Niki Goldschmidt: A Life in Canadian Music (review)

This is a timely work in more ways than one, for Nicholas (Niki) Goldschmidt died in February of this year. Gwenlyn Setterfield's biography follows a life that spanned the twentieth century, and a man who wielded an enormous impact on the Canadian arts.

Setterfield begins with an idyllic picture of Goldschmidt's childhood on a country estate in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, followed by an education steeped in Europe's classical musical tradition. Her portrayal of 1920s Vienna is vibrant and fascinating, but the uneasy political climate of Europe is muted, even though it prompts Goldschmidt's emigration to the United States in 1939. There is not a little of a rags-to-riches motif here, from his first low-paying theatre job in the depths of the Great Depression to his arrival, a Jack Dawson with spirits high, in New York. Setterfield's emphasis on Goldschmidt's luck, positive outlook, and serendipitous meetings seems somewhat disingenuous, for much of his career was directed by connections arranged, most notably, by his uncle, a prominent Belgian diplomat. After eight years in the United States - working with such rising composers Aaron Copland and Douglas Moore - Goldschmidt moved to Canada to direct the opera program at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Against the (in retrospect, amusingly) bleak cultural scene of post-war Toronto, he began a half century of building an infrastructure for the arts.

With Toronto's inaugural opera in 1947 and the founding of the Canadian Opera Company in 1950, Goldschmidt helped mould a generation of famous Canadian singers, including Teresa Stratas, Maureen Forrester, Jan Rube, and Jon Vickers. But he will be remembered for founding or coordinating an astounding number of arts festivals, such as the Vancouver International Festival, the International Bach Piano Competition in memory of Glenn Gould (who, apparently, hated festivals), and MusicCanadaMusique 2000. (Photographs of some of the countless performances mentioned would be a welcome addition.) There is little sense of a characteristic body of Canadian music emerging; rather, he was bringing (primarily European) musical traditions to Canada. Festivals raise controversial questions, enmeshed as they are in the highly political nature of state-funded 'high' culture. Must they, for example, feature Canadian performers? (As a somewhat dismayed Goldschmidt discovers, 'Olivier won't sell out in Corner Brook, but their own performers will!' [115]) He confronts a general preference for the 'theatrical mainstream' (103) and expectations of Canadian content, which he characterizes as a provincial attitude - a defensive 'nationalism' as opposed to a constructive 'patriotism' - and he argues repeatedly for importing (and paying for) international headliners when merit warrants. Amid preparations for the centennial in 1967, he also runs up against the quintessentially Canadian experience of 'art created by a committee,' or 'the Ottawa way of doing things,' with an explicit concern for regional representation (112, 122), though the result is a year of successes appropriately described as a cultural explosion. Setterfield could have probed more deeply into Goldschmidt's managerial approach and political dealings; no doubt there are useful lessons to be drawn from his vast experience in, for example, identifying the factors that ensured a festival's success - such as capitalizing on the autumn colours at Algoma, or the 'significant features of its place' (131) - or exposing the politics of funding bodies.

But Setterfield, like Goldschmidt, 'prefers to remember the success' (186). The book is relentlessly positive, just as Goldschmidt is relentlessly cheerful, 'smiling broadly, and asking anyone within earshot, "Isn't it marvelous?"' (170). Author and subject speak in superlatives; last-minute crises provoke a 'the show must go on' resourcefulness; the narrative is sprinkled with numerous accolades from peers and students. There are only the smallest hints of the kind of 'cunning' (134) that must have enabled him to secure the cooperation of performers and politicians. In short, the book suffers from the usual failing of biography, an overly affectionate treatment. That said, Goldschmidt's enthusiasm is infectious, and he is certainly a worthwhile subject...