George Alexander Macfarren

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Portrait photo of George Alexander Macfarren.

Sir George Alexander Macfarren (born March 2, 1813 in London , † October 31, 1887 there ) was an English composer and music theorist .

Life

Macfarren was the son of George Macfarren (1788-1843), dance teacher, librettist and journalist of Scottish descent, and his wife Elizabeth, née Jackson. From childhood he had a visual impairment that led to blindness in 1860, but this did not affect his productivity; he was dependent on the help of assistants. His younger brother Walter (1826–1905) was also a composer (and for a long time piano teacher at the Royal Academy of Music in London).

On September 27, 1844, George Alexander Macfarren married the Lübeck-born singer Natalia Andrae (1828-1916). He died of chronic bronchitis and a weak heart at the age of 74 and was buried in Hampstead Cemetery in West Hampstead .

Macfarren was trained at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London from 1829 , initially in compositions by Cipriani Potter , who took over the management of the academy in 1832.

As early as 1834 he was a composition teacher at the same and in 1875, after William Sterndale Bennett's death, one of the directors of the institution. On July 5, 1875, on the occasion of Bennett's death, his dedication to the Royal Philharmonic Society "Idyll in Memory of Sterndale Bennett" premiered. At the same time, the Senate of Cambridge University appointed him Professor of Music.

He became known as a composer through the "Overture Chevy Chase" in 1836 and his opera "The Devil's Opera" in 1838. He had already got to know the chord theories of the music theorist Alfred Dale , whom he assisted in further elaboration. His publication "A Treatise on Harmony" in 1845 he also used for his academic teaching, which led to discrepancies within the academy and his retirement in 1847. However, due to his services, he was reappointed to the academy in 1851.

In addition to numerous academic honors, he was awarded the title of nobility in 1883.

Macfarren is one of the main representatives of the national English opera, with the exception of Helvellyn using the number opera form.

Works

Operas and cantatas (selection)

  • 1838: The Devil's Opera . Libretto: George Macfarren
  • 1846: Don Quixote ( An Adventure of Don Quixote ). Opera. Libretto: George Macfarren. Premiere 1846 London ( Drury Lane )
  • 1849: King Charles II . Opera. Libretto: Desmond Ryan
  • 1852: Lenore . Opera. Libretto:?
  • 1856: May-Day . Cantata. Libretto:?
  • 1860: Christmas . Cantata. Libretto:?
  • 1860: Robin Hood . Opera in 3 acts. Libretto: John Oxenford . Premiere October 11, 1860 London (Her Majesty's Theater)
  • 1864: Helvellyn . Opera in 4 acts. Libretto: John Oxenford

Chamber music, symphonies, overtures, oratorios

He also wrote chamber music pieces, six string quartets, symphonies and overtures as well as oratorios:

Orchestral works
  • 1830: Symphony No. 1 in C ( Symphony No. 1 in C major , thought to be lost)
  • 1831: Symphony No. 2 in D minor ( Symphony No. 2 in D minor )
  • 1832: Symphony No. 3 in E minor ( Symphony No. 3 in E minor )
  • 1835: Symphony No. 4
  • 1835: Symphony No. 5 in A minor ( Symphony No. 5 in A minor )
  • 1836: Symphony No. 6 in B flat ( Symphony No. 6 in B major )
  • 1836: Chevy Chase Overture
  • 1840: Romeo and Juliet Overture
  • 1842: Symphony No. 7 in C sharp ( Symphony No. 7 in C sharp )
  • 1845: Symphony No. 8 in D ( Symphony No. 8 in D major )
  • around 1874: Symphony No. 9 in E minor ( Symphony No. 9 in E minor )
Chamber music
  • around 1844: Piano Quintet
  • 1882: Ajax
Oratorios
  • 1873: St John the Baptist (Premiere: October 1873, Bristol Musical Festival)
  • 1876: The Resurrection (Premiere: August 30th 1876, Birmingham Musical Festival)
  • 1878: Joseph
  • 1883: King David

Fonts

  • 1860: The Rudiments of Harmony: with Progressive Exercises and Appendix. London 1860. (Last 17th expanded edition, JB Cramer, London 1888).
  • 1867: Six Lectures on Harmony: delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain before Easter 1867. Longmans, London 1867. (Last 4th edition 1892).
  • 1879: Counterpoint: a Practical Course of Study. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1879 (various editions, most recently 1895)
  • 1885: Musical History: with a Roll of Names of Musicians and the Times and Places of their Births and Deaths. Harper & Brothers, New York 1885.

Editing

He also earned himself by publishing several collections of folk songs, such as:

  • Old English Ditties: selected from Chappell's Collection of "Popular Music of the Olden Time". Cramer, Beale & Chapell, London. (1857–80, 2 vols.). Vol. 1: archive.org .
  • Moore's Irish Melodies (1859).
  • Scottish Ditties (1861-80).

Discography

  • Symphonies 4 & 7 Queensland Symphony Orchestra , Werner A. Albert . cpo , 1998. CD
  • Chevy Chase. Contained in: Victorian Concert Overtures. English Northern Philharmonia, David Lloyd-Jones (1991). Hyperion Records Ltd, London. CD
  • Robin Hood , Naxos , 2010 (double CD)

literature

  • Henry Charles Banister: George Alexander Macfarren: His Life, Works, and Influence. G. Bell and Sons, London / New York 1892. archive.org (extensive biography).
  • Walter Cecil Macfarren: Memories: An Autobiography. The Walter Scott Publishing Company, 1905
  • Russell Burdekin: Sir George Alexander Macfarren, his life and his operas. In: British Music. The Journal of the British Music Society. Volume 32, 2010, pp. 84 ff., ISSN  0958-5664
  • Macfarren: Addresses and Lectures (1888) at archive.org ( archive.org ) or printed at Indypublish.com, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4374-8398-7
  • Maxwell W. Pettitt: Sir George Alexander Macfarren: the Complete Victorian. In: British Music. The Journal of the British Music Society. Volume 8, 1986.
  • Clive Brown: Macfarren, Sir George Alexander (1813-1887). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004.
  • The music in the past and present. Bärenreiter, Kassel. Volume 8, 1960, Col. 1388-1391.
  • Early Victorian Composers: 1830-1860. Garland, New York et al. a. 1985, ISBN 0-8240-6165-9 .

Web links

Commons : George Alexander Macfarren  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Therese Ellsworth, Susan Wollenberg (Ed.): The Piano in Nineteenth-Century British Culture: Instruments, Performers and Repertoire. Ashgate, Aldershot, Hampshire 2007, ISBN 978-0-7546-6143-6 , p. 150 ( preview in Google Book Search ).
  2. ↑ Booklet of the CD The Romantic Piano Concerto No. 48 from Hyperion Records (CDA 67720, p. 15). It contains the only surviving piece by Walter Macfarren, a "Concertstück in E minor" from 1881.
  3. ↑ KJ Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Large singer lexicon . Unchanged edition. KG Saur, Bern, 1993, second volume M – Z, Sp. 1793, ISBN 3-907820-70-3
  4. ↑ Obituary. (PDF) In: New York Times , November 2, 1887 (English) Retrieved February 22, 2011
  5. ↑ MGG. Vol. 8, 1960, Col. 1390.
  6. ↑ jpc.de
personal data
SURNAME Macfarren, George Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English composer and music theorist
DATE OF BIRTH March 2, 1813
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH October 31, 1887
Place of death London