Dr. Helmut Kallmann, 1922-2012

Helmut Kallmann, historian, bibliographer and lexicographer, was born in Berlin on August 7, 1922. Although he worked for 20 years at the music library of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto, and was appointed the first Chief of the new Music Division at the National Library of Canada in 1970, he never to my knowledge called himself a librarian because he had not been trained as one. But he was, in fact, the quintessential librarian and documentalist, beginning at the early age of 10 by organizing his father's miniature score library, committing to memory what music went with what opus or catalogue number as he went along. His proud and loving father kept a detailed record of his accomplishments, which included Helmut's uncanny fascination with the tramway system and his ability to draw maps of Berlin neighbourhoods from memory. In fact, he could still do that in his 80s, as well as hum the second violin part of a Haydn quartet, or sit down eagerly at the piano to play four-hands with any willing friend or visitor. For his safety in 1939 he was sent away to England on the Kindertransport, but was interned there after war was declared and shipped out to Canada as an enemy alien. He was 17 years old and never saw his family again. In internment camp his both his musicality and knowledge were recognized by fellow internees and he was put in charge of the camp library. So it was inevitable that after his release and the resumption of his interrupted studies he should eventually find employment at a music library. While at the CBC (1950-1970), he set about correcting the scarcity of reference material on Canadian music and music in Canada that had become apparent during his university years. He began by updating and expanding the CBC Catalogue of Canadian Composers (1952) and wrote his ground-breaking History of Music in Canada 1534-1914 (1960) using information gathered from magazines, newspapers, city directories, concert programmes, and other unlikely sources. He brought these regularly-updated notes, indexes and files with him to the National Library of Canada when he began his work there to build up a music collection. These finding aids--card catalogues and clippings files, registering the minutest, often sketchy, information on Canadian composers, performers and publishers--continued to grow under his guidance to become an invaluable source of information for researchers, broadcasters and performers, and provided the nucleus for the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (1981) which he co-edited. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] His interest and pride in the musical history of his adopted country, and his determination to introduce it to the world, led him to begin reporting Canadian locations to RISM in the early 50s, shortly after it began its monumental task. He also introduced himself to the editors of the Harvard Dictionary of Music and Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart recommending or correcting Canadian entries and became a regular contributor to both, as well as to other international reference works. Closer to home, he was instrumental in founding the Canadian Music Library Association in 1956, precursor to the Canadian Association of Music Libraries of today. …

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