CAML Review / Revue de l'ACBM (Canadian Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres / Association canadienne des bibliothèques, archives et centres de documentation musicaux)

Calderisi, Maria

 CAML REVIEW 40, NO. 1 (APRIL 2012)   PAGE 5 
IN MEMORIAM: HELMUT KALLMANN (1922-2012) 
 
 
It grieves me to announce that my former superior, mentor and dear friend Helmut Kallmann 
died on 12 February 2012. For those who knew him in some capacity and for those who did 
not, I would like to give a brief summary of his achievements and his importance in the 
development and support of Canadian music studies. Born in Berlin in 1922, he was sent to 
England on the Kindertransport in 1939, but interned there and sent to Canada as an 
"enemy alien" when war broke out. He spent three years in a Canadian internment camp 
(1940-1943) and his entire family in Germany perished in the Holocaust. 
 He became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1946 and began his studies at the University 
of Toronto. He soon recognized the scarcity of sources for the study of Canadian music and 
began to gather information which resulted in two pivotal publications. While at the CBC 
Toronto Music Library (1950-1970) he expanded and deepened its Catalogue of Canadian 
Composers (1952) and went on to publish A History of Music in Canada 1534-1914 (1960) 
which remains even today a much-quoted basic reference. During this time he co-founded 
the Canadian Music Library Association in 1956 (now the Canadian Association of Music 
Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (CAML)) and initiated collaboration with the 
International Association of Music Libraries (IAML). In fact, he began to contribute to RISM 
even before the association was founded, and became the Canadian delegate to IAML from 
1959 to 1971. In 1970 he was appointed Chief of the newly-formed Music Division at the 
National Library of Canada, with responsibility for building a comprehensive research 
collection of musical Canadiana within a broadly based international support collection, and 
where I had the good fortune to work under his direction until his retirement in 1987.  
Of particular note among his numerous accomplishments and subsequent honours are two 
lasting monuments, The Canadian Musical Heritage (25 vols.) and the Encyclopedia of 
Music in Canada (1981) / l'Encyclopédie de la musique au Canada (1983) which he co-
edited with Kenneth Winters and Gilles Potvin. You may read his own article therein for 
more details on his life and works, as well as in the Festschrift edited by John Beckwith and 
Frederick Hall, Musical Canada: Words and Music Honouring Helmut Kallmann (1988). 
 
Maria Calderisi, Ottawa  
former Head of the Printed Collection, Music Division, National Library of Canada, and 
former President of CAML (1976-1978) and IAML (1986-1989) 
 
 
Editor’s Note: The next issue of CAML Review (August 2012) will be devoted to Dr. Kallmann’s 
life and work. Submissions in the form of articles, tributes, reminiscences, etc., are welcome. 
Please send contributions to the editor, Cathy Martin (cathy.martin@mcgill.ca), by July 15, 
2012.  
 
Note de l’éditrice : Le prochain numéro de la Revue de l’ACBM (août 2012) sera consacré à la 
vie et à l’œuvre de M. Kallmann. Nous vous encourageons à faire parvenir vos articles, ainsi 
que vos témoignages d’estime et d’affection, à l'éditrice, Cathy Martin (cathy.martin@mcgill.ca), 
avant le 15 juillet 2012. 


In Memoriam: Helmut Kallmann (1922-2012)

Gonder, Jon

Unheard Of: Memoirs of a Canadian Composer (Book Review)

-, -

Complete issue

 CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM  40, NO. 3 (NOVEMBER / NOVEMBRE 2012)  PAGE 9 
CAML First-Time Conference Presenter Award 2013 /  
Prix 2013 décerné à un participant faisant un exposé pour la  
première fois au congrès de l’ACBM 
 
Award Description 
The CAML First-Time Conference Presenter Award, sponsored by the Canadian Association of 
Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (CAML), is intended to provide a first-time 
CAML conference presenter with the opportunity to present a paper at the 2013 CAML Conference 
in Victoria, British Columbia (June 6-8, 2013). The award of up to $1000 will be received by the 
winner upon submission of receipts for registration, travel, and accommodation expenses following 
the conference. 
Applicants must be members of CAML who are presenting at a CAML conference for the first time. 
Priority will be given to applicants in the early stages of their professional career, recent graduates 
who are seeking a position as a music librarian, or graduate library school students aspiring to 
become music librarians. Following the conference, the recipient of the award will submit the 
conference paper for publication in the August 2013 issue of the CAML Review. Runners-up may be 
invited to present their paper at the conference and/or submit their paper for inclusion in the CAML 
Review. (Note that such invitations to runners-up would not include a financial award.) 
 
Description du prix 
Le Prix décerné à un participant faisant un exposé pour la première fois au congrès de l’ACBM, 
organisé par l’Association canadienne des bibliothèques, archives et centres de documentation 
musicaux (ACBM), a pour but d’accorder à un participant l’occasion de faire un exposé au congrès 
de l’ACBM 2013 qui se tiendra à Victoria, Colombie-Britannique, du 6 au 8 juin 2013. Ce prix, 
pouvant aller jusqu’à 1000 $, sera remis au gagnant lorsque celui-ci fournira ses reçus de frais 
d’inscription, de voyage et d’hébergement, après le congrès. 
Le demandeur doit être un membre de l’ACBM présentant un exposé pour la première fois au 
congrès de l’ACBM. On accordera la priorité aux personnes qui en sont à faire leurs premières 
armes dans la profession, aux personnes récemment diplômées qui se cherchent un emploi de 
bibliothécaire de musique ou aux étudiants à la maîtrise en bibliothéconomie désireux de devenir 
bibliothécaires de musique. À la suite du congrès, le gagnant soumettra son exposé à la Revue de 
l’ACBM, pour qu’il y soit publié dans le numéro d’août 2013. Il se peut que les finalistes soient 
invités à présenter leur exposé au congrès ou encore à le soumettre pour fins de parution dans la 
Revue de l’ACBM. (À noter : une telle invitation ne s’accompagnera pas d’un prix en argent.) 
  
 CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM  40, NO. 3 (NOVEMBER / NOVEMBRE 2012)  PAGE 10 
Call for applications 
Applications are now being accepted for the CAML First-Time Conference Presenter Award 
Applicants must submit the following in PDF format by February 1, 2013: 
1. A title and abstract for your proposed presentation (maximum of 250 words). Session 
format is a 30-minute presentation (20-minute presentation with 10 minutes for questions). 
2. A curriculum vitae 
Send your proposal and CV by email to the Chair of the CAML First-Time Conference Presenter 
Award, Cathy Martin, at the following address: cathy.martin@mcgill.ca. Please mark the subject line 
“CAML First-Time Conference Presenter Award.” The recipient of the award will be selected by 
committee and notified by March 1, 2013. 
For questions about the award, please contact the Chair of the CAML First-Time Conference 
Presenter Award at the above email address. 
 
Appel de demandes  
On peut maintenant déposer sa demande pour recevoir le Prix décerné à un participant faisant un 
exposé pour la première fois au congrès de l’ACBM. 
Le demandeur doit nous faire parvenir les documents suivants en format PDF d’ici le 
1er février 2013 : 
1. Le titre et un sommaire de son exposé (un maximum de 250 mots). La présentation doit 
durer 30 minutes (20 minutes consacrées à l’exposé, suivies d’une période de questions de 
10 minutes). 
2. Un curriculum vitae. 
Veuillez envoyer votre sommaire et votre CV par courriel à la présidente du Prix décerné à un 
participant faisant un exposé pour la première fois au congrès de l’ACBM, Mme Cathy Martin, à 
l’adresse suivante : cathy.martin@mcgill.ca. Veuillez inscrire « Prix du conférencier pour la première 
fois » dans la ligne de mention objet. Un comité choisira le gagnant et communiquera avec lui d’ici 
le 1er mars 2013. 
Pour obtenir plus de renseignements à ce sujet, veuillez écrire à la présidente du prix, à l’adresse de 
courriel citée précédemment. 


French

CAML First-Time Conference Presenter Award 2013 / Prix 2013 décerné à un participant faisant un exposé pour la première fois au congrès de l’ACBM

Keillor, Elaine

Forging Utopia: Orchestral Music – John Oliver (CD Review)

Minutes of the 2011 CAML/ACBM Annual General Meeting

 CAML REVIEW 40, NO. 2 (AUGUST 2012)   PAGE 7 
HELMUT KALLMANN (1922-2012): A MEMOIR 
  
BY MARIA CALDERISI 
 
 
Anyone can read the brief biographical notes on Helmut Kallmann in the Encyclopedia 
of Music in Canada and in other published sources, and be amazed by the length and 
breadth of his writings as listed in Musical Canada: Words and Music Honouring Helmut 
Kallmann, the festschrift edited by John Beckwith and Frederick A. Hall and published 
by the University of Toronto Press in 1988. But I like to think that it is in the hearts and 
memories of those who came to know this gentle, modest man by working with him and 
sharing with him his interest and passion for keeping the record, for collecting and 
preserving Canada’s musical heritage, that Helmut Kallmann’s spirit lives on.  
 
Elsewhere in this issue you have an overview of his activities and achievements, along 
with several testimonials and personal stories. So I shall limit myself to my own 
experiences shared with him or directly resulting from his encouragement and support. 
 
First of all, I would not have become a music librarian had it not been for Dr. Kallmann, 
as he was most respectfully called by most of his directors and co-workers at the 
National Library of Canada. Near the end of my belated music studies at McGill in1972, 
my favourite professor—after whom McGill’s Marvin Duchow Music Library is now 
named—had dropped the idea of librarianship in my ear. Various enquiries led me to 
Ottawa to ask Helmut what he thought about the future of music librarianship in 
Canada. Based on his prognosis I enrolled in a specialized Master’s programme at the 
University of Michigan, and, by the time I graduated in 1973, Helmut had convinced the 
National Library that he needed a reference librarian to attend to the increasing 
demands upon the Music Division, then only three years old. The rest, as they say, is 
history. 
 
Of course I knew about his reputation in the field of music in Canada and was familiar 
with his publications, but I was not prepared for the extent of his research finding-aids 
which had made their way into the card catalogue drawers: flimsy paper slips with 
references to Canadian music publishers, sometimes quite skeletal, others with a full 
range of dates and addresses as found in a city directory; periodical indexes; 
biographical notes; picture indexes; and so on, not to mention the banks of filing 
cabinets with clippings and brochures and others with illustrations and photos, all 
arranged by individuals, groups or subjects, all with cross-references galore. Feeding 
these finding-aids and files was a large part of my responsibilities, besides the usual 
library activities such as reference services and developing the printed collection— 
which itself extended well beyond the usual to concert programmes and pamphlets. 
Gradually I was drawn into the “quicksand” of fascination and dedication, along with this 
most unconventional of bosses, who then granted me study leave to return to McGill for 
a Master’s degree in Musicology. My thesis subject was Helmut’s suggestion—music 
publishing in pre-Confederation Canada. 
 CAML REVIEW 40, NO. 2 (AUGUST 2012)   PAGE 8 
And along the way, also gradually, we became friends as a result of working so closely 
together. I learned about his tragic past, his early removal from a safe and loving home 
in Berlin only to find himself declared an “enemy alien” and thrust into communal living 
in internment camps in England and Canada, and the subsequent loss of his entire 
family. I say gradually because Helmut did not reveal his life story in one telling, nor did 
he dramatize his tragedy. Rather, he liked to talk about his parents, especially his 
lawyer father who was a music lover and Helmut’s first music teacher. He learned the 
entire Köchel catalogue at an early age, matching numbers to compositions and keys, 
and when he was ten or so, he organized his father’s miniature score collection, by 
composer and opus number of course! The only time I heard a catch in his throat was 
when he spoke of his younger sister, Eva. He was even able to talk about the positive 
aspects of his internment, and the musical activities of his fellow “prisoners” who helped 
with his interrupted studies and put him in charge of the library! He was always positive, 
bore no grudges towards his old homeland, or to his new one, and his life’s work is 
ample evidence of that. 
 
I had already joined CAML—of which he was co-founder—as I had MLA, but Helmut 
encouraged me to get more involved which I did, becoming a board member of both 
associations and eventually president of CAML. With the International Association of 
Music Libraries (IAML) conference in Montreal in 1975 I began my activities in that 
association, again with Helmut’s blessing and support. He believed strongly in the 
benefits of national and international networks, and especially in the exchange of 
information and collaboration on special projects. He was the first Canadian to 
correspond with IAML by contributing Canadian locations of pre-1800 publications to 
RISM (Répertoire international des sources musicales) soon after its inception in the 
early 1950s. As his duties at the Library became more demanding, and with the 
beginnings of planning for the Encyclopedia, he passed the torch, so to speak, to those 
of us who had been inspired by his ideology and dedication. I took on various positions 
in IAML, served 12 years on the board, including three as president, and remained 
actively interested even beyond my retirement in 1995. Helmut was pleased about that. 
Although he attended few conferences after the 1970s, he was always eager to hear 
reports on the people he knew and the activities of both the Canadian and the 
international organizations. 
 
The fourteen years I spent working for and with Helmut at the National Library were rich 
and productive indeed and I remain ever grateful. But we had some lighter moments 
too. He would whistle a theme and ask us to guess its origin; as like as not it would turn 
out to be the second violin part from a Haydn string quartet! Music was such an integral 
part of his makeup that he could hear the old familiar repertoire in his head at any time 
he chose and hum along on some inner voice. His greatest joy, beyond his family, was 
playing his piano. He also loved being in nature; he photographed the trees in front of 
his house every season, marking the changes from year to year. He was happy to share 
any new family photos, or letters from old, old friends, ex-internees or schoolmates, or 
from the City of Berlin, grateful for his corrections regarding its tramway system (!) and 
eager to make whatever belated reparations it could. We talked about politics and 
travel, language and history, and, of course, music. So many little and great things that 
 CAML REVIEW 40, NO. 2 (AUGUST 2012)   PAGE 9 
make up a person! We remained close friends until his death in February and I shall 
remember him always with deep affection. 
 
~~~~~~~~~~ 
 
MARIA CALDERISI was Head of the Printed Collection and Reference Services (Music 
Division) at the National Library of Canada from 1973 to 1995. She was President of 
CAML (1976-1978) and of IAML (1986-1989), having also served on various 
committees and commissions within both organizations. She was also a delegate to 
IFLA on behalf of IAML and the Music Library Association (MLA). She is author of Music 
Publishing in the Canadas 1800-1867  /  L’édition musicale au Canada 1800-1867   
(Ottawa: National Library of Canada / Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1981) and of 
several articles in the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. She was also a contributor to 
History of the Book in Canada / Histoire du livre et de l’imprimé (Bibliographical Society 
of Canada, 2004-2007) and was guest editor of  Fontes Artis Musicae, 48/2 (2001), 
devoted to the 50th anniversary of IAML. She is married to Nikolas Bryce, former 
librarian of the National Arts Centre Orchestra. 
 


English

Helmut Kallmann (1922-2012): A Memoir

Desmeules, Robin

My Old Hat; My New Hat – Del Dako (CD Review)

Sounds of North: Two Centuries of Piano Music (CD Review) - Dedicated to the memory of Dr. Helmut Kallmann

 CAML REVIEW 40, NO. 2 (AUGUST 2012)   PAGE 11 
PARTICIPATING IN THE MEMORIALS FOR HELMUT KALLMANN  
(1922-2012) 
 
BY ELAINE KEILLOR 
 
Based on the author’s remarks and participation at the Memorials for Helmut Kallmann 
held in Ottawa on 14 February 2012 and in Toronto on 10 April 2012. 
    
 
Helmut Kallmann‟s book, A History of Music in Canada, 1534-1914 (1960), made its 
appearance in our home soon after its publication. I can recall that my mother was so 
thrilled to find the section on her former teacher, W.O. Forsyth.  
  
My first personal contact with Helmut happened a few years later. By that time I was a 
graduate student at the University of Toronto and had decided to do a major research 
paper on W.O. Forsyth. While I was rummaging through my mother's papers to find 
information, I came across several clippings that she had snipped from the Toronto 
Globe in the mid-1930s. These were write-ups, each on a different Canadian composer 
with a listing of compositions.  
  
Helmut Kallmann had taken up his new position as head of the Music Division at the 
National Library of Canada (now known as Library and Archives Canada) in 1970. I 
decided to write him to find out if he knew about these particular articles.  
  
Imagine my delight when shortly after I received a long hand-written note from Helmut, 
thanking me profusely for bringing this information to his attention. He reported that he 
and his staff had been able to track down the whole series and as a consequence 
obtained much information that had not previously been known to him. Soon I was 
involved, along with other graduate students across the country, in writing entries for his 
new big project, the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada.  
  
In 1977 I arrived in Ottawa to take up my new position at Carleton University. My duties 
included teaching Canadian music courses at both the undergraduate and graduate 
levels. At that point Helmut's book was no longer in print, so I had to find ways of 
exploring Canadian music topics without any textbook. I was soon making regular trips 
to the National Library, and Helmut would give me wonderful ideas about what to have 
students do to procure more information on Canadian music. 
  
In 1982 a group of us involved with teaching and researching Canadian music met to 
discuss the lack of availability of pre-1950 written compositions. To fill that lacuna we 
formed the Canadian Musical Heritage Society. Over the next two decades, Helmut was 
the centre of that organization as we tracked down and sifted through compositions in 
all genres. The resulting 25 volumes published by the Society included only some 1500 
works of the approximately 35,000 that we managed to discover. At our meetings, 
usually held at Carleton University, Helmut would gently give us direction and advice. 
 CAML REVIEW 40, NO. 2 (AUGUST 2012)   PAGE 12 
His editing skills were legendary, for the essays and notes that accompanied each 
volume in the series and for the music scores. 
  
His mentorship to me and his contributions as a committee member on theses of my 
graduate students are just some of the wonderful memories I have, when I look back at 
the privilege of working with such a knowledgeable but modest individual. The last 
written message that I received from Helmut is one that I will always treasure. It 
expressed his pleasure at reading once again what he called my "fine book," Music in 
Canada, which had come out in paperback (2008). Of course, I would not have been 
able to even attempt to write such a book without his previous research, particularly for 
the Encyclopedia, along with the wonderful musical resources he had accumulated at 
the National Library. 
  
To honour his memory at the Memorial in Ottawa, I chose to play two Canadian piano 
pieces. The first was a movement from the Suite for Piano, written by Leo Smith, 
probably in the 1930s. Smith was one of Helmut‟s professors when he was a student at 
the University of Toronto. In 1981, the centenary of Leo Smith‟s birth, Helmut organized 
a special exhibition of Smith materials. Then he decided that there should be a concert 
of works by Leo Smith. I was one of the musicians involved in performing several works: 
some of Smith's songs with soprano Gloria Jean Nagy, chamber music for cello and 
piano with cellist Joan Colquhoun, and the Suite for Piano. The CBC recorded the 
recital on 26 November 1981 for later broadcast. For the Memorial in Ottawa, I chose to 
play the slow second movement of the Suite.  
  
After Kallmann‟s retirement from the National Library, John Beckwith and Fred Hall put 
together a book in his honour, entitled Musical Canada (1988). It included four new 
compositions, three for piano and one for voice. As my second selection at the Ottawa 
Memorial, I performed the piano composition by Cliff Ford, who was the executive 
director of the Canadian Musical Heritage Society at the time. Cliff decided to write a 
Fantasy based on the ballad, "Summer and Winter," by J. P. Clarke, a composer in 
whom Helmut had taken a particular interest. Clarke (1808-1877) was the first person to 
receive a Bachelor of Music degree from a Canadian university. He is also the first 
Canadian composer for whom a number of scores in various genres have survived. I 
suspect that Helmut also favoured Clarke because by 1847, he was conducting 
complete symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven in Toronto.  
  
In any case, I think Cliff tries to also give a musical picture of how Helmut carried out his 
investigations on Canadian music. The opening shows him trying various paths to find 
more compositions. Later on, there seem to be “eureka” moments when he has found a 
new publication or manuscript. Helmut sits down at his piano and plays a bit of the 
newly found work, and then he is off searching for another. 
  
At the Memorial for Helmut Kallmann held in Toronto, I had the honour of performing 
another piano composition written especially for the Beckwith/Hall book. John 
Weinzweig had known Helmut since the 1940s, and particularly wished to honour him 
for his tireless work in documenting, collecting, and promoting the music of Canadian 
 CAML REVIEW 40, NO. 2 (AUGUST 2012)   PAGE 13 
composers past and present. Weinzweig told me that his piece used idioms from jazz, 
specifically the percussive and rhythmic character of stride piano that had developed in 
the 1920s and „30s. He said that he could use the word “Stride” in the title, but wanted 
to add something that would more clearly connect it with the work accomplished by 
Kallmann. I suggested the siglum CanOn, used for the National Library of Canada in the 
volumes of the Canadian Musical Heritage Society. As a result, the piece is entitled 
CanOn Stride. In my opinion this piece gives us a sense of Kallmann, actively involved 
in the musical developments of North America, and particularly of Canada, his adopted 
country. 
 
~~~~~~~~~~ 
 
DR. ELAINE KEILLOR, Distinguished Research Professor Emerita Carleton University, has 
supervised the creation of four websites dealing with First Peoples' culture and music, 
including Native Drums, Native Dance, Path of the Elders, and First Encounters. In May 
2012, Gala Records released her four-CD recording, Sounds of North: Two Centuries of 
Canadian Piano Music, dedicated to the memory of Helmut Kallmann. 


Participating in the Memorials for Helmut Kallmann

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