On another note (ha ha) I was always amused by the fact that whenever I showed him some music that I had written out, the first thing he did was to give me a lecture on which way the stems were supposed to go … up or down, depending on where the note was in the staff, and of course several minutes were always spent discussing notes that were on the middle line, because of course this was the “glass half full” dilemma.  So I was always amused by the fact that Dr. Turner was so obsessed with note stem health, but this all happened again later in Hollywood.  When I went to Hollywood and studied music at USC, Fred Steiner, a wonderful composer and orchestrator, did the same bloody thing.  Here’s a guy who was working with Steven Spielberg that year composing music for the “Amazing Stories” series, and when I showed him my first piece of music, he immediately launched into a discussion of which way the stems should go on the staff!!  I asked him if he knew Dr. Robert Turner, you guys have something in common besides terrific talent …. what’s with the note stem thing?”

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1. 2001-03-24, University of Manitoba Str. Qt.
2. 2003-12-06, Chrysler Concert Hall, Sooke, BCKate Rhodes, Chloe Kohut, Mieka Kohut, Joyce Ellwood

Publication: CMC

Robert Turner’s String Quartet No. 1 was premiered at the Tanglewood Music Festival on 31 July 1949 and received favourable comments from Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. In the program, however, this work is entitled “String Quartet No. 2″ – a fact that needs some explanation.

In the summer of 1947, Robert Turner travelled to Colorado College (Colorado Springs, CO) to study composition with Roy Harris. It was here at Colorado College that Robert Turner met his future wife, Sara Scott. The actual first string quartet was written either before or during this summer at Colorado College and was performed there by students of well-known guest instructor Josef Gingold: these included Joseph Silverstein (later concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra) and three other outstanding young string players. Turner later withdrew (and possible destroyed) this work, as he had done with all other compositions written prior to July 1949.

On 13 August 1949, two weeks after the premiere of this String Quartet, a set of choral pieces by Robert Turner entitled “Choral Cadences” was also presented at the Composers’ Forum in Tanglewood under the direction of Aaron Copland and Irving Fine. These “cadences” were performed with the assistance of the Small Choir of Department V, conducted by Hugh Ross. It is an interesting “coincidence” that Hugh Ross first came to Canada from England in 1921 to conduct the Winnipeg Male Voice Choir – and was succeeded in this position in 1927 by Douglas Clarke, who had been Robert Turner’s composition instructor at McGill University! The score of the “Choral Cadences” has also been “lost” or destroyed.

The Lament is written for woodwind quartet – flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and piano. The work begins with an expressive 12-tone row theme in low piano range – over low long-held pedal notes, followed by lyrical clarinet theme – followed by row theme a 4th lower – then bassoon takes up 12-tone row in ms. 9.

Later withdrawn

These two early choral compositions “… afford listeners early examples of Turner’s eclectic cultural and musical repertoires introduced to him by American composers. Wallace Stevens, e.e. cummings and Elder Olson were among his favourite modernist poets whom he admired for their playful language combined with intellectual complexity. His selections of such texts were made only after he had read extensively from the poets’ complete works and a musical occasion was presented to him, such as choral conductor George Little’s commissioning of these pieces for the Montreal Bach Choir.”

1. 1955-03-02, Hymann Bress, Mildred Goodman, violins, Otto Joachim, viola, Walter Joachim, cello; The Hermitage, Montreal – Concert by the Canadian League of Composers [see review]
2. 1974-08-11, Purcell String Qt., Courtney BC Music Camp
3. 2005-11-21, WSO String Qt., Gwen Hoebig, Karl Stobbe, Daniel Scholz, Yuri Hooker,GROUNDSWELL Concerts, E-Gré Hall, U of Winnipeg

Publication: BMI, 1963
Recording: CBC Winnipeg Live Recording from Groundswell Concert

The String Quartet No. 2 was written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the McGill Conservatorium. The McGill Conservatorium was established and opened for teaching on 21 September 1904, with Dr. Charles Harriss as Director. The formal opening by the Governor General of Canada, Lord Minto, took place on 14 October 1904. The building situated on the south east corner of the McGill campus had been made available by the Chancellor, Lord Strathcona, who also defrayed the expense of the necessary alterations to the interior of the building. Here the Conservatorium operated until 1949, when it was moved to more commodious premises on Drummond Street.

To commemorate this anniversary, three former students of the Conservatorium – Violet Archer, Alexander Brott and Robert Turner – were invited to submit original compositions for a concert on 19 November 1954. In the program, the Turner Quartet is labelled as his Third String Quartet – consistent with the numbering of string quartets in existence at the time [see RTC-01, String Quartet No. 1]. It was at some later point that Dr. Turner withdrew his first 1947 string quartet and renumbered the remaining quartets.

An anonymous reviewer [possibly Eric McLean] wrote the next day in The Montreal Star (20 November 1954): “Splitting an evening between two programs is rarely successful, and my attempt to do so last night was not one of the exceptions. By the time I arrived at Moyse Hall, the Archer and Turner quartets had already finished, and I found myself listening to the reactions in the lobby during intermission.

Such reactions are not quite trustworthy, particularly after a program of first performances. So much depends upon the size and temper of the audience, and the quality of the performance. Besides, in the case of new Canadian works, the listener has very few experiences with which he can make a comparison.

As far as the quartet by Robert Turner is concerned, there were no previous experiences: nothing of his has been played publicly in Montreal before. Yet it was the Turner quartet which seems to have excited most interest in last night’s concert, and praise was heard from some of the most critical quarters. This served to increase my disappointment in having missed the two works, and I only hope that the occasion to hear them will again present itself very soon.”

This Third String Quartet [String Quartet No. 2] was indeed performed again in Montreal later in the 1954–55 season at the Hermitage on 2 March 1955 in the context of program of 7 Canadian works sponsored by the Canadian League of Composers. In his review, Thomas Archer, “Sight & Sound – Music by Canadians,” wrote:

“It was good to see the Hermitage crowded last night by those interested in what Canadian composers are doing … It was an absorbing evening that called for concentrated listening. Just on two solid hours of string trio and string quartet performance [from 9:00 – 11:00 P.M.] is a pretty hard demand … The writing was uniformly competent. Some of it, in fact, was frankly academic and there were times when I longed for a real tune, that God-given vocal foundation of music., Harry Freedman came near it in the slow movement of his Four Pieces for String Quartet. Robert Turner’s style in the third movement of his String Quartet No. 3 seemed to me the nearest approach to a truly Canadian idiom…”

Eric McLean, “Seven Works by Canadians Given Hearing,” The Montreal Star, 3 March 1955 wrote:

“The Turner work with which the program ended was one of the most professional and solidly grounded pieces of writing in the concert. If it was rather thin on ideas, the lack was more than compensated by the sureness with which it was written.”

CBC Winnipeg Centennial Festival, 13 May 1974

1. 1974-01-27 / 13 April 1974 / 31 May 1977, Diana McIntosh, piano, Winnipeg
2. 1985-02-1985, Alice Enns, piano, Manitoba Composers Association Concert, Eva Clare Hall, U of Manitoba

Publication: CMC
Recording: Alice Enns, piano (1985) on Robert Turner, Solo Works for Harp, Organ & Piano (2010)

In the first movement, a lyrical 13-bar theme provides the material for nine continuous variations.

The second movement is wistful and wayward in character, approximating the scherzo and trio form.

The third movement is in ternary form, with a chorale-like first and third part, and a more dramatic middle section.

In the final movement, a playful 12-tone main theme alternates with episodes based on themes from the previous movements.

CBC Symphony Orchestra, Charles Houdret (conductor),
1. Radio Canada International RCI 179
2. Anthology of Canadian Music: Robert Turner, ACM 15, 1983
3. Canadian Composers: Portrait, Robert Turner, CMC CD 9704, 2004

Opening Night (A Theatre Overture), which dates from 1955, is one of Robert Turner’s most frequently performed works. It was commissioned and premiered by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The music is festive and rhythmic, meant to convey the mood of excitement and glamour that surrounds an opening night in the theatres, whether the vehicle be a play, musical, ballet or an opera. In the third section (recapitulation) the initial notes of “From Leicester Square to Old Broadway” (theme song of a popular Vancouver radio series of the time) are heard played by the piccolo and then by the trombones.

Program notes from “Portraits”:

“Subtitled ‘A Theatre Overture’ this work is Robert Turner’s first important composition for orchestra and one of the most often performed. It was written in 1955 as a commission from conductor Irwin Hoffman for the Vancouver Symphony society. The work was premiered that same year by Mr. Hoffman and the VSO, According to the composer, “the work is meant to convey the general mood of excitement and glamour that surrounds an opening night in the theatre, whether the vehicle of a play, musical, ballet or an opera.

“It begins with a syncopated fanfare in bright contemporary harmonies for brass, which is answered by a sharply punctuated patter for timpani. The violins take up a running passage which is derived from the fanfare and given a jazzy twist. After a lyrical middles section, there is a return to the opening material to which Turner adds a snatch of “From Leicester to Old Broadway,” the theme song of a CBC Vancouver series of that name written by Harry Pryce and familiar to many radio listeners at that time.

“In The Canadian Music Journal (Winter 1961), Canadian composers Udo Kasemets wrote that his colleague has succeeded “in creating a work which has both thematic distinction and formal tightness along with an easy-going and light-hearted spirit.”