While writings on musical performance in Canada date back to the late 18th century it was not until the second decade of the 20th century that an indigenous form of musical criticism began to emerge. In a period marked by cultural expansion, the descriptive writings of music journalists such as Hugh Poynter Bell represent significant examples of the type of early Canadian musical criticism that rapidly acquired not only a steady readership but also a national prominence.¹

Critic and composer Hugh Poynter Bell was born in London (Kew), England in 1872. After completing a Master of Arts degree (which included courses in music) at Clare College, Cambridge University, he went on to study chemistry at the universities of Kiel and Bonn. Bell immigrated to Canada in 1912.

Rejected for active military service in 1914, Bell was subsequently employed in a clerical capacity by the federal government. A pamphlet authored by Bell concerning Canada's contribution to World War I, entitled Canada's Part in the Great War (Ottawa: The Department of Public Information, 1919), ran more than a quarter of a million copies in its first printing and rapidly became one of the most popular home propaganda pamphlets of the First World War period. With a wit appropriate to the cousin of Rudyard Kipling, Bell himself noted that the item would have been a best-seller had it not been given away.²

In 1923, following his tenure as secretary-treasurer for Hart House, University of Toronto (1921-23), Hugh Poynter Bell succeeded Philip King as music and art critic for The Montreal Daily Star where he later became music editor. Over the subsequent twenty-six years Bell brought to anglophone Montreal musical criticism a previously unknown level of insight.³ Bernard Shaw is reported to have said that musical criticism should be as personal as possible, not out of egotism but for the purpose alerting the reader to the fact that, for what it was worth, he (she) was party to the opinion of only one man.⁴ Couched in a personal (at times surprisingly colloquial) linguistic style, Bell's music reviews and articles reflect just such an approach. With their descriptive richness, undoubtedly drawn from his own compositional and musical experience (Bell had met Tchaikovsky and had heard performances by Clara Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Saint-Saëns and others) and candid evaluations, tinged on occasion with sarcasm, Bell's writings constitute the reflections of a late Edwardian gentleman living the jazz age. After a distinguished career, Bell retired from The Star in 1949 but continued to write weekly columns on music for The Montreal Daily Herald. Hugh Poynter Bell died in Montreal on January 28, 1961.

The Bell Diary and Saturday Articles

Hugh Poynter Bell likely began compiling his diary of performers and performance groups towards the end of his career with The Star. Handwritten and consisting of more than fifty pages, Bell's diary constitutes a unique record of Montreal concert life during the period 1923 to 1949. With entries relating to such notable musical figures as Maurice Ravel, Sergei Rachmaninov, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Dame Nellie Melba and Maria Jeritza, the diary underscores the importance of Montreal as a major North American musical centre of the first half of the 20th century. A corrected typescript copy of the diary entitled "Music and Musicians in Montreal, 1923-1950: date book of Hugh Poynter Bell", now held as part of the Eric McLean collection (MUS 173) by the National Library and Archives of Canada, suggests that the compilation may ultimately have been intended for publication.

Bell's diary consists of a substantial but in no way exhaustive alphabetical listing by last name of artists or groups who performed in Montreal during his tenure as music critic. Each name is accompanied by a series of performance dates. While not an index per se to Bell's reviews, the diary entries can usually be matched to his concert reviews. Bell's reviews were published in The Star a day or several days after the concert date found in the diary. Bell often reviewed two concerts given on the same night, attending a portion of each. The published reviews, however, appeared under separate headings. There are a small percentage of entries in the diary for which no reviews exist - often the result of more than two concerts occurring on the same evening.

In addition to his reviews, Hugh Poynter Bell also contributed weekly reflections on some aspect of musical performance, genre, education or technology. These latter articles which appeared regularly in the Saturday edition of The Star make for very interesting reading. Not academic in tone, they nevertheless constitute informed evaluations of the state of music during Bell's lifetime and cover a veritable gama ut of issues - many of which still resonate in today's musical scene such as "The Cost of Opera" or "Protection or Free-trade" (about the "importation" of American performers to Montreal at the expense of Canadian artists). Bell's issue based Saturday articles are balanced by more mundane texts - usually previews or summations of Montreal concert seasons.