Godfrey Ridout was born in Toronto on May 6, 1918, to a businessman father with deep family roots in the city, and a mother who was one-quarter Chinese, a heritage of which he was extremely proud.
Ridout discovered his interest in music at school, deciding to become a composer over the objections of his father, who wanted him to go into banking. Unlike aspiring Canadian composers of the time, who typically studied in either England, France or the United States, he received his professional education entirely in Toronto, where his primary teachers and mentors were Ettore Mazzoleni and Healy Willan. His earliest major work, Ballade for Viola and String Orchestra, composed in 1938 when he was twenty, caught the attention of critics (and violist William Primrose) and launched his professional career.
Prior to becoming a professor at the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto in 1948, where he taught counterpoint and music history until his retirement in 1982, Ridout taught at the Toronto (now Royal) Conservatory of Music, composed film scores for the National Film Board of Canada, and arranged popular tunes for CBC radio orchestras. As a musicologist, he was proud of his reconstruction, from the vocal line, libretto and second violin part, of the 18th century Canadian opera Colas et Colinette by Joseph Quesnel. For ten years he wrote the programme notes for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, a task he enjoyed enormously. He also worked as a conductor (although he preferred not to conduct his own work).
Musically, Ridout described himself as a conservative “with a fairly liberal attitude.” He remained apart from those contemporaries who were experimenting with new music forms in favour of composing what he wanted to hear, readily acknowledging the influence of the British composers Holst, Elgar and Vaughan Williams, and the Russian composer Stravinsky. He loved “a good tune.” A more private, introspective side, with a deep attachment to the mysticism, ritual and music of the “high-Anglican” tradition, revealed itself most clearly in his three Cantiones Mysticae, which set poetry of John Donne and early Christian texts. He saw his stylistic development as gradual, becoming rhythmically more lively in later works, with the inclusion of jazz elements that provide what he called a “jagged quality.”
Godfrey Ridout was essentially a happy individual with a sunny personality. Spending time with his wife, two daughters and a son, was very important to him; family dinner was a daily event. He had a wide interest in history, particularly of the industrial revolution, which accompanied his academic specialty in nineteenth century music history. Trains captivated him; he cultivated the friendship of those who could get him onto the footplate of a steam locomotive thundering across England, and built an extensive model train setup in the basement of his house. He also took his family across Canada by train, going west along the Canadian Pacific line, and returning on the more northerly Canadian National tracks.
Two years after his retirement from the University of Toronto, Godfrey Ridout, died of cancer on November 24, 1984.
GODFREY RIDOUT, LL.D., F.R.C.C.O., est né à Toronto le 6 mai 1918 et est décédé le 24 novembre 1984. Il développe son goût pour la musique dès son jeune âge en fréquentant les concerts de l'Orchestre symphonique de Toronto qui venait d'être reconstitué. Il reçoit sa formation musicale à Toronto sous l'égide d'Ettore Mazzoleni, de Charles Peaker et de Healey Willan. En 1939, il devient membre du corps enseignant du Conservatoire de musique de Toronto (l'actuel Royal Conservatory of Music) et de la Faculté de musique de l'Université de Toronto en 1948, occupant le poste de professeur associé jusqu'à sa retraite en 1982.
Ridout est souvent associé à la vieille garde en raison de ses goûts musicaux. Il a connu son premier succès en 1938 avec Ballade for Viola and String Orchestra. Amateur de musique populaire, il a composé tôt dans sa carrière beaucoup de musiques dramatiques pour la radio de la Canadian Broadcasting Corporation et de trames sonores pour des films de l'Office national du film.
L'émotion qu'il a ressentie lors de la création de l'État d'Israël l'a amené à composer Esther, drame symphonique louangé par la critique. En 1953, il est de nouveau acclamé pour ses Holy Sonnets, de même qu'en 1959 pour Music for a Young Prince, dédiée au prince Charles. La liste de ses œuvres est longue et touche à presque tous les genres musicaux.
La collection de ses écrits compte notamment des commentaires sur la musique nouvelle au Canada, parus dans les années 1950 dans Canadian Review of Music and Art et Here and Now, des articles du Canadian Music Journal au sujet de figures comme MacMillan et Willan, et d'amusants souvenirs personnels à propos de la vie musicale de Toronto au temps de sa jeunesse, publiés dans University of Toronto Quaterly.
ll convient parfaitement de qualifier Godfrey de traditionaliste. Le jugement qu'il portait sur la littérature musicale était, sinon étroit, à tout le moins sélectif, mais ses étudiants attesteront qu'il connaissait à fond les œuvres qu'il admirait. Il parlait et écrivait un anglais remarquable et son comportement était celui d'un homme rompu aux règles de la bienséance. Mais en contrepartie de cette conformité aux valeurs traditionnelles, il professait dans ses enseignements une tolérance libérale pour les idées avancées en discussion libre; de même, sa personnalité et son travail de création étaient souvent empreints d'une gaminerie irrésistible et d'un sens du jeu. Godfrey savait faire place dans sa musique à de profonds sentiments et au mysticisme, mais aussi au simple plaisir de jouer trois notes sur quatre piccolos.
John Beckwith (1984)
CAPAC (SOCAN)
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