There’s Music in These Walls: A History of the Royal Conservatory of Music. By Ezra Schabas. Toronto: The Dundurn Group, 2005. ISBN 1-55002-540-6. 288 pp., ill. $50.00 (hardcover) any Canadians, this reviewer A continuing theme of the book is included, know the Royal the turbulent relationship between the M Conservatory of Music as an RCM and the University of Toronto. invisible force behind years of childhood The Conservatory’s long affiliation with piano lessons. We spent hours practising the University of Toronto began in 1896 music listed in the RCM syllabi, and ended in 1991. The saga of this on- performed nervously for RCM again, off-again relationship is told examiners, as well as studying and gradually throughout the book, and the writing theory, history, and harmony success or failure of an RCM principal tests during summer vacations. Ezra seemed to lie, in part, in how the Schabas, in There’s Music in These affiliation was managed. What started as Walls, introduces a side of the symbiosis (the RCM benefited from Conservatory that most Canadians never university affiliation; the U of T see: the on-campus, Toronto-based benefited from student tuition revenue) music school. degenerated over the years into bickering over land, buildings, faculty, Schabas’s personal history and and, of course, finances. As a former expertise shine in this work. His principal himself, Schabas does not previous publications include Sir Ernest hesitate to give his candid opinions of MacMillan: The Importance of Being various administrators, past and present. Canadian (1994) and (with Carl Morey) Opera Viva: Canadian Opera Company: The book’s coffee-table gloss and The First Fifty Years (2000), which format includes an eye-catching dust- explains the weight given to both jacket: a full colour photograph of subjects in There’s Music in These McMaster Hall, the RCM’s well-known Walls. Schabas’s own history with the Bloor Street home. There are over RCM may also explain the “Toronto- seventy black-and-white photographs, centricity” of the text; he was hired in and the reproductions are excellent. 1952 as director of its publicity and Generally the pictures reflect the context concerts and of its Concert and of the subject matter (the one glaring Placement Bureau, and served as its exception is a delightful photograph of Principal from 1978-83. There is a the young Glenn Gould on page 101 that wealth of information on teachers, appears in the middle of a lengthy students, ensembles, conductors, and discussion of opera). concert and opera programs (with reviews), but unfortunately it ends at the Despite the book’s classy, grand Toronto city limits. The reader gets no appearance, the contents are not light hint of RCM activity in any other reading. While the conversational tone is Canadian city, let alone in rural areas. engaging, the attention to detail is Even the branches are mentioned in exhausting at times. The descriptive administrative terms only. titles of the twelve chapters (e.g., “Toronto Has a Music School,” “The 39 Travails of Reorganization,” “Buildings were both on the 1950 series” (p. 121), Old and New”) indicate how the author and a short, rather offhand, personal has classified chronological events into reminiscence (p. 130). broad categories. There is an index, and the appendices include a chronology. Ezra Schabas has many stories to tell Other visual aids such as an thanks to his long association with the organizational chart would have been Royal Conservatory of Music. There’s helpful. Music in These Walls is not merely a collection of stories, however; it is a The research and scholarship that significant addition to the scholarship of went into this account are impeccable. Canadian music. The book is certainly a Schabas has backed up his personal boon to researchers, especially those memories with extensive interviews. He who are interested in the RCM’s and researcher Dorith Cooper also presence in Toronto. There is much combed several archives to paint a vivid more to this institution than mere music picture of daily life at the Conservatory. books and examinations, and readers will come away with a much fuller But his treatment of Glenn Gould is understanding of what is arguably the puzzling. This reviewer was looking most important music school in Canada. forward to learning more about Gould’s early years as an RCM student. Yet the Janneka L. Guise RCM’s most famous graduate is rarely Queen Elizabeth II Library mentioned, except in bland statements Memorial University of Newfoundland such as “Glenn Gould and Lois Marshall 40.