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• Title: Imagining Nation: Music and Identity in Pre-Confederation Newfoundland (1).
• Author : Newfoundland and Labrador Studies
• Release Date : January 22, 2007
• Genre: Reference,Books,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 539 KB

Description

ASK A NEWFOUNDLANDER to explain what Francis Forbes's "The Banks of Newfoundland" means to him or her, and many would likely respond with one or more extra-musical interpretations. Most would immediately recognize the tune as "Up the Pond," the familiar incidental music to the annual St. John's Regatta and a piece steeped in the tradition of North America's oldest continuing sporting event. Some would point to its historic associations with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. Others might recall its status as the nineteenth-century anthem of the Newfoundland fish-cry and, for much of that century, an anthem of sorts for all Newfoundlanders. A few savvy listeners might even recall the original title or composer, Newfoundland's Chief Justice, who wrote the piece circa 1820 before departing for the balmier climes of Australia. At the root of each of these explanations lies a strong sense of identification and, through active listening, engagement with Newfoundland history and tradition. As a living expression of Newfoundland's cultural heritage, "The Banks of Newfoundland" has achieved iconic status within a collective national consciousness. (2) It is, for those born prior to Confederation, a perception rooted in the collective memory of an independent Newfoundland. (3) The oft-heard expression "I'm a Newfoundlander first" is for these individuals not merely a nationalistic state of mind but a statement of historical authenticity. (4) Irrespective of whether one ever lived in an independent Newfoundland, the idea of Newfoundland remains for many a communal attachment that transcends the potentially polarizing forces of ethnicity, denominational allegiance, and social class that have coloured the province's past. (5) The story of how competing identities intersected in the formation of a new society, and how this society developed a collective national consciousness, is one of the more compelling narratives in Newfoundland history. That aspects of Newfoundland culture--specifically musical culture--should both express and motivate feelings of national identity is hardly surprising. As John Beckwith reminds us, "anthropologists and behaviourists are said to regard music as one of the best indices to a culture: perhaps because of its inability to convey concepts, music is in an unusually good position to reveal feelings--the feelings of the individual artist, the feelings of a period, of a region, of a society." (6) By the early decades of the twentieth century, the intellectual climate was ripe for a cultural revival aimed at preserving and disseminating aspects of Newfoundland culture in the face of impending social and political change. Among the many manifestations of this revival were Arthur Scammell's idyllic portraits of outport life as told through song and story, (7) the folksong recordings of Ignatius Rumboldt that helped create a new audience for Newfoundland traditional music, the college lectures of Frederick Emerson that instilled in a generation newfound appreciation of their musical heritage, and the landmark song books of Gerald S. Doyle that helped establish an indigenous "canon" of Newfoundland popular song. (8) Other notable examples of this impulse include the evocative Newfoundland Verse of E.J. Pratt, the imagined outport of Margaret Duley's novels, the locally inspired radio broadcasts of Robert MacLeod, the message-laden scripts of the Irene B. Mellon and Barrelman radio programs, (9) and J.R. Smallwood's encyclopedic Books of Newfoundland. Of note here is the fact that 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). (10)

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