{"id":596,"date":"2007-08-21T01:43:28","date_gmt":"2007-08-21T05:43:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=596"},"modified":"2018-08-16T21:34:54","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T01:34:54","slug":"harry-somers-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=596","title":{"rendered":"Harry Somers\u2019 Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- \t\t@page { margin: 2cm } \t\tP { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } -->Har\u00adry Somers (1925\u20131999) was prob\u00ada\u00adbly the most respect\u00aded com\u00adposer in Toron\u00adto dur\u00ading his gen\u00ader\u00ada\u00adtion. The seri\u00adal\u00adist John Weinzweig found him com\u00adpos\u00ading, self-taught, as a teenag\u00ader, and encour\u00adaged him to train vig\u00ador\u00adously in both tra\u00addi\u00adtional har\u00admony and in avant-garde twelve-tone tech\u00adniques. He end\u00aded up train\u00ading under the fair\u00adly con\u00adser\u00adv\u00ada\u00adtive French com\u00adposer, Dar\u00adius Mil\u00adhaud. In the end, he set\u00adtled on an eclec\u00adtic style. Up until now, all I\u2019ve lis\u00adtened to close\u00adly was his just\u00adly pop\u00adu\u00adlar <em>Five Songs from New\u00adfound\u00adland Out\u00adports. <\/em>But today, I lis\u00adtened to a col\u00adlec\u00adtion of his songs, both sec\u00adu\u00adlar and sacred, by the Elmer Isler Singers. I was sur\u00adprised at their com\u00adbi\u00adna\u00adtion of sassy humour \u2014 \u201cSpot\u00adted Snakes\u201d is the best exam\u00adple of that \u2014 and lyri\u00adcal beau\u00adty. The \u201cThree Songs of New France\u201d are real\u00adly fine, quite as good as the famed New\u00adfound\u00adland set. The sacred pieces com\u00adbine con\u00adven\u00adtional rev\u00ader\u00adence with some uncon\u00adven\u00adtional twists. I par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlarly like \u201cGod The Mas\u00adter of This Scene\u201d and \u201cBless\u2019d Is the Gar\u00adden of the Lord\u201d. There\u2019s a touch of Mes\u00adsi\u00adaen in these, but in a clean-cut, whole\u00adsome Toron\u00adto boy way. Cana\u00addian com\u00adposers, even when they see them\u00adselves as bad boys, tend to be polite and well-scrubbed behind the ears. It\u2019s our kismet.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small;\"><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Har\u00adry Somers (1925\u20131999) was prob\u00ada\u00adbly the most respect\u00aded com\u00adposer in Toron\u00adto dur\u00ading his gen\u00ader\u00ada\u00adtion. The seri\u00adal\u00adist John Weinzweig found him com\u00adpos\u00ading, self-taught, as a teenag\u00ader, and encour\u00adaged him to train vig\u00ador\u00adously in both tra\u00addi\u00adtional har\u00admony and in avant-garde twelve-tone techniques.&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=596\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[947,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-listening","category-ct-listening-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8981,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/8981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}