Mapping Canada's Music: Selected Writings of Helmut Kallmann

Mapping Canada’s Music is a selection of writings by the late Canadian music librarian and historian Helmut Kallmann (1922–2012). Most of the essays deal with aspects of Canadian music, but some are also autobiographical, including one written during retirement in which Kallmann recalls growing up in a middle-class Jewish family in 1930s Berlin under the spectre of Nazism.

Of the seventeen selected writings by Kallmann, five have never before been published; many of the others are from difficult-to-locate sources. They include critical and research essays, reports, reflections, and memoirs. Each chapter is prefaced with an introduction by the editors. Two initial chapters offer a biography of Kallmann and an assessment of his contributions to Canadian music.

The variety, breadth, and scope of these writings confirm Kallmann’s pioneering role in Canadian music research and the importance of his legacy to the cultural life of his adopted country. In the current climate of cuts to archival collections and services, the publication of these essays by and about a pre-eminent collector and historian serves as a timely reminder of the importance of cultural memory.

1
Helmut Kallmann, A Brief Biography
John Beckwith and Robin Elliott

This chapter traces Helmut Kallmann’s life story and career, from his birth in Berlin in 1922 until his death in Ottawa in 2012. The narrative concentrates on his pioneering contributions to Canadian music studies and librarianship.

2
Helmut Kallmann and Canadian Music
John Beckwith and Robin Elliott

This chapter offers an overview of Helmut Kallmann’s career in the context of the intellectual and cultural climate in Canada during the second half of the twentieth century. The chapter evaluates the importance of Kallmann’s legacy: both his publications and also the institutions with which he was associated.

3
Studying Music at a Canadian University
Helmut Kallman
In "Studying Music at a Canadian University," which was written upon graduation from the undergraduate music program at the University of Toronto in 1949, Kallmann offers a critique of both his instructors and also his fellow students, as well as of the curriculum in place.
4
Canadian Music as a Field for Research
Helmut Kallmann
"Canadian Music as a Field for Research" sets out an agenda for Canadian music studies, one that would keep Helmut Kallmann busy for the rest of his career.
5
The New Grove’s: Disappointment to Canada
Helmut Kallmann 
"The New Grove’s: Disappointment to Canada" is a review of the fifth edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1954), specifically pointing out its weakness in terms of the representation of Canadian music and musicians.
6
Introduction, from A History of Music in Canada
Helmut Kallmann 
This brief essay outlines Helmut Kallmann’s ideas about the nature of music in Canada. He establishes here a framework for Canadian music studies that would set the tone for this field for the rest of the twentieth century.
7
Joseph Quesnel Colas et Colinette
Helmut Kallmann
This program note outlines the intriguing history of this opera, which was written and first produced in Quebec in the late 18th century, and is thus contemporaneous with the late operas of Mozart.
8
Music Library Association Digs Up Our Musical Past
Helmut Kallmann
This essay outlines a centennial project of the Canadian Music Library Association to collect and catalogue early Canadian music publications. The project led eventually to a database listing over 30,000 such items.
9
James Paton Clarke, Canada’s First Mus.Bac.
Helmut Kallmann 
This chapter gives a biographical account of the Scottish-born organist and composer J.P. Clarke, a pioneering musician who was active in Toronto in the middle of the nineteenth century. He was the first person in Canada to receive an academic music degree.
10
The Music Division of the National Library: The First Five Years
Helmut Kallmann
This chapter outlines the activities that Helmut Kallmann undertook and his achievements during his first five years as the inaugural Chief of the Music Division of the National Library of Canada. He embarked upon an ambitious program of collecting manuscripts, published music, and recordings relating to all aspects of Canadian music.
11
The Canadian League of Composers in the 1950s
Helmut Kallman
The Heroic Years reflects upon the founding and early activities of the League, which was founded in Toronto in February 1951. Helmut Kallmann served as the volunteer archivist for the League, and offers an insider’s perspective on the challenges which the group faced and its early achievements.
12
The Making of a One-Country Encyclopedia
Helmut Kallmann
 This chapter is about the making of a One-Country Encyclopedia, which was written after Helmut Kallmann had completed his work on the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. He outlines the processes and working methods that led to the creation of the two editions of this path-breaking reference work.
13
Music in the Internment Camps
Helmut Kallmann
This chapter concentrates on the activities of John Newmark, an eminent German-born concert pianist. Newmark and Kallmann were both interned as enemy aliens during the Second World War, and each went on to exert an enormous influence on the musical life of Canada, Newmark as a leading accompanist and Helmut Kallmann as a historian and music librarian.
14
Franz Schubert in Canada
Helmut Kallmann
This chapter offers a reception history of the music of the early nineteenth-century Viennese composer Franz Schubert in Canada. Helmut Kallmann not only documents early performances of his music in various Canadian cities, but also its critical reception. He concludes with a brief account of Canadian scholarship on Schubert in the twentieth century.
15
Taking Stock of Canada’s Composers
Helmut Kallmann
This chapter offers an overview of survey treatments of Canadian composers, beginning with essays on the subject that were written in the 1920s and concluding with the CBC’s Catalogue of Canadian Composers (1952), which Helmut Kallmann himself edited.
16
A Selection of Correspondence
John Beckwith and Robin Elliott
This chapter is a selection of correspondence to give a flavour of Helmut Kallman’s voluminous letter writing activities over the decades. Included are examples from widely separated time periods.
17
Mapping Canada’s Music: A Life’s Task
Helmut Kallman
"Mapping Canada’s Music: A Life’s Task" is an autobiographical essay that was written ten years into Helmut Kallman’s retirement. He considers in detail the projects with which he was involved over the years, offering interesting personal reflections on his motivations and his ideas about researching Canadian music.
18
The Matter of Identity
Helmut Kallmann
"The Matter of Identity" is an opinion piece written in 2001, by which time Helmut Kallmann had lived in Canada for over sixty years. He considers how religion, personal history, and self-identification influenced his threefold identity, as a Jew, a German, and a Canadian.19
At Home with the Kallmanns
Helmut Kallmann
"At Home with the Kallmanns" is a detailed account about growing up in a liberal German-Jewish family in Berlin during the 1930s. Reflecting back as an adult upon his childhood experiences, Helmut Kallmann offers an intimate view of what day-to-day life was like for German Jews during this period of increasing anti-Semitic measures. Kallmann was fortunate to be able to leave Germany in 1939; he recounts how after the war he pieced together the story of the fate of his extended family, all of whom perished in the Holocaust.