Between two worlds

This thesis concerns the composer Bernard James Naylor (1907-1986). It situates him as the first composer (1948) living in Canada to employ post-tonal writing in choral music, and also as one of the pioneers of a truly contemporary (post-tonal) English (Anglican) cathedral music in the twentieth century. It provides a survey of early twentieth-century Canadian choral music. It documents how the reception of his post-tonal cathedral music changed over several decades, from rejection in the 1940s, to general acceptance by the 1960s. The initial rejection reflected the musical conservatism of the British cathedral music scene prior to the 1960s. Naylor's family had, for four generations, been professionally active in English cathedral music. Naylor studied with the most influential English composers during the 1920s (Gustav Holst, John Ireland and Ralph Vaughan Williams). Throughout his career, Vaughan Williams remained a strong supporter. Naylor was personally well known amongst the English cathedral organist fraternity of his time.

As of 2010, this remains the most extensive Naylor biography (129 pages, it corrects a number of biographical errors that appeared elsewhere) and most comprehensive listing of Naylor's compositions. The biography documents Naylor's conducting career in Winnipeg and Montreal (1933-1949) and Naylor's role during the early 1940s in the reform of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's music broadcasting and organisation.