Unheard Of: Memoirs of a Canadian Composer by John Beckwith (review)

What may surprise you about this memoir by John Beckwith, one of Canada’s most preeminent composers, is that it will make you laugh. The cheeky title hints at the man’s sense of humor and reflects the fact that many, especially those outside the academic and classical music circles in Canada, may not know his name. But within these circles Beckwith is a towering figure. His notoriety and influence arise from his involvement in the world of classical music in Canada for over six decades in several capacities: as piano performer, journalist, teacher, administrator, scholar, and composer. However significant his career in arts and letters was, one might not expect that an account of it would be terribly exciting. But Beckwith is a gifted storyteller, and throughout the book he generously peppers his narrative with charming and sometimes hilarious anecdotes. These often involve famous notables of the classical music world in Canada and abroad, and demonstrate Beckwith’s knack for comic timing. (An example: when Beckwith showed drafts of the scenario for The Shivaree, an opera whose action takes place on a couple’s wedding night, to director Herman Geiger-Torel, the latter suggested the story should build to “several big climaxes.” Beckwith sent these comments to the librettist, James Reaney, who “wrote in the margin alongside this remark, ‘Oh my god!’ ” [pp. 251–52].)

The heart of the book is a collection of three sections dedicated to Beckwith’s professional life, of which “Studies” is the first. This section includes three chapters, which describe his education at the University of Toronto and his first jobs in music (“Toronto: Youth”), his early work as a composer during these years (“Composing”), and his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris (“Paris”). The next section, “Career,” contains three chapters outlining professional activities he assumed (aside from composing) after he returned to Toronto from Paris: “Writing” outlines his contributions to broadcasting, journalism, and scholarship; “Academia” tells of his work as a teacher; and “Politics” sketches his administrative contributions.

These accounts of Beckwith’s vocational activities are full of the kind of unpredictable details and stories I have describe above, and these turn what might have been a dry list of undertakings into engaging reading. In depicting his student years, for example, he tells of winning first prize in a piano competition for a Mozart piece, but only third for his playing of Bach; he then reveals that first place in the Bach category went to a young teen named Glenn Gould. (Gould and Beckwith shared the same teacher, Alberto Guerrero.) Later we learn that at his first meeting with Nadia Boulanger, she abruptly sent him off to deliver a package, which turned out to be a gift for the newborn baby of the Prince of Monaco. Several of his stories are self-deprecating: he reveals that a producer once told him that his trademark as a critic was his “naturally bitchy personality” (p. 125), and he confesses that when he played Pierre Henry’s Orfée on one of his radio programs (probably “the first electronic-acoustic work ever broadcast on Canadian airwaves” [p. 123]) he unknowingly played it at the wrong speed. Even his duties as an administrator are livened up by similar tales that the reader hopes, but cannot quite believe, are true. During his tenure as dean, for example, he relates in passing that the University of Toronto music faculty had their own hockey team (only in Canada!), that they were called the Gustav Maulers, and that “when their opponents scored, the band struck up the slow movement of the First Symphony” (p. 185). For those for whom Beckwith may seem more of an institution than a man, these frequent humorous moments reveal something of the personality behind the legend, while the chronicle of his boundless activities and accomplishments validate his iconic status.

“Compositions,” the last and largest section dedicated...