Broadcast 25–6 October 1983
From the CBC tape, transcribed by Monika Lee. In this two-part program, heard on the Ideas series on 25 and 26 October, writer and musician Whitney Smith traces the careers of Sir Ernest MacMillan and Dr. Arnold Walter, leaders of Canadian music for a period spanning fifty years. In the course of the program he visits the sites associated with their life and achievements. The brief segment involving Frye occurs during a car ride between sites with “Sam.” Sam spots Frye at a subway stop and calls to him, and Frye gets into the car.
FRYE: Hello, Sam, it’s good to see you.
SAM: Northrop Frye, this is Whitney Smith.
SMITH: Hello, Mr. Frye.
SAM: Mr. Smith here is doing a program on Sir Ernest MacMillan and Arnold Walter. I was telling Mr. Smith what you said about music as a social art.
FRYE: Well, music is an ensemble performance for audiences, and I think that societies that have a strong sense of themselves as societies, like Elizabethan England, are societies where music and drama forged to the front as the main means of expression. When you get a strongly individualized society, like Victorian England, music and drama tend to recede into the background and things like the novel, and the essay, and the easel painting come forward.
SAM: That was it. Ah, this is your stop, Northrop. Good to see you.
FRYE: Bye, Sam.
SMITH: Goodbye, Mr. Frye. [car door closes]
SAM: Northrop is such a brain, a very kind person also. Anyway, where were we? …
End of segment.