The Canadian Music Journal | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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The Canadian Music Journal

The Canadian Music Journal. A quarterly, published 1956-62 by the Canadian Music Council. Twenty-four issues appeared from autumn 1956 to summer 1962.

Geoffrey Payzant was the editor, Arnold Walter the chairman of the editorial board, and beginning with the Winter 1958 issue John Beckwith, Leslie Bell, and Marvin Duchow were associate editors for record reviews, music education, and book reviews respectively. Among other contributors were Thomas Archer, Marius Barbeau, Alan Detweiler, Chester Duncan, Peter Garvie, Graham George, Glenn Gould, Helmut Kallmann, Udo Kasemets, William Krehm, Hugh Le Caine, Sir Ernest MacMillan, Kathleen Parlow, Charles Peaker, Godfrey Ridout, R. Murray Schafer, and Kenneth Winters. The CMJ was the most consistently scholarly music periodical to appear in Canada until that time and did much to document historical and current events, to plead urgent causes, to stimulate discussion, and to develop writers on music. It featured six essays on Canadian composers (Champagne, Pentland, Papineau-Couture, Willan, Somers, and Weinzweig) and special issues on music and the Canada Council (Spring 1957), music in education (Spring 1958), music in British Columbia (Summer 1958), and organs and organ playing in Canada (Spring 1959). Unfortunately few contributions were in French. Although the journal achieved a subscription rate of about 1200, publication ceased because of economic pressures.

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