfoundland, and raised in the community of Carbonear, Rusted (1921–2007) received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto after graduating from Memorial University College. Subsequent studies in medicine were undertaken at Dalhousie and McGill universities in Canada and the Mayo Clinic, University of Minnesota, in the United States. For much of the twentieth century, Rusted was one of Newfoundland’s most influential physicians and, in 1967, was named the first dean of the Memorial University School of Medicine. (MacLeod, Crossroads Country, 247.) 51 The college’s Student Handbook for 1943 advised students that “this room is for music only, and when not in use is kept locked. The simple directions for using it are found under the heading: Music, in the section on Students’ Societies.” (Memorial University College Student Handbook, 1943. )



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52 Ibid. 53 The opening stanza of Scammell’s oft-heard song reads: “O this is the place where the fishermen gather, / In oil skins and boots and Cape Anns battened down; / All sizes of figures with squid lines and jiggers, / They congregate here on the squid jiggin’ ground.” 54 Scammell, unpublished address. 55 Emerson, “The Art of Music Appreciation.” 56 Story, “The St John’s Balladeers,” 70–1. 57 Devine, “The Bard of Prescott Street,” 21. 58 Ibid., 16. 59 Emerson, “Music Appreciation.” 60 Among the folksingers referenced in Emerson’s lectures were Janie Augot of Rencontre, Fortune Bay, Michael Carroll of Placentia, Elizabeth Farrell of Beau Bois, Placentia Bay, Violet McCabe of North River, James Sullivan of King’s Cove, Bonavista Bay, John Walsh of Fleur de Lys, and others. 61 Emerson, “Folksong in Newfoundland.” 62 The author of the song text was listed as “M.E.M.” An account of an early performance during the 1940s attributed authorship to a college student named Muriel Matthews,; however, she quickly dismissed the claim. Malcolm MacLeod has since suggested that the true author may be another MUC student at the time, Marguerite McDonald of Deer Lake, Newfoundland (MacLeod, A Bridge Built Halfway, 136–7). Following Blackall’s death on 12 May 1942, College President A.G. Hatcher published a glowing tribute in recognition of his eminent contributions to education in Newfoundland. 63 “Memorial,” Cap and Gown (1943): 110–11. 64 Ibid. Emerson’s text replaces the following:   In quest of knowledge rove;   Through whose corridors walk honoured ghosts   Of cov’nants sealed above. 65 One of many former collegians to die during the war was Philip Templeman, a bass in the college glee club during Eleanor Mews’s tenure as director. Templeman died over enemy territory while on active service with the Royal Air Force, prompting then president A.G. Hatcher to eulogize him as “one of the finest men to hold our graduating diploma.” (Hatcher, Report of the President, Memorial University College, 1940.) 66 Hatcher, Report of the President, Memorial University College, 1942. 67 Hatcher, Report of the President, Memorial University College, 1945. 68 “Music Appreciation,” The Cap and Gown (1947): 93. 69 Hatcher, Report of the President, Memorial University College, 1947.

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70 Following the influx of American military personnel to Newfoundland during the World War II era and the concurrent rise of American-inspired big band music, the St John’s-based Chris Andrews Orchestra was one of the most popular Newfoundland dance bands of the era. 71 In Duley’s novel Cold Pastoral, the heroine expresses an almost erotic impulse to register for college classes: “Her body yearned for the academic dress of cap and gown and the rubbing of shoulders at lectures and assemblies.” (Duley, quoted in MacLeod, A Bridge Built Halfway, 139). 72 Russell’s son is the acclaimed traditional fiddler Kelly Russell. 73 During the 1943–44 academic year, the college received a $2,500 donation from Doyle to establish a scholarship in Engineering. A second matching gift of $2,500 was donated in 1946–47 to continue the scholarship. During the 1952–53 academic year, he donated a collection of books to the college library. 74 Smallwood, speaking in favour of establishing a Newfoundland university at the Newfoundland National Convention in 1947, remarked that “in the case of our deciding… to link this country with another country… it will be more important than ever to see to it that our Newfoundland culture is preserved and encouraged and fostered and developed, and in no way can that be done better than through the creation of a Newfoundland university.” (Smallwood, quoted in Hiller and Harrington, eds, The Newfoundland National Convention, 1946–1948, 1: 581.) 75 A key figure in the founding of the Department of Folklore and the Folklore and Language Archive at Memorial was the American folklorist ­Herbert Halpert (1911–2000). 76 Rumboldt was hired by Memorial University as a visiting lecturer in Music in 1952 and, in 1960, was appointed full-time music consultant to its Department of Extension Services. 77 One of Canada’s leading composers since the mid-twentieth century, Schafer (b. 1933) was artist-in-residence at Memorial University from 1963 to 1965. He subsequently taught at Simon Fraser University (1965– 75), where he founded the World Soundscape Project, dedicated to the study of the relationship between humans and the acoustic environment. His music ranges widely in subject matter and style, with much of it employing unconventional performance techniques. A number of his works, among them the choral piece Epitaph for Moonlight, substitute graphic scores for conventional musical notation. 78 Cook (b. 1937) was born and raised in St John’s, Newfoundland, and educated at Prince of Wales College (St John’s) and Mount Allison University (Sackville, New Brunswick). His graduate studies were undertaken in



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New York (School of Sacred Music, Union Theological Seminary) and the United Kingdom (Royal College of Music and King’s College, University of London). He received a PhD in musicology from the latter in 1982. From 1958 to 1962 he served as music teacher at Bishop Feild College and was the long-time organist and choirmaster of the Anglican Cathedral of St John the Baptist in St John’s (as well as further church music duties with St Thomas’s Anglican Church from 1967 to 1971). In 1968 he was appointed specialist in Music at Memorial University of Newfoundland and in 1975 was promoted to head of the newly established Department of Music (and later director of the School of Music). He continued in the latter capacity until 1990. Cook subsequently moved to London, Ontario, to become principal of the Western Ontario Conservatory of Music and oversaw the merger of the Western Ontario Conservatory of Music and the Edmontonbased Western Board into a national music examination body. In 1993, the Recital Hall in the Memorial University School of Music was named in his honour. Cook was named a member of the Order of Canada in 1993 and received an honorary doctorate from Memorial in 1999.

CHAPTER EIGHT 1 Williams was stationed at Fort Pepperell, St John’s in the 596th Air Force Band, 1953–57. 2 Neary, Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 278–340. 3 For a provocative account, see Malone, Don’t Tell the Newfoundlanders: The True Story of Newfoundland’s Confederation with Canada. 4 Emerson’s former law partner Charles Edward Hunt (1886–1954). 5 Emerson, unpublished letter to Grace Butt, 15 December 1964. Emerson’s comments were in reference to a poem Butt had written about Newfoundland joining Confederation entitled “Lines to a Canadian Friend, March 31, 1949.” 6 Litt, The Muses, the Masses and the Massey Commission, 109. 7 Canada Council, Thirty-Third Annual Report, 6. 8 Canada Council Bulletin, 1 (October 1958): 1. 9 One of the more controversial articles in this vein in recent years was a 2005 piece by Toronto Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente entitled “Oh Danny Boy, Pipe Down.” Ostensibly a critique of Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams, her ill-informed dismissal of rural Newfoundland as a “welfare ghetto” prompted a firestorm of condemnation from politicians, media commentators, and citizens across Canada. 10 Emerson Furlong, personal communication.

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11 See Schabas, Sir Ernest MacMillan: The Importance of Being Canadian, for a detailed account of MacMillan’s life and contributions, and Morey, ed., MacMillan on Music: Essays on Music by Sir Ernest MacMillan, for a collection of MacMillan’s writing. 12 Beckwith, “Sir Ernest MacMillan.” 13 Kallmann, “Canadian Music Council/Conseil canadien de la musique.” 14 Canada Council, First Annual Report, 15–16. 15 See Shand, “Canadian Music Centre/Centre de musique canadienne.” 16 See Kallmann, “The Canadian Music Journal.” 17 Under the editorship of Helmut Kallmann, Gilles Potvin, and Kenneth Winters, the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada was published in English by the University of Toronto Press in 1981 and in French as Encyclopédie de la musique au Canada by Éditions Fides in 1983. A second English edition was published in 1992, while the companion volume in French followed in 1993. In 2003, the Historica Foundation of Canada mounted an updated, online edition including expanded coverage of popular genres. The online edition remains the most up-todate, comprehensive reference source on music in Canada. (Laine and King, “Encyclopedia of Music in Canada.”) 18 The twenty-five-volume set of musical scores was published by the Canadian Musical Heritage Society, an organization founded in 1982 by a group of scholars that included Helmut Kallmann, John Beckwith, ­Clifford Ford, Elaine Keillor, Lucien Poirier, Frederick Hall, and later Marie-Thérèse Lefebvre. Following the completion of the series, the society initiated several related projects, including a series of audio recordings and a one-volume Historical Anthology of Canadian Music for classroom use (1996). 19 Intersections: A Canadian Journal of Music/Revue canadienne de musique began publication in 1971 as the causm/aceum Journal of the Canadian Association of University Schools of Music/Association canadienne des écoles universitaires de musique. The name of the journal was changed to the Canadian University Music Review/Revue de music des universités canadiennes in 1980 to reflect the new name of the society (Canadian University Music Society/Societé de musique des universités canadiennes). The current name of the journal was adopted in 2005 (Whelan, “Intersections”). While the journal encompasses a wide spectrum of research methodologies and subjects, aspects of music in Canada continue to figure prominently in its content. 20 For a revealing cross-section of Beckwith’s writing, see Music Papers: Articles and Talks by a Canadian Composer, 1961–94.



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21 Canada Council, First Annual Report, 59–63. 22 As late as 2001, Barry Bergey found “little evidence that the council supports to any measurable degree the music of ethnic or folk cultures.” ­(Bergey, “Government and Politics,” 295.) 23 Years later, Emerson would take an active interest in the newly formed St John’s Symphony Orchestra (later the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra) by composing his Newfoundland Rhapsody for the ensemble. 24 Among other organizations to receive major grants were the Vancouver Festival Society and the Stratford Shakespearean Festival. In 1973 the Canada Council Touring Office was created to “assist in making the performing arts accessible to the greatest number of Canadians and to help artists and groups to perform widely.” (Harvey, “Canada Council/Conseil des arts du Canada.”) 25 Canada Council, First Annual Report, 6. 26 Ibid. 27 Bress received a travel grant to enable him to participate in the Tchaikovsky Competition organized by the Government of the USSR. To further assist outstanding instrumentalists, the Council’s musical instrument bank was established in 1985. 28 Harvey, “Canada Council for the Arts.” 29 “The evolution of the Canada Council’s support of the arts,” www.canadacouncil.ca. 30 Ibid. 31 The original armory was destroyed by fire in 1992. A new armory building still stands on the same site. 32 MacLeod, personal communication. 33 Tilley, “History of the Avalon Battalion Band, Church Lads Brigade (1892-1982),” 164. 34 A native of Lichfield, England, Abraham became archbishop of Newfoundland in 1944. Several Newfoundland schools were later named in his honour. 35 Abraham, personal communication. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Barbeau’s work with French Canadian folklore was echoed by the late 1960s research of Carmen Roy, director of the National Museum’s folklore division. 39 Barbeau was born and raised in Ste-Marie-de-Beauce (later Ste-Marie), Québec, and educated at Université Laval and Oxford University (where he studied on a Rhodes Scholarship). Shortly after returning to Canada

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44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

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in 1910, he was hired as anthropologist and ethnologist at the Museum Branch of the Geological Survey of Canada – later known as the National Museum of Canada (1927), and currently as the Canadian Museum of Civilization (1987). For further information on Barbeau and his legacy see Lowry, Man of Mana, Marius Barbeau: A Biography, and Jessup, Nurse, and Smith, eds, Around and About Marius Barbeau. The society is known today as the Canadian Society for Traditional Music/La Societé canadienne pour les traditions musicales. Kallmann, Thrasher, and Luko, “Canadian Society for Traditional Music/ La Societé canadienne pour les traditions musicales.” Hall, “Whither CSTM/SCTM?” 223–4. Emerson was one of six CFMS vice-presidents at the time. The others were Helen Creighton, Graham George, Edward Johnston, Luc Lacourcière, and Ernest MacMillan. Emerson, unpublished letter to Barbeau, 20 October 1959. Ernest MacMillan likewise held dual membership on both the Canada Council and the CFMS executive. Barbeau, unpublished letter to Emerson, 5 June 1958. Croft, Helen Creighton: Canada’s First Lady of Folklore. McGregor and Croft, “Helen Creighton.” Emerson, unpublished letter to Barbeau, 6 May 1958. Decades earlier, his mother had lived in nearby Caledonia after leaving St John’s. Emerson, unpublished letter to Creighton, 11 June 1970. Creighton, unpublished letter to Barbeau, 19 July 1958. Canada Council, First Annual Report, 31. The 1950 IFMC Conference was held in Bloomington, Indiana. Sargent, unpublished letter to Creighton, 31 October 1950. Ménard and Nygaard King, “Kenneth Peacock.” See Guigné, Folksongs and Folk Revival: The Cultural Politics of Kenneth Peacock’s “Songs of the Newfoundland Outports,” for a probing discussion of Peacock’s life and work in Newfoundland. Peacock, coll. and ed., Songs of the Newfoundland Outports, vol. 1, v. Guigné, Folksongs and Folk Revival, 112. Barbeau, unpublished letter to Maud Karpeles, 13 May 1958. Ibid. Karpeles, unpublished letter to Barbeau, 27 June 1958. Peacock, in an unpublished letter to Barbeau dated 11 February 1959, noted that “since the book will be largely based on my collection I feel it



64 65

66 67

68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

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Notes to pages 211–19

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is fair for me to expect at least equal authority in the choice of material and the general design of the book.” Karpeles, unpublished letter to Emerson, 18 November 1958. Peacock’s letter does not elaborate on the criteria by which he judged a song to be either “dreadful” or “presentable”; however, his background as a composer may well have caused him to favour songs that he deemed suitable for concert performances. Peacock, unpublished letter to Barbeau, 11 February 1959. Emerson, in a letter to Barbeau shortly after the conference, expressed the wish that “the constitution Sir Ernest & I drafted meets with your approval. It should, as you know be signed by – is it three in Québec? – persons & filed with the registrar of companies so that we can get our Certificate of Incorporation. I presume that we can under the practice at Québec combine the memorandum & articles of association in one document. One can in Newfoundland in the use of charitable organizations. The registrar may want something inserted to the effect that the society is a philanthropic one and not incorporated for the purpose of financial gain.” (Emerson, unpublished letter to Barbeau, 12 August 1958). Creighton, unpublished letter to Barbeau, 13 August 1958. Ibid., 13 August 1958. Helen and Ted Goodridge, personal communication. Emerson, unpublished letter to Barbeau, 9 April 1958. Emerson, unpublished letter to Barbeau, 12 January 1960. Emerson, unpublished letter to Smallwood, 2 June 1960. Guigné, Folksongs and Folk Revival, 197–8. Emerson’s references to the support of eminent folksong collectors ­(Barbeau, Karpeles, Peacock, Creighton), cultural institutions (the Canada Council), and other Canadian provinces (Québec and Nova Scotia) were clearly intended to underscore this point. Emerson, unpublished letter to Smallwood, 24 January 1961.

CHAPTER NINE 1 According to Anne Holt, Emerson went to Greenfield immediately after being released from hospital in England. Arrangements were later made to facilitate the move of possessions from St John’s to Greenfield, since his physicians did not feel he was well enough to cope with the stress of moving house. 2 Emerson, unpublished letter to Barbeau, 20 June 1961.

346

Notes to pages 219–26

3 Another passion Emerson pursued with renewed energy in retirement was his love of cooking exotic cuisine. 4 Emerson, unpublished letter to Fairchild, 6 October 1971. 5 At his home in Greenfield in the 1960s Emerson kept a greenhouse that included orchids, roses, and grapes. He loved the aesthetic beauty of a well kept garden and, likely due to mounting health concerns, employed a gardener to help craft the grounds to his wishes. 6 Interestingly, John Tait (Bertrand Russell’s grandson) was a close friend of Emerson’s grandson David Holt. 7 Emerson, unpublished letter to Barbeau, 5 January 1962. 8 Abraham, personal communication. 9 Emerson unpublished letter to Barbeau, 5 January 1962. 10 David Holt, personal communication, 18 March 2005. 11 Creighton had previously visited the Emersons in St John’s prior to the move to Greenfield. 12 Bottenberg (b. 1930) immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1958. He joined the music faculty at Acadia University in 1965 and subsequently moved to Montreal in 1973 to assume a faculty position at Concordia University and contribute to its emerging music program. He retired from teaching at the latter institution as professor emeritus in 1997. (Fisher, “Wolfgang Bottenberg.”) 13 Emerson, unpublished letter to Fairchild, 6 October 1971. 14 Ibid. 15 Emerson, unpublished letter to Fairchild, 3 November 1971. 16 Holt, personal communication. 17 Emerson Furlong, personal communication. 18 Fairchild, personal communication. 19 Linda Fairchild Contemporary Art (www.lindafairchild.com). 20 Holt, personal communication. 21 Kipling’s “Recessional” was written in 1897. 22 See Colton, “Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra,” for further details on the history of the ensemble. 23 As discussed in chapter 5, the canonical position Emerson accorded the Banks was confirmed by its inclusion in the Newfoundland Folk Music article he authored in the Book of Newfoundland as well as prominent mention of the piece’s historical significance in his Newfoundland folk music lectures. 24 Woodford, “We Love the Place, O Lord”: A History of the Written Musical Tradition of Newfoundland and Labrador to 1949, 229–30.



Notes to pages 226–45

347

25 Galgay, unpublished letter to Doyle, 9 August 1947. 26 Ibid. 27 Among the recordings of Cable’s Newfoundland Rhapsody are performances by the Toronto Philharmonia (1967), the Barrie Collegiate Band (1969), and the Edmonton Wind Ensemble (1987). 28 Omitted from later editions of the Doyle songbooks, the lively and memorably tuneful song was composed by the twenty-nine-member crew of the sealing vessel the Lone Flier in 1929 and contributed by Herbert ­Walters and Jack Sharp of Twillingate. 29 MacLeod, interviewed with Carpenter. 30 Despite the overt reference to Forbes’s piece in the title, the actual quotation from “The Banks of Newfoundland” is condensed from the windband version. 31 Guigné, Folksongs and Folk Revival, 83–4. 32 Bloom’s ideas are well documented in the following works: The Anxiety of Influence (1974), A Map of Misreading (1975), Poetry and Repression (1976), and Agon: Towards A Theory of Revisionism (1982). More recently, musicologists and theorists have applied intertextual theories to art music in studies such as Joseph Straus, Remaking the Past: Musical Modernism and the Influence of the Tonal Tradition (1990); Kevin ­Korsyn, “Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence” (1991); John ­Hollander, The Figure of Echo (1981); Jeremy Yudkin, “Beethoven’s ‘Mozart’ Quartet” (1992); Mark Evan Bonds, After Beethoven: Imperatives of Originality in the Symphony (1996); and by the present author, “Completion and Antithesis in Piano Sonata No. 6 by S.C. EckhardtGramatté” (1997). See also Richard Taruskin’s review of the Straus and Korsyn works: “Revising Revision” (1993). 33 Story, Public oration on the conferring of an Honorary Degree upon ­Frederick Rennie Emerson. 34 Frecker, Obituary of F.R. Emerson, 2.

APPENDICES 1 Greenleaf, Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland, and Karpeles, Folk Songs from Newfoundland. 2 The following sentence, omitted from the final published version, appears in an earlier manuscript draft of the article at this point: “The tune that is perhaps most associated with the Newfoundland people – thanks perhaps to the Newfoundland Regiment – is the lively and captivating dance tune,

348

3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

Notes to pages 246–74

‘The Banks of Newfoundland.’” Given that the published version of the article contains a musical example from “The Banks of Newfoundland,” the deletion of the preceding is somewhat puzzling. The preceding paragraph, and the closing paragraph that follows, do not appear in the manuscript draft of the article. Maud Karpeles, coll. and ed., Folk Songs from Newfoundland. The following sentences are crossed out in the manuscript at this point: “We see, therefore, that music is essentially like painting or sculpture and art, and it only records the sort of things that art can record. For a long time philosophers and great thinkers of Greece were puzzled by the phenomenon of music; they felt and knew that music was capable of expressing certain ideas, they recognized its charm, its emotional quality, but it is only in comparatively recent times that music has so developed that one realizes how profound musical thought can be.” The French city of Pau. Folklorist Germain Lemieux (1914–2008). Folksong collector Louise Manny (1890–1970). The “friend” referenced is Kenneth Peacock. Emerson’s aforementioned sister Clara (Emerson) Hubley and nephew Charles Hubley.

References

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Thorne, Cory W. “Gone to the Mainland and Back Again: A Critical Approach to Region, Politics, and Identity in Contemporary Newfoundland Song.” Newfoundland and Labrador Studies 22, no. 1 (2007): 51–73. Tilley, William G. “History of the Avalon Battalion Band, Church Lads Brigade (1892–1982).” Unpublished paper, 1986. Tillmann, Henry H. Newfoundland Camp Gallopade. London: H. Distin, 1853. Tippett, Maria. Making Culture: English-Canadian Institutions and the Arts before the Massey Commission. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. The Times, London. Obituary of Maud Karpeles (1885–1976), 2 October 1977. Tovey, Donald Francis. Beethoven. Edited by H.J. Foss. London: Oxford University Press, 1944. Tulk, Beaton. “Tribute to Chief Justice Noel Goodridge.” Government of Newfoundland and Labrador news release, 15 December 1997. Tulk, Janice E. “Cultural Revitalization and Mi’kmaq Music-Making: Three Newfoundland Drum Groups.” Newfoundland and Labrador Studies 22, no. 1 (2007): 259–86. Usmiani, Renate. Second Stage: The Alternative Theatre Movement in Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1983. Vaughan Williams, Ralph. The Making of Music. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1955. – National Music and Other Essays, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Vaughan Williams, Ursula. 1983. “Ralph Vaughan Williams and Folk Music.” English Dance and Song 45, no. 1 (1983): 15–17. Vipond, Mary. “The Nationalist Network: English Canada’s Intellectuals and Artists in the 1920s.” Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 5 (Spring 1980): 32–53. The Virgil Society website. www.virgilsociety.org.uk. Walter, Arnold, ed. Aspects of Music in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969. Wareham, Wilfred. “Toward an Ethnography of ‘Times’: Newfoundland Party Traditions, Past and Present.” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1982. Webb, Jeff A. “Constructing Community and Consumers: Joseph R. ­Smallwood’s Barrelman Radio Programme.” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 8 (1997): 239–58. – “Inventing Radio Broadcasting in Newfoundland and the Maritime Provinces, 1922–1939.” PhD diss., University of New Brunswick, 1984.

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Selected Discography Benoit, Émile. Vive la rose. Topsail, Newfoundland: Amber Music, 1992. Best, Anita. Crosshanded. Topsail, Newfoundland: Amber Music, 1997. – and Pamela Morgan. The Colour of Amber. Topsail, Newfoundland: Amber Music, 1991. Blondahl, Omar. The Saga of Newfoundland. Montreal: Rodeo Records, 1955. – A Visit to Newfoundland with Omar Blondahl. Halifax: Rodeo Records, 1958. Burge, John. Flanders Fields Reflections. Performed by Sinfonia Toronto. Toronto: Marquis, 2008. Chamber Ensembles of Memorial University of Newfoundland. Tour 95. St John’s: School of Music, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1995. Choral Performances 2001. St John’s: Festival 500 Sharing the Voices, 2001. Curran, Amelia. Hunter, Hunter. Toronto: Six Shooter Records, 2009. Dardanelles, The. The Dardanelles. St John’s: The Dardanelles, 2009. Doyle, Alan. Boy on Bridge. Toronto: Universal Music Canada, 2012. Edmonton Wind Ensemble, directed by Harry Pinchin. Concert in the Park. CBC Records, 1988. Ennis. Lessons Learned. St John’s: Ennis, 2009. Figgy Duff. After the Tempest. Topsail, Newfoundland: Amber Music, 1997. – Downstream. Toronto: Hypnotic Records, 1993. – Figgy Duff. Topsail, Newfoundland: Amber Music, 1997. – Figgy Duff: A Retrospective, 1974-1993. Mississauga: Amber Music, 2005. – Figgy Duff Live: Silver Reunion. Topsail, Newfoundland: Amber Music, 2008. – Weather Out the Storm. Toronto: Hypnotic Records, 1990. Flummies. Labradorimiut. World Replication Group, 2000. Folk Songs of Newfoundland. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Folkways, 2001.

386 References

Gear, Jenny, and The Whiskey Kittens. Jenny Gear and The Whiskey Kittens. St John’s: Jenny Gear, 2004. Glee Club of CJON-TV and Radio, St John’s, Newfoundland. Directed by ­Ignatius Rumboldt. cjon’s Glee Club Sings Newfoundland Folksongs and Other Selections. Montreal: Rodeo Records, 1955. – The Glee Club of cjon-tv and Radio, St John’s, Newfoundland, vol. 2. Montreal: Rodeo Records, 1956. Gould, Glenn. Solitude Trilogy: Three Sound Documentaries. Toronto: CBC Records, 1992. Great Big Sea, Courage & Patience & Grit. Toronto: Warner Music Canada, 2006. – Fortune’s Favour. Toronto: Warner Music Canada, 2008. – Great Big Sea. St John’s: NRA Productions, 1993. – The Hard and the Easy. Toronto: Warner Music Canada, 2005. – Play. Toronto: Warner Music Canada, 1997. – Rant and Roar. New York: Sire Records, 1998. – Safe upon the Shore. Toronto: Warner Music Canada, 2010. – Turn. New York: Sire Records, 1999 – Up. Toronto: Warner Music Canada, 1995. Guinchard, Rufus. Fathers of the Newfoundland Fiddle, vol. 1. St John’s: Pigeon Inlet Productions, 1995. – Humouring The Tunes. St John’s: Singsong, 1990. Hannaford Street Silver Band. Canadian Impressions. Toronto: CBC Records, 1994. Harbour Symphony: Music for Ships’ Horns. St John’s: Sound Arts Initiatives, 1998. Hey Rosetta! Into Your Lungs. Halifax: Sonic Records, 2008. – Plan Your Escape. Halifax: Sonic Records, 2007. – Seeds. Halifax: Sonic Records, 2011. Hibbs, Harry. The Very Best of Harry Hibbs, vol. 1. Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2001. Hynes, Ron. Cryer’s Paradise. Mississauga: Atlantica Music, 1993. – Face to the Gale. Mississauga: Artisan Music, 1997. – Get Back Change. Toronto: Borealis Records, 2003. – Ron Hynes. Toronto: Borealis Records, 2006. – The Sandcastle Sessions, 1999–2001. Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island: Sandcastle Recording Studio, 2002. – Stealing Genius. Toronto: Borealis Records, 2010. – and Connie Hynes. 11:11 Newfoundland Women Sing: Songs by Ron and Connie Hynes.



References 387

Irish Descendants, The. Blooming Bright Star. Markham, Ontario: Sextant Records, 2001. – Southern Shore. Toronto: Fontana North, 2007. It’s Time for Another One: Folk Songs from the South Coast of Newfoundland, Ramea, and Grole. St John’s: Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005. Janet Cull Band. St John’s: Janet Cull Band, 2004. Leach, MacEdward. Songs from the Outports of Newfoundland. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Folkways, 1966. Martin, Harry. Full Circle. Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador: Harry Martin Music, 2005. McCann, Séan. Lullabies for Bloodshot Eyes. Halifax: Lean Ground Music, 2009. – Son of a Sailor. Halifax: Lean Ground Music, 2011. Memorial University of Newfoundland Chamber Choir. Directed by Donald F. Cook. Waterloo, Ontario: Waterloo Records, 1983. – Winter’s Gone and Past and Other Songs of Newfoundland. Waterloo, Ontario: World Records, 1979. Merasheen Born and Merasheen Bred 1980-2010: 30 Years, Still Going Strong. Various artists. St John’s: Sawyer Hill Productions, 2009. Mills, Alan. Folk Songs of Newfoundland Sung by Alan Mills. New York: Folkways, 1953. Montague, Shirley. Montage. Norris Point, Newfoundland: Shirley Montague, c. 2000. Mopaya. Sango Yango. St John’s: Mopaya Music, 2004. Morgan, Pamela. Ancestral Songs. Conception Bay South, Newfoundland: Amber Music, 2006. – On a Wing and a Prayer. Topsail, Newfoundland: Amber Music, 1996. – Seven Years. Topsail, Newfoundland: Amber Music, 2002. Morris, Sandy. Music from “Land and Sea.” St John’s: Sandy Morris, 2005. Morrissey, Joan. Memories. Newmarket, Ontario: Heritage Music, 2000. Newfoundland and Labrador Folklore: A Sampler of Songs, Narrations, and Tunes. St John’s: Centre for the Study of Music, Media, and Place, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2006. Newfoundland and Labrador Women of Song. St John’s: Avondale Music, c. 2008 Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra. The Newfie Bullet. Narrated symphony by Brian Sexton. West Hill, Ontario: Moss Music, 1981. Newfoundland Symphony Youth Choir. Full Circle. St John’s: Newfoundland Symphony Youth Choir, 2001.

388 References

– Newfoundland Good Times. Newmarket, Ontario: Heritage Music, 1999. – Newfoundland Songbook. Pointe-Claire, Québec: Unidisc Music, 2008. – Quest. St John’s: Newfoundland Symphony Youth Choir, 2004. – Reaching from the Rock. Canada: Furiant Productions, 1998. – Rock within the Sea. St John’s: Newfoundland Symphony Youth Choir, 1996. Nolan, Dick. Down By The Sea. Scarborough, Ontario: Heritage Music, 1998. Once, The. The Once. St John’s: The Once, 2009. Our Labrador. Various artists. St John’s: CBC Radio Newfoundland and Labrador, 1993. Panting, Dave. Newfoundland Songs. St John’s: Dave Panting, 2006. Parker, Michael. Lyre: Chamber Music for Clarinet. St John’s: CBC Radio, 1996. Payne, Jim. Empty Nets. St John’s: Echo Recording Studio, 1991. – State of the Nation: Show Songs from Rising Tide Theatre. St John’s: AudioGarden, 1992. Payne, Jim, and Fergus O’Byrne. Wave over Wave: Old and New Songs of Atlantic Canada. St John’s: Audio Garden, 1995. Peacock, Kenneth. Songs of the Newfoundland Outports. CD-ROM. St John’s: Singsong, 2001. Punters, The. Fisherman’s Blues. St John’s: Avondale Music, 2003. – Trad Music. St John’s: Avondale Music, 2010. Rawlins Cross. Anthology. Halifax: Ground Swell Records, 2008. – Celtic Instrumentals. Halifax: Ground Swell Records, 1997. Royal Newfoundland Regiment Band. Royal Newfoundland Regiment Band. St John’s: Royal Newfoundland Regiment, 1994. Russell, Kelly. Close to the Floor: Newfoundland Dance Music. St John’s: Pigeon Inlet Productions, 1992. – & The Planks. Smashed Hits. St John’s: Pigeon Inlet Productions, 1996. Ryan’s Fancy, What a Time! Ryan’s Fancy: A Forty Year Celebration. St John’s: Singsong, 2011. Shallaway. Ann & Séamus, a Chamber Opera. Words and music by Stephen Hatfield, based on a book by Kevin Major. St John’s: Shallaway, 2010. Shore to Shore: From the West Country to the New Founde Lande. Various artists. St John’s: Singsong, and Devon, United Kingdom: Wren, 2010. Smith, Christina, and Jean Hewson. Like Ducks! Toronto: Borealis Records, 1998. Somers, Harry. Sacred and Profane Somers. Toronto: CMC Centrediscs, 1995. Songs and Ballads of Newfoundland. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Folkways, 2000.



References 389

Songs of the Maritimes. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Folkways, 2001. St John’s Extension Choir of Memorial University. Directed by Ignatius ­Rumboldt. Newfoundlanders Sing Songs of Their Homeland. Montreal: RCA Victor, 1966. Stockwood, Kim. Back to the Water. Halifax: Turtlemusik, 2011. Tickle Harbour. Battery Included. St John’s: Dadyeen Studios, 1998. Vaughan Williams, Ralph. Folksong Arrangements. Robert Tear (tenor), Sir Philip Ledger (piano), Hugh Bean, Jean Stewart (viola), and Daphne Ibbott (piano). London: EMI Records, 2008. We Will Remain: Patriotic Songs of Newfoundland. Various artists. St John’s: Singsong Inc., 1998. White, Minnie. The Hills of Home. St John’s: Singsong, 1994. Wonderful Grand Band. Living In A Fog. Toronto: Grand East Records, 1981. – Wonderful Grand Band. Stephenville, Newfoundland: Clode Sound Studio, 1978.

Index

Abbott, Eric O., 102, 322n36 Abraham, Archbishop Rev. Philip S., 201–3, 343n34 Abraham, William, 175, 202–3 Allaire, Gaston, 220, 274 Allen, Alfred, 45; musical setting of the “Ode to Newfoundland,” 47–51 American influence on music in Newfoundland, 35, 98, 102–4, 106, 183, 190 Andrews, Chris, 188, 190, 321n25, 340n70 “Anti-Confederation Song,” 11–12, 191–2, 307n29 Atkinson, Anna Maria, 24, 69–71, 317n36 Augot, Janie, 253 Autry, Gene. See American influence on music in Newfoundland Bach, Johann Sebastian, 175–6 Bacon, Joseph, 171 Balbo, Italo, 5, 89–91, 319n27 “Banks of Newfoundland, The,” 18, 34–5, 53 135–7, 184, 347n30,

347–8n2; musical quotations from, 226–30 Barban, Andreas, 80, 102, 105, 224, 318n11, 321n25 Barbeau, Marius, 5–7, 10, 112, ­203–9, 211, 213–16, 218–20, ­265–7, 269, 343n38–9 Barrelman radio program. See Joseph R. Smallwood Bartók, Béla, 112, 324n8 Basilica of St John the Baptist, St John’s, 35, 79, 321n35 Bayly, James, 27 Beckwith, John, 196–7 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 92, 176 Bell, Leslie, 6, 197; visit to Newfoundland with Howard Cable, 226–8 Bellamy, Sr Kathrine, 102, 108, 321n35 Bennett, David, 33 Benevolent Irish Society, 64, 92 Benoît, Émile, 8, 16, 305n15 Berry, Freida, 81, 240 Best, Anita, 8 Bevan, Richard T., 92, 94–5, 104, 170, 319n2–3

392 Indes

Bishop Feild College, 5, 334n5; college song, 32–3; concert and debating club, 42–3; curriculum of, 32–7; history of, 29–31; musical activities of, 32–7 Bishop Spencer College, 41, 78, 81, 94, 149, 170, 311n13, 322n40, 323n53, 334n5 Blackall, Rev. David W., 33 Blackall, William Walker, 30–7, 168–9; “Newfoundland, Isle of the Free,” 45–6; songs of, 43–6, 185–6 Blackwood, David, 8 Blondahl, Omar, 8, 130, 270, 305n13 “Bloody Gardener, The,” 19, 116, 123–5, 128, 184; Emerson on, 254. See also Ralph Vaughan Williams Bloom, Harold, The Anxiety of ­Influence, 230 Bond, Sir Robert, 48, 50–1, 53 Boone, Emma, 253 Bottenberg, Wolfgang, 220, 346n12 Bowring Park, 71–2, 141, 317n37 Boyle, Sir Cavendish, 35, 38–9, 44–6, 48–54, 162, 313n40, 315n69. See also “Ode to Newfoundland” British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 53, 61, 98 British influence in Newfoundland: aspects of, 9, 164, 170 British/Newfoundland identify: aspects of, 155, 164 Brookes, Chris, 165 Brown, Cassie, 165 Bull, Solveig, 220 Burke, John, 113; ballads and operettas of, 163–4, 181–2, 229 Burke, Vincent, 168–9 Butt, Donna, 333n69

Butt, Grace, 155–7, 160–1, 163–5, 192, 341n5. See also St John’s ­Players Cable, Howard, 6; Newfoundland Rhapsody, 7, 130, 226–31, 304n10, 347n27; visit to Newfoundland with Leslie Bell, 226–9, 304n10 Cahill, Tom, 165 Calling Newfoundland radio program. See Margot Davies Cambridge University: and Framlingham College, 57–8, 315n8 Campbell, Hugh, 61 Canada Council, 5–6, 159, 192–201, 206, 212, 217, 227; early milestones, 193–4; historical background, 192–3; legacy of, 200–1; support of Canadian musicians and musical organizations, 196–200. See also Frederick Rennie Emerson Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), 30, 80, 97, 182, 193; and Canadian music, 196, 199, 207, 215, 309n46; and Newfoundland culture, 228, 306n17, 332n68 Canadian Folk Music Society, 112, 198, 203–6, 212–13, 217–19, 227, 266–7. See also Frederick Rennie Emerson Canadian League of Composers, 10, 93, 197 Canadian Music Centre, 195–7 Canadian Music Council, 196–7 Canadian Music Journal, 197–8 Carey, Clive, 115–16, 244 Carnegie Corporation philanthropy: at Memorial University College, 168–9, 177–9, 338n46–8 Carrol, Michael, 253



Index 393

Cathedral of St John the Baptist, St John’s, 40–1, 48 Catholic Cadet Corps Band (CCC), 137, 313n39, 334n5 Champagne, Claude, 197, 215; folk– inspired compositions of, 121 Chopin, Frédéric, 174, 183–4, 187, 260 choral singing in Newfoundland, 105, 108. See also Eleanor Mews Jerrett; Ignatius Rumboldt Christian, Gordon, 95–6, 102, 319n13 Church Lads Brigade (CLB) Avalon Battalion Band, 33–4, 137, 201, 334n5 Clarke, James Paton: “Lays of the Maple Leaf,” 45 “Cliffs of Baccalieu.” See Irene B. Melon radio program Clift, Henry, 172 Cochius, Rudolph, 71–2, 141, 144, 152, 329n20 CODCO, 9, 155, 164, 166, 332n68 Cole, Bob, 30 Collins, Daphne, 83 Colman, J.S., 170, 322n41, 335n16 Commission of Government in Newfoundland, 4, 140–6 Community Concert Associations of Newfoundland, 102–4, 188 Confederation with Canada, 43, 66, 69, 190–2, 341n5; musical responses to, 227–8, 303n2; and Newfoundland culture, 3, 5–6, 10–12, 17, 19, 138, 158–9, 194 Cook, Donald F., 189, 340–1n78 Cook, Michael, 165 Copland, Aaron, 121, 173, 336n25 cottage hospitals in Newfoundland, 142–3, 152, 328n12, 329n16. See

also Commission of Government in Newfoundland; Markland settlement Council of Higher Education, Newfoundland, 30, 42, 101, 233, 334n2 Creighton, Helen, 5–6, 10, 20, 29, 112, 204, 212; and the Canadian Folk Music Society, 344n43; and Emerson, 17, 29, 198, 205–8, 220, 346n11 Crosbie, John, 30 Curtis, Levi, 168–9, 334n8 Davies, Margot, 53, 320n20; Calling Newfoundland (radio program), 53, 98–9 Dawe, Edmund, 80 DeMel, Bishop Rev. L.J., 201–2 Diefenbaker, John G. See Canada Council Dominion Drama Festival, 158–9, 164–5, 332n56 Doyle, Gerald S., 3, 188, 217, 226–9; Gerald S. Doyle News Bulletin radio program, 98; mediation of Newfoundland culture, 18; Old Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland, 4, 53, 99–100, 112–13, 183 drama festivals in Newfoundland. See Dominion Drama Festival; Newfoundland Drama Festival Duder, Rudolph (Paddy), 155–6, 170–1, 276, 311n15, 330–1n45 Duggan, Micky, 190 Duley Margaret, 188; writings of, 4, 165, 340n71 education in pre-Confederation Newfoundland: aspects of. See Bishop

394 Indes

Feild College; Frederick Rennie Emerson; Markland; Memorial University College Emerson, Charles Henry Grigg, 23–5, 27 Emerson, Charles Henry Jameson (Harry), 74, 81 Emerson family genealogy, 23–4 Emerson, Frederick Rennie: and the Anglican Church in Newfoundland, 93–5, 201–3; and the Canada Council, 5–6, 17, 137–8, 159, 165, 192–4, 201, 206–9, 212–17; and the Canadian Folk Music Society, 5–6, 17, 29, 112, 198, 203–17, 220, 265–6, 271–4; childhood education of, 29–46, 54; on Confederation with Canada, 192; on cultural nationalism, 13; dramatic works of, 7, 154–5, 159–66; “God of Our Fathers,” 223, 235, 239; “In Flanders Fields,” for solo voice and piano, 61–5, 234–5, 239, 293–7; law practice of, 64–9, 213; lectures of, 84–8, 92, 94–6, 167–8, 170–89, 247–64; and the Markland settlement, 139, 141–2, 144–54; and the mediation of Newfoundland culture, 18; “Mein Herz wie ein Hündlein,” for solo voice and piano, 61–2, 239; musical performances of, 92–3, 100–1; musical works of, 7, 61–4, 79, 120, 170, 182–3, 223–31, 234–5, 239–40; on Newfoundland folk music, 131–8, 183–5, 243–56; Newfoundland Rhapsody for orchestra, 7, 16, 79, 120, 182–3, 224–31, 240; Newfoundland Scene for solo harp, 7, 120, 182–3, 223–5, 234–5, 239,

298–301; Proud Kate Sullivan (drama in one act), 7, 100, 154–5, 159–66, 170, 182–3, 231, 240, 276–91; The Triumph of Spring (ballet), 81, 155, 240; visual art of, 74–6 Emerson, George Henry, 68–9 Emerson, George Henry II, 69 Emerson, Helen Louise (Scott), 23–5 Emerson, Hugh Alexander, 68–9 Emerson, Isabel (Jameson), 24, 69–73, 84, 165, 189, 205, 218, 220–1, 274, 317n40; and Maud Karpeles, 115 Emerson, John, 23–4, 310n1, 311n3 Emerson, Lewis Wilkins, 69 Emerson, Prescott, 25, 69, 74 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 23–4, 311n3 Emerson, William, 23, 311n2–3 Emerson Furlong, Carla Isabel, 5, 28, 61, 70–1, 74, 78–83, 131, 189, 219, 223–4, 226, 235 English Folk Dance and Song Society, 110, 116 expatriate Newfoundland identity: artistic expressions of, 7, 79, ­161–3, 313n40, 332n61 Fairchild, Linda Astrid (Holt), 73, 82, 219–23 Farrell, Elizabeth, 255 Felix, Al, 190 Festival 500: Sharing the Voices, 108, 323n50 Figgy Duff, 8–9, 16, 305n16 First World War, 59; and “The Banks of Newfoundland,” 52–3, 135–7; and John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields,” 62–4; and the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, 52–3



Index 395

Fisherman’s Protective Union, 58 Fitch, Theodore: Terra Nova, for orchestra, 226, 231 “Flag of Newfoundland, The,” 35, 44–7 folk: the, conceptions of, 20–2 folk dance: Newfoundland, 246, 250 folk festivals, 8, 113, 188–9, 305n14 folk music: definitions of, 19–20, 132–3 folk schools. See Markland folklore: at Memorial University, 130–1, 188–9 folksingers: Newfoundland, 132–3, 245, 248, 253–6 folksongs: Newfoundland. See “AntiConfederation Song”; ­Leslie Bell; “The Bloody Gardener”; Howard Cable; Gerald S. Doyle; ­Frederick Rennie Emerson; ­Elisabeth ­Greenleaf; Maud Karpeles; “I’se the B’y”; “The Kelligrew’s Soiree”; “Lambkin”; MacEdward Leach; “Lord Bateman”; ­Robert F. ­MacLeod; “The Maiden’s Lament”; “The Morning Dew”; “The Nobleman’s Wedding”; ­Kenneth ­Peacock; ­Ignatius Rumboldt; “The Ryans and the Pittmans”; Arthur ­Scammell; “She’s Like the Swallow”; “Sweet William’s Ghost”; “William Taylor”; “The Winter’s Gone and Past”; “Young Floro” Forbes, Francis. See “The Banks of Newfoundland” Forces Françaises libres, 59 Foss, Hubert J., 115–16, 121, 244 Foster, Daisy, 38–9 Fowke, Edith, 10, 20; Canadian Folk Music Journal, 203; Folk Songs of

Canada, 11, 20, 130, 138, 191–2, 307n29 Framlingham College, 5, 55–8, 62 French, David: Salt-Water Moon, 163 French language: Emerson’s study of, 5, 21, 27, 42, 58, 59–60, 83, 134, 219, 223 Furlong, Richard, 79, 105 Gagnon, Ernest, 112 Galgay, W.F., 98, 320n17 Gardner, Peter, 16, 224, 235, 323n50 George Street United Church, St John’s, 95–6, 319n13 Gibbon, John Murray, 112–13, 324n10 Gillingham, Alan, 220 Gillingham, Clare (Cochius), 144–50 Godfrey, Stuart, 5, 42, 96, 102, ­105–8, 175, 188, 322n45, 337n31 Goodridge, Avalon M. (Ted), 65–6, 221 Goodridge, Harold, 75–7, 221 Goodridge, Noel, 65–7 Gould, Glenn, 6, 197; Solitude Trilogy, 304n7 Great Big Sea, 8–9, 11, 306n19 Greenfield, Nova Scotia: Emerson residence in, 205–6, 213, 218–21 Greenleaf, Elisabeth Bristol, 4, 111–13, 134, 217, 244–6; Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland, 18–19, 183–4, 268 Grenfell, Sir Wilfred, 4, 111, 308n40; Grenfell Mission, 143, 150, 244, 324n6 Grieg, Edvard, 177 Guinchard, Rufus, 8, 305n15, 306n17 Guy, Ray, 8–9, 165, 332–3n68

396 Indes

Halifax Symphony Orchestra: Newfoundland tour, 198–9 Halleran, Margaret, 317n38, 317n4 Halpert, Herbert, 340n75 Handcock, Emile, 172, 336n20 Harbour Symphony. See Sound Symposium Harrington, Michael, 98, 156 Harvey, Rev. Moses, 171–2, 336n21 Hatcher, Albert G., 167, 169, 178, 186–8, 334n9, 338n48, 339n62, 339n65 healthcare in pre-Confederation Newfoundland, 142–3, 324n6, 328n11–12, 328n14, 329n16 Hefferton, Samuel, 156–7 Hey Rosetta!, 15–16, 309n46 Hibbs, Harry, 332n61 Higgins, Gordon Francis, 65–6, 67 Higgins, William John, 64, 67 Holbrook, Hal, 157, 331n53 Holt, Anne Louise (Emerson), 74, 81–2, 345n1 Holt, David Emerson Ian, 82, 92, 222–3, 311n9 Holt, Leif, 81–2 Hope Simpson, Lady (Quita), 100, 148, 328n10 Hope Simpson, Sir John, 100, 140, 144–6, 327n4 Horwood, Harold, 157, 165 Howley, Archbishop Michael, 35, 44–6 Hubley, Charles, 28, 311n9 Hubley, Clara (Emerson), 27–9 Hubley, Harold, 28 Hunt, Charles Edward, 28, 64–6, 192 Hunt, John, 128 Hunter, Alfred Collinson, 170, 335n15

Hutton, Charles, 5, 35–6, 79, 92, 102, 157, 181; and Memorial University College 104, 109, 167, 170, 189; music store of, 254, 331n51; musical performances of, 92; musical works of, 45, 47–9, 312n30, 314n55, 314n60; Newfoundland Folio of Over Fifty Old Favorite Songs, 35, 183, 230; private music teaching of, 79, 314n52; theatrical productions of, 164; See also “The Flag of Newfoundland”; “Ode to Newfoundland” Hynes, Ron, 11–12, 162–3, 306n17, 307n31 “In Flanders Fields”: Emerson’s musical setting of, 61–5, 155, 235, 239, 293–7; John McCrae’s poem, background of, 62–3; musical settings by other composers, 63 Inskip, Oliver Digby, 57–8 International Folk Music Council, 17, 110, 112, 116, 118, 206, 213, 217–19; Québec conference of, 198, 203, 206, 213–14, 226, 271–3 Irene B. Melon radio program, 98 Irish influence in Newfoundland music, 8, 35, 179, 181, 243, 247, 254–5, 259, 304n12 “I’se the B’y,” 223, 228 Italian language: Emerson’s study of, 27, 83, 90 Jameson, Harold Williams, 69–70 Jennings, Marguerite, 170, 322n40, 323n53 Johnston, Richard, 212, 327n72; Folksongs of Canada, 11, 130, 138, 191–2, 307n29



Index 397

Karpeles, Maud, 4, 19–20, 110–38, 183, 198, 206–12, 214–21, 226–7, 229–31; Folk Songs from Newfoundland, 18–19, 130–1, 183–4, 194, 203; on Frederick and Isabel Emerson, 73; Newfoundland field work of, 113–15; relationship to Ralph Vaughan Williams, 118–19; views on composed versus traditional songs, 132–3 “Kelligrew’s Soiree, The,” 182, 228–9. See also John Burke Kemp, Carmel, 158 Kennedy, Ronald, 169 Kipling, Rudyard, 26–7, 223, 235, 239, 346n21 “Kitty’s Rambles,” 246 Knight, Susan, 80, 323n50 Kodàly, Zoltán, 112, 128–9, 215, 324n8 Krippner, E.R., 38–40, 45, 47–51, 313n39, 315n63. See also “Ode to Newfoundland” Labrador identity: aspects of, 14–15 “Lambkin,” 252–3 land settlement in Newfoundland. See Markland settlement Lane, Adelaide, 51–2 Lavallée, Calixa: “O Canada,” 45, 53 Leach, MacEdward: Newfoundland folksong collection of, 130, 326n50 Learning, Walter, 201 Lemieux, Germain, 266, 348n7 LeSueur, Peter, 48; music appreciation classes of, 171; “Newfoundland Is Calling: Welcome Home Again,” 48, 79, 162, 313n40 Lidstone, William: role in the founding of Markland, 141

Liszt, Franz, 185, 228–30, 256 Lodge, Thomas, 140–1, 144, 327n4, 330n41 Lomax, John A., 112 “Lord Bateman,” 252 Lunsford, Bascom Lamar, 112, 325n11 Mackenzie, Roy, 112 MacLeod, Robert, 201 MacLeod, Robert F., 3–4, 19, 99–100, 188, 217, 226–7, 320n21–2, 325n23; Newfoundland Rhapsody for solo piano, 228–9 MacMillan, Sir Ernest, 5–6, 10, 17, 20, 112, 220, 223; and the Canada Council, 193, 194–7, 200; and the Canadian Folk Music Society, ­204–5, 212, 216, 266–7; folkinspired compositions of, 121, 215 MacPherson, Gordon, 42 “Maiden’s Lament, The,” 18–19, 115–16, 125–8, 138, 184, 255; See also Ralph Vaughan Williams Major, Kevin, 8–9, 54 Manny, Louise, 212, 266–7, 348n8 Mansfield, Grace Yarrow, 111, 113, 210, 244, 268 Markland settlement, 5, 9, 139–54, 330n41, 330n43; administration of, 144; cottage hospital, 142–3; folk schools, 146–54; founding of, 141–2; historical background of, 139–41; settlement patterns, 143–4, 328n10 Massey Commission Report. See Royal Commission on Development in the Arts, Letters, and ­Sciences McCabe, Violet, 255 McLeod, Joan Stevenson, 174–5

398 Indes

McCrae, John, 62–5, 316n17 McDermott, M. Baptist, 78 McNamara, Joan, 188 Memorial University, 94, 110, 130–1, 152–4, 188–9, 192, 198, 206; Centre for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, 18; Folklore and Language Archive, 188; honorary degree presentation to Emerson, 231–4; study of music at, 79–80, 188–9, 340n76 Memorial University College, 43, 65, 76, 96, 141, 144, 155, 157, 192, 231, 233, 303n3, 323n53, 330n45, 335n12, 338n50; college song, 185–6; early history, 31, 167–8; early musical activities, 92, 101–2, 104–6, 108–9, 169–70, 188–9; music lectures, 4, 43, 115, 167–79, 182, 185–9, 256–61 Memorial University Glee Club, 79, 100–5, 108–9 Mennie, Ian, 224 Mercy Convent, 42, 80, 168, 313n50, 321n35, 334n5 Mercy Convent Glee Club. See Sr Kathrine Bellamy Mercy Convent String Orchestra. See M. Baptist McDermott Methodist College, St John’s, 48, 95, 171, 311n13, 319n13 Methodist Guards Band, 334n5 Mews, Arthur, 83, 101, 315n69, 321n29 Mews, Douglas, 101, 104, 321n30, 322n41 Mews, Marjorie, 101, 226 Mews Jerrett, Eleanor, 5, 100–9, 157, 167, 170, 189, 213, 321n28, 322n45

Mills, Alan, 10, 267 Moiseiwitsch, Benno, 5, 82–3 Mopaya, 15–16 Morgan, Bernice, 8–9, 54 Morgan, David, 95, 104, 170, 311n15 Morgan, Moses, 30 Morgan, Pamela, 8, 16, 138, 162–3, 305n16 “Morning Dew, The,” 246, 254–5 Morris, Georgina, 146 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 25–7 Mullinar, Michael, 115, 121, 244 Muir, Alexander: “The Maple Leaf Forever,” 33, 35, 45 Mummers Troupe, 9, 155, 164, 332n67 Murphy, James, 113; on the “Ode to Newfoundland,” 45; Songs and Ballads of Newfoundland, 46, 191 music appreciation in Newfoundland, 80, 170–2. See also Frederick ­Rennie Emerson, lectures of music education in Newfoundland. See Bishop Feild College; Frederick Rennie Emerson; Memorial University College; Eleanor Mews Jerrett music festivals in Newfoundland, 80, 102, 104, 108 Myers, J.F., 171–2 nationalism: artistic expressions of: in Canadian music, 10–11; in the English folk revival, 19–20; in Newfoundland culture, 11–15, 43–54. See also Frederick Rennie Emerson Newell, Sarah, 254–5 Newfoundland Amateur Athletic Association, 32



Index 399

Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival, 8, 188–9, 305n14 Newfoundland and Labrador Registered Music Teachers Association, 80–1, 318n13 Newfoundland Drama Festival, 157–9 “Newfoundland Renaissance,” 9, 12, 15–16, 46–7, 130, 165–6, 188 Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, 16, 79–80, 224–6 Newfoundland Teachers Association, 30–1 Newton, Robert: on folk schools, 152–4 “Nobleman’s Wedding, The,” 254 Nolan, Dick, 162 Noonan, Ethel, 42 Northcliffe Drama Club, 159, 165 Nowosielski, Bogedar (Dan), 88–9, 318n21 NTV, St John’s, 54, 100, 157

Payne, Jim, 7–8 Peacock, Kenneth, 268–70, 273, 345n63, 345n65; Essay on Newfoundland Themes, 215, 226, 229, 231; Newfoundland folksong collection of, 12, 130, 138, 206–17, 268–70, 309n45 Piccinini, Marina, 80 Pinsent, Charles, 25 Pinsent, Clara, 25–7 Pinsent, Gordon, 332n66 Pippy, Chesley A., 141, 144 Pittman, Al, 165 Pittman, Allan, 97, 188 Pratt, Christopher, 8–9, 188, 231, 306n22 Pratt, E.J., 4, 188, 198 Presentation Convent, 34, 42, 80, 168 Prince of Wales College, 334n5 Proulx, E. Annie: The Shipping News, 163

“O Canada.” See Calixa Lavallée “Ode to Newfoundland,” 13–14, 35, 38–40, 44–54, 98, 162, 170, 229 Osmond, Douglas, 105–6, 108, 318n13, 337n31 Osmond, Kevin, 188 O’Sullivan, Sister Josephine, 45–7, 314n60. See also “The Flag of Newfoundland” Outerbridge, Sir Leonard, 30

Queen’s College (Theological), St John’s, 93–5, 167 Quinton, Karen, 80

Parry, Sir C. Hubert. See “Ode to Newfoundland” Parsons, Derek, 80 Patterson, Flo, 157 Paton, John Lewis, 102, 104, 109, 168–70, 334n7

Rising Tide Theatre, 8–9, 162–3, 164–6, 333n69 Ross, Rev. Frank, 170 Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences, 10, 192–3 Royal Newfoundland Regiment, 4, 43, 317n37; and “The Banks of Newfoundland,” 18, 52–3, 135–7, 347n2; in the Battle of BeaumontHamel, 59 Rumboldt, Ignatius, 3, 79, 102, ­188–9, 204, 224, 231

400 Indes

Russell, Edward (Ted), 30, 160–1, 163, 165, 188 Russell, Kelly, 7–8, 16 Rusted, Ian, 178, 338n50 Rusted, Nigel, 328n14, 329n16 “Ryans and the Pittmans, The,” (“We’ll Rant and We’ll Roar”), 227, 229 Ryan’s Fancy, 8, 304n12 St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, St John’s, 41, 92, 99 St Bonaventure’s College, 32, 35, 67, 311n13, 334n5 St Bride’s College, 334n5 St John’s Athenaeum, 36, 172–3, 336n21 St John’s Folk Arts Council, 8, 188–9, 305n14 St John’s Glee Club, 105–8, 322n45. See also Eleanor Mews Jerrett St John’s Kiwanis Music Festival, 80, 102, 201 St John’s Players, 155–9, 164–5, 170, 240, 276, 331n46, 331n51–2, 332n58 St John’s Regatta, 18, 34, 64, 137 St John’s Symphony Orchestra. See Newfoundland Symphony ­Orchestra St Pierre et Miquelon, 5, 13, 59–61 St Thomas’s Anglican Church, St John’s, 25, 41, 94 Salvation Army Temple, St John’s, 100 Sandoval, Leo, 190 Sargent, Margaret, 6, 10, 206–8 Saunders, Stanley, 201 Scammell, Arthur, 3, 162, 188, 303n3; “Squid Jiggin’ Ground,” 4, 18, 179–81, 184, 227, 229, 339n53

Schafer, R. Murray, 189, 197, 340n77 Schubert, Franz, 174–6, 335n16; festival at Memorial University College, 92; influence on Emerson’s song writing, 61 Second World War, 59, 88–9 “Self, The,” 246 Sexton, Brian: The Newfie Bullet, 16 Sharp, Cecil, 19–20, 110–11, 116, 123, 132–3, 225, 244–5, 249–51, 266, 324n3 Shea, George, 35, 312n27 “She’s Like the Swallow,” 19, 115–16, 128–9, 135, 138, 183, 214–16, 255, 271–3, 327n72. See also Maud Karpeles; Ralph Vaughan Williams Sibelius, Jean, 174–5 Sinatra, Frank. See American influence on music in Newfoundland Smallwood, Joseph R., 3, 5, 30, 43, 192, 194, 333n69; Barrelman radio program, 98; Book of Newfoundland, 3–4, 131–2, 183; and Confederation with Canada, 190–1; correspondence on Newfoundland folk music, 214–16 Smith, H.L., 170 Somers, Harry, 197; choral arrangement of “She’s Like the Swallow,” 138; Louis Riel, 10 Sound Symposium, 16, 309n47; ­Harbour Symphony, 16–17 “Squid Jiggin’ Ground.” See Arthur Scammell Stanbury, Eileen (Cantwell), 80, ­105–6, 108, 323n46 Stacy, William, 35, 171–2, 312n31 Stewart McKelvey: lawfirm of, 68 Stirling, Geoffrey, 30



Index 401

Stirling, Georgina, 25–6, 35, 181 Stirling, Gordon McKenzie, 65–6 Stirling, Herbert W., 25, 39, 41–2, 96 Stirling, Jean, 158 Story, George M., 3, 30, 231–3, 311n15 Snow, Nathaniel, 33 Sullivan, James, 255 “Sweet William’s Ghost,” 253 Tait, Elsie, 78, 97, 104–5, 322n45 Tait, Robert Holland, 43, 311n15, 314n54 Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich, 174, 260–1 Titanic disaster, 59 Trinity College music examinations, 42 Trueman, A.W., 194–5 “Up the Pond.” See “The Banks of Newfoundland” Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 19–20, 110, 216, 225; influence of traditional music on, 116–17; National Music and Other Essays, 20, 119; Newfoundland folksong arrangements of, 4, 115–30, 138; relationship to Maud Karpeles, 118–19 Virgil Society, The, 96 Vivian, Cecil, 175 VONF, St John’s: early history of, 96–100; music broadcasts, 80, 83, 96–8, 105, 321n25; theatrical broadcasts, 157, 159

VOWR, St John’s, 99 Walker, Ralph, 190 Walsh, Des, 165 Warren, William Robertson, 57 Weinzweig, John, 10, 196–7 “We’ll Rant and We’ll Roar.” See “The Ryans and the Pittmans” Wesley United Church, St John’s, 99 Wherry, Don, 309n47 White, Minnie, 8, 306n17 Whiteway, Evan, 226, 320n17 Willan, Healey, 5–6, 77, 83–4, 101, 197, 223 “William Taylor,” 253–4 Williams, Daniel (Danny), 66, 341n9 Williams, John. See American influence on music in Newfoundland Winter, Gordon A., 30, 53 Winter, Madeline, 71–2 Winter, Sir Marmaduke, 141 “Winter’s Gone and Past, The,” 255 Withers, Jack, 98 Wonderful Grand Band, 8, 15, 306n17, 309n42 Wright, Charles M., 39–41, 313n44 Young, Ewart, 226 “Young Floro,” 116, 123–4. See also Ralph Vaughan Williams, Newfoundland folksong arrangements of Young, Patricia, 235