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Genius and tragedy of unknown Australian piano great
By Nick Galvin
“Geoffrey Tozer’s death is a national tragedy.”
Geoffrey Tozer battled alcoholism.
So begins Paul Keating’s eulogy for pianist Geoffrey Tozer, delivered on October 1, 2009, in Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral.
In more than 4000 words that follow Keating lavishes praise on Tozer, whom he considers a genius to be set alongside Arthur Rubinstein, Sviatoslav Richter and Artur Schnabel.
But the oration is also shot through with fiery invective directed at the music establishment and their “indifference and contempt” towards Tozer in the years before his death at just 54.
“This malevolence more or less broke Geoffrey’s heart,” says the former prime minister, who championed and supported Tozer since first hearing him play at Canberra’s St Edmund’s College in 1988.
Paul Keating delivers his eulogy at St Patrick's Cathedral in 2009.Credit: Pat Scala
Filmmaker Janine Hosking (My Khmer Heart, Ganja Queen) first came across Tozer’s story in a newspaper article following his death.
“Then research led me to Paul Keating’s eulogy,” she says. “I thought maybe there was a film there. I didn’t want it to be a hagiography. I wanted it to be a real look at this person's life in light of the nature of Mr Keating's eulogy."
The Eulogy is a 103-minute documentary that tries to arrive at the truth behind the life of Geoffrey Tozer. Was he a tortured genius, shamefully shunned by a jealous establishment, as Keating believes? Or is there a more nuanced interpretation?
Tozer’s brilliance was revealed early. He was just eight years old when he gave his first recital on the ABC. Less than a year later, he performed Bach’s fifth piano concerto in Melbourne, all the while driven along by his passionately ambitious mother, Verna.
He began winning competitions and attracted the attention of luminaries including Daniel Barenboim, Benjamin Britten and Mstislav Rostropovich. In his late 20s and 30s, he toured and recorded extensively, aided financially by grants established by the then treasurer Paul Keating.
Geoffrey Tozer and Paul Keating at the Australian Institute of Music in 2004.Credit: Peter Morris
However, for all his ferocious talent, Tozer’s promise was never fully realised and he died in 2009 alone and in virtual penury after years battling alcoholism.
"Things did go very wrong for Geoffrey in the latter part of his career,” says Hosking. “I don’t think there is a single answer. Frustratingly, real life is so complex. I feel he did have an inability to handle emotional relationships and the relationship with his mother portrayed in the film did contribute to some of the problems later on but it wasn’t the sole reason."
To tell Tozer’s story, Hosking enlisted the help of Richard Gill, the much-loved conductor and educator who died last October.
The film follows Gill as he seeks to piece together the truth about Tozer’s life and what led to his lonely and untimely death.
"Richard was such a joy to work with and was willing to go on the journey,” says Hosking. “He really grabbed on to the project. But towards the end he became ill. It was a very great gift for us to be able to work with him.”
Keating also agreed to take part and to record his eulogy for the cameras in an empty St Patrick’s (the original was never captured).
Geoffrey Tozer's brilliance at the keyboard was revealed at a very early age.
"He didn’t agree straight away to be part of the documentary,” says Hosking. “He thought it was great that there was to be a documentary about Geoffrey Tozer but he did not want it to be about him. We talked about doing a traditional interview with him but he said, ‘Look, I want it to be what I said in my eulogy’."
For Hosking, who knew nothing of Tozer before starting the project, it has been a journey of revelation, trying to weigh up the true significance of a flawed, eccentric genius.
"I think it’s a tragedy but also a triumph in what he was able to achieve,” she says. “People may come away not agreeing with Keating that he is up there with Sutherland, Melba and Grainger, but at least we can start that discussion and get people to that back catalogue and what he achieved. I think his life was a triumph in terms of the music."
The Eulogy is released on October 10.