Hamish MacCunn

Portrait of Hamish MacCunn, 1886, after John Pettie

Hamish MacCunn (born March 22, 1868 in Greenock ( Scotland ), † August 2, 1916 in London ) was a Scottish composer and conductor .

Life

MacCunn was the son of a ship owner. Both parents were musical. He wrote his first pieces at the age of five. At the age of fifteen he went on a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in Kensington, where he studied with Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford , among others . From 1888 to 1894 he worked there as a professor.

He had his first success in 1887 with the overture "The Land of the Mountain and the Flood", which was followed by other romantic compositions with Scottish influences. In 1888 he married Alison Pettie, daughter of the painter John Pettie, a member of the Royal Academy of Arts . The marriage produced a son. His father-in-law, himself an avid musician, promoted his career. In 1894 his opera "Jeanie Deans" was published in Edinburgh, which had its premiere two years later in London, where it remained in the repertoire until the 1920s. In 1898 he created a "Ballet music from Diarmid" commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society , London, for his opera of the same name.

In 1916 he died completely overworked at the age of 48 of complications from throat cancer.

Web links

• Sheet music and audio files by Hamish MacCunn in the International Music Score Library Project