Clarence Lucas

Clarence Lucas (born October 19, 1866 in Six Nations Reserve , Ontario , † July 1, 1947 in Sèvres ) was a Canadian composer , writer and music teacher .

The son of a Methodist minister lived in various small towns in Ontario until he came to Montreal in 1878, where he studied piano, organ and violin and directed a school orchestra. He then worked as an amateur orchestra conductor, organist and violinist with the Montreal Philharmonic Society . From 1885 to 1888 he studied privately in Paris with Georges-Eugène Marty and at the Conservatoire de Paris with Théodore Dubois .

On his return he taught harmony and counterpoint at the Toronto College of Music . In 1889 he became musical director of Wesleyan Ladies College in Hamilton . With the Hamilton Philharmonic Society he performed Georg Friedrich Handel's Messiah in 1889 and Sir Michael Costa's oratorio Eli in 1890 . From 1890 to 1892 he taught in Utica, New York .

In the following year he went to London, where he taught music theory and composition privately and conducted the Westminster Society from 1902 to 1904 . His students here were Mark and Jan Hambourg and Guy d'Hardelot . From 1903 he was also the London correspondent of the New York Musical Courier .

Richard Mansfield hired him to arrange and conduct Grieg's incidental music to Ibsen's Peer Gynt for the US premiere in 1906. Up until Mansfield's Tof in 1907 he toured the USA with the production, after which he settled in New York as an employee of the Musical Courier .

In 1919 he returned to London and in 1921 he moved to Sèvres, where he worked as arranger, poet and translator and until 1933 as Paris correspondent for the Musical Courier . From that year he lived again in London.

Lucas was first married to the English pianist and student of Clara Schumann , Clara Asher . His son Leighton Lucas (1903–1982) was also known as a conductor and composer.

Works

• Two Lyrics , 1889
• Deux Morceaux for piano, 1889
• Deux Mazurkas for piano, 1890
• Album of Six Baritone Songs , 1894
• Élégie for violin and piano, 1895
• Deux Pièces pour grand orgue , around 1896
• The Money Spider , opera, around 1897
• Anne Hathaway , opera, before 1898
• Praeludium et fuga for piano, 1898
• As You Like It , overture, 1899
• Macbeth , overture, around 1900
• Trois Morceaux pour grand orgue , around 1900
• The Birth of Christ , cantata, 1901
• Ballad for violin and piano, 1901
• Legend for violin and piano, 1903
• Peggy Machree , musical game, 1904
• Valse Impromptu for piano, 1904
• Five Songs , 1904
• Five Lyrical Pieces for violin and piano, 1908
• Epithalamium for piano, 1913
• Ariel for piano, 1913
• The Bells , Madrigal, 1913
• Battle Ode , for choir, 1915
• Holiday Sketches for piano, 1915
• Prelude and Fugue for piano, 1916
• Canadian Wedding March for Organ, 1917
• Three Impromptus for violin, 1938
• Ballad for violin and piano, 1939
• Two Compositions for Organ , 1941
• Seven Short Pieces for organ, 1945
• Saga, An Icelandic Fairy Tale for Piano
• Othello , overture
• symphony
• two symphonic poems
• Arrangement of the "Sinfonia" from Bach's "Christmas Oratorio", Part II, for piano

Fonts

• The Story of Musical Form , London 1908, reprint Boston 1977