Exploring Music Beyond the Canon: Radio Orchestras, the CBC and Contemporary Music in the Mid-Twentieth Century
Date
2023-09-18
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Abstract
The emergence of broadcast technology in the twentieth century fundamentally changed how people could experience music. Networks across the world assembled orchestras to serve a variety of functions—background music for dramatic presentations, light entertainment and symphonic concerts. Radio emancipated the orchestral concert from the confines of the concert hall, bringing to the masses a cultural experience which was formerly the domain of the privileged classes. As early as the 1930s, the notion of a radio symphony orchestra—that is, a permanent concert orchestra based in the broadcasting studio—began to emerge. Through unconventional programming philosophies, as well as distinct social and political roles, many of these orchestras gradually acquired identities distinct from traditional symphony orchestras. However, radio symphonies have not received a large amount of scholarly attention. The purpose of this dissertation is to establish the historical context from which radio symphony orchestras emerged, with a specific focus on Canada. My primary focus is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and its relationship with twentieth-century music, as seen through the lens of the CBC Symphony Orchestra (1952–1964). The study proceeds in three stages. First, I provide a broad historical overview of the origins of radio symphony orchestras before World War Two, exemplified by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, the Frankfurter Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchestra and the BBC Symphony. Second, I look at the emergence of radio orchestras in Canada, and the CBC’s patronage of twentieth-century music in Canada following World War Two. These concepts are brought together in the final section, which focuses on the work of the CBC Symphony. Born as an intended symbol of Canada’s musical achievement, the CBC Symphony regularly featured music from outside the traditional orchestral canon. Not only did this policy introduce modern composition to Canadian listeners, it provided Canadian composers with regular opportunities to write for large orchestras—opportunities which had previously been few and far between, if present at all.
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Keywords
CBC Symphony Orchestra, Radio Orchestras, Twentieth-Century Music, CBC Music, Music Broadcasting
Citation
Bailey, R. W. (2023). Exploring music beyond the canon: radio orchestras, the CBC and contemporary music in the mid-twentieth century (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.