Unheard Of: Memoirs of a Canadian Composer

The memoir of renowned Canadian composer John Beckwith recounts his more than sixty years in creative output and music education. His life story is a slice of Canadian cultural history.

Canadian composer John Beckwith recounts his early days in Victoria, his studies in Toronto with Alberto Guerrero, his first compositions, and his later studies in Paris with the renowned Nadia Boulanger, of whom he offers a comprehensive personal view. In the memoir’s central chapters Beckwith describes his activities as a writer, university teacher, scholar, and administrator. Then, turning to his creative output, he considers his compositions for instrumental music, his four operas, choral music, and music for voice. A final chapter touches on his personal and family life and his travel adventures.

For over sixty years John Beckwith has participated in national musical initiatives in music education, promotion, and publishing. He has worked closely with performing groups such as the Orford Quartet and the Canadian Brass and conductors such as Elmer Iseler and Georg Tintner. A former reviewer for the Toronto Star and a CBC script writer and programmer in the 1950s and ’60s, he later produced many articles and books on musical topics. Acting under Robert Gill and Dora Mavor Moore in student days and married for twenty years to actor/director Pamela Terry, he witnessed first-hand the growth of Toronto theatre. He has collaborated with the writers Jay Macpherson, Margaret Atwood, Dennis Lee, and bpNichol, and teamed repeatedly with James Reaney, a close friend. His life story is a slice of Canadian cultural history.

1.

Father   

John Beckwith

The Beckwiths and McLeods established themselves in Canada in the mid-eighteenth century.  Harold Beckwith, the author’s father, overcame a physical disability to achieve recognition in the legal profession in Victoria, passing along his musical and activist enthusiasms.


2.

Mother

John Beckwith

The Dunns were late-nineteenth-century arrivals from England.  Their daughter Margaret, the author’s mother, was a teacher, school-board politician, civic booster, choral-music devotee, and devoted parent.

3.

Victoria: Childhood and Adolescence

John Beckwith

An overly-indulged “holy terror” as a child, the author describes his elementary and high school years with their emphases on drama, journalism, and especially music (piano lessons, choral singing), which generated his career ambitions.

4.

Toronto: Youth

John Beckwith

Winning a scholarship to Toronto, Beckwith completed a University of Toronto music degree while working under the pianist Alberto Guerrero, participating in college theatre, writing for the student newspaper, and eventually gaining his first paying job as a music publicist.

5.

Composing

John Beckwith

During a period of youthful exploration, composing emerged as increasingly the favourite musical outlet.  From the circulation of the first few self-motivated attempts, Beckwith won another scholarship, this time for composition studies in France.

6.

Paris

John Beckwith

The cosmopolitan musical life of post-War Paris and the vivid personality of his teacher, Nadia Boulanger, form a contrast to a curious adventure in which Beckwith and his wife  tour southern Germany with a theatrical troupe organized by the US Army.

7.

Writing

John Beckwith

The author’s varied career activities are traced chronologically – first, his critical writings on radio and in the press, and his later research articles, produced under such editors as  Nathan Cohen, Geoffrey Payzant, and Helmut Kallmann, and his close involvement with projects like the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada and the Canadian Musical Heritage.

8.

Academia

John Beckwith

In a long association with the University of Toronto’s music faculty, Beckwith handled assignments in a variety of musical areas, influenced a significant group of composers and other specialists, and contributed original studies, notably of musical Canadiana.

9.

Politics

John Beckwith

Active in many Canadian musical initiatives – the Canadian League of Composers, Canadian Music Centre, Ten Centuries Concerts, and the Performing Rights Organization of Canada and its successor SOCAN – Beckwith was also for seven years dean of music at the U of T, all of which he considers as the “political” aspect of his career.

10.

For Instruments (1)

John Beckwith

A Concerto Fantasy for piano and orchestra, composed as the thesis for an advanced music degree, inaugurated a succession of instrumental-music projects, whose commissions and performances are recalled, up to the major productions of the 1970s, the Quartet for strings and Keyboard Practice for ten keyboard instruments and four players.

11.

For Instruments (2)

John Beckwith

The later instrumental works include further orchestral ventures as well as a series of chamber pieces with harpsichord and compositions for Highland pipes and microtonal piano.

12.

Operas

John Beckwith

This chapter describes in detail Beckwith’s four operas (their formation and production vicissitudes) along with a number of other collaborative works written with James Reaney.

13.

Choirs

John Beckwith

Starting with a 1963 assignment from the conductor Elmer Iseler, Beckwith writes of his experiences in the choral medium including later partnerings with Iseler, with other choir leaders, and with librettists such as Jay Macpherson, Margaret Atwood, Dennis Lee, and bpNichol.


14.

For Voice(s)

John Beckwith

Beckwith’s earliest compositional successes were solo songs, and works featuring the solo voice or voices have continued to interest him well into the twenty-first century.

15.

Full Length

John Beckwith

For a “full length” self-portrait, the author here describes his idealistic but troubled marriage, the pioneering theatrical career of his wife, the actress and director Pamela Terry, their four children, and his later domestic life and travel adventures with his partner Kathleen McMorrow.