Susie Frances Harrison

Susie Frances Riley was born in Toronto of Irish-Canadian ancestry, the daughter of John Byron Riley. She studied music with Frederic Boscovitz, at a private school for girls in Toronto, and later in Montreal. who was the organist of St. George's Church in Montreal. The couple had a son and a daughter. The Harrisons lived in Ottawa in 1883, when Susie Harrison composed the song "Address of Welcome to Lord Lansdowne" to celebrate the first public appearance of the new Governor General, the Marquess of Lansdowne. Her String Quartet on Ancient Irish Airs, is likely the first string quartet composed in Canada by a woman. In 1896 and 1897, she presented a series of well-received lectures in Toronto on "The Music of French Canada. During the 1900s she contributed to and edited the Conservatory's publication Conservatory Monthly, and contributed to its successor Conservatory Quarterly Review. She wrote the article on "Canada" for the 1909 Imperial History and Encyclopedia of Music. In addition, she wrote at least six books of poetry, and three novels. ==Writing==

Poetry Harrison's musical training is reflected in her poetry: "she was adept in her handling of the rhythmic complexities of poetic forms such as the sonnet and the villanelle. Like other Canadian poets of the late nineteenth century, her prevailing themes include nature, love, and patriotism. Her landscape poetry, richly influenced by the works of Charles G.D. Roberts and Archibald Lampman, paints the Canadian wilderness as beguilingly beautiful yet at the same time mysterious and distant." Harrison was a master of the villanelle. The villanelle was a French verse form that had been introduced to English readers by Edmund Gosse in his 1877 essay, "A Plea for Certain Exotic Forms of Verse". Novels Her two novels "articulate a fascination with a heavily mythologized Quebec culture that Harrison shared with many English-speaking Canadians of her time ... characterized by a gothic emphasis on horror, madness, aristocratic seigneurial manor houses, and a decadent Catholicism." "Harrison writes elegiacally of a regime whose romantic qualities are largely the creation of an Upper Canadian quest for a distinctive historical identity." ==Recognition==

Harrison experienced a decline in reputation in her lifetime. In 1916 anthologist John Garvin called her "one of our greater poets whose work has not yet had the recognition in Canada it merits.". The Dictionary of Literary Biography wrote of Susan Frances Harrison, in 1990, ==Publications==

Selected songs • Song of Welcome. • Pipandor. opera • ''Trois Esquisses canadiennes: 'Dialogue,' 'Nocturne,' 'Chant du voyageur'. 1887. • Quartet on Ancient Irish Airs. Poetry • Four Ballads and a Play. Toronto: Author, 1890. • The Forest of Bourg-Marie, novel. Toronto: G.N. Morang, 1898. Edited • Canadian Birthday Book. Toronto: Robinson, 1887. Poetry anthology. Articles • "Historical sketch of music in Canada," Canada: An Encyclopedia of the Country, vol 4, J.C. Hopkins ed., Toronto, 1898. • "Canada," The Imperial History and Encyclopedia of Music, vol 3: History of Foreign Music, W.L. Hubbard ed., New York ca 1909. ==Discography==

Harrison's piano music has been recorded and issued on media, including: • Keillor, Elaine. By a Canadian Lady Piano Music 1841-1997 Carleton Sound • Keillor, Elaine. Piano Music by Torontonians (1984) ==References==