Quentin Maclean

Quentin Stuart Morvaren Maclean (born May 14, 1896 in London , † July 9, 1962 in Toronto ) was an English-Canadian organist, composer and music teacher.

The son of the conductor Alexander Maclean and grandson of the organist Charles Donald Maclean had his first organ lessons as a child from his father. Between 1904 and 1907 he was a student of Harold Osmund , FG Shuttleworth and Richard Terry in England . From 1907 he studied at the Vienna Conservatory with Rudolf Dittrich and Hermann Graedener . In 1908 he moved to the Leipzig Conservatory , where Max Reger (composition), Stephan Krehl (music theater) and Karl Straube (organ) were his teachers. He worked as a piano accompanist in Karl Wendling's chamber music class . At the end of his studies, his repertoire already included the organ works by Johann Sebastian Bach , César Franck , Charles Marie Widor , Max Reger and Julius Reubke .

The outbreak of the First World War prevented a planned career as a concert organist in Germany. Until the end of the war, Maclean was interned as an enemy foreigner in the Ruhleben camp. After the war he returned to England and in 1919 became assistant organist to Richard Terry at Westminster Cathedral . In 1920 he became a theater organist at the Grand Theater in Fulham, London. From 1921 he worked with the organ building company Hill, Norman & Beard on the installation of an organ in the Regent Cinema in Brighton, where he worked until 1923. In April 1923 he moved to the Shepherd's Bush Pavilion as a cinema organist , where shortly afterwards he also succeeded George Thomas Pattmann as concert organist. During this time he made his first recordings with Columbia Records .

From 1928 to 1930 he was organist on the multiplex organ of the newly opened Regal Cinema Marble Arch in London. Here he worked on various recordings for the BBC . In 1930 he played the solo part in the English premiere of Paul Hindemith's organ concerto, and in 1931 he was the soloist in his own organ concerto in the Bournemouth Pavilion under the direction of Dan Godfrey . In 1930 he became organist at the then largest Wurlitzer organ in the Trocadero Elephant & Castle movie theater on London's New Kent Road. Here he played organ works by Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's great F minor Fantasy, the organ symphonies of Charles Marie Widor and transcriptions of Edward Grieg's piano concertos , the wedding march by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , the Valkyries by Richard Wagner and the Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin .

During a trip to Canada with his wife in 1939, World War II broke out in Europe and Maclean decided to stay in Canada. Healey Willan hired him to open the University Concerts at the University of Toronto . In October 1939 he gave a series of concerts at the Royal York Hotel and from late 1939 played two weekly live broadcasts at the CBC , with which he worked until his death.

From 1940 Maclean was organist at the Holy Rosary Church in Toronto, at the end of the year the Choir School of St. Michael's Cathedral appointed him organ professor, and from 1942 to 1950 he was theater organist at Shea's Theater in Toronto. He has also taught at the Toronto Conservatory of Music , St. Michael's College, and the University of Toronto. He also performed as a concert organist on Canada's largest organs. In 1948 the organ building company Casavant Frères built a new organ for the Holy Rosary Church based on his designs . In the early 1960s, the former governor of Ontario, Ray Lawson , had a Wurlitzer organ installed in his residence according to Mclean's specifications. Trial recordings from September 1961 and two months for an LP production are the last recordings of Mclean, who collapsed two months later while playing the organ in Holy Rosary Church and died of a heart attack in July 1962.

In addition to two organ concerts, Mclean composed a harpsichord, a piano, a harp and a violin concerto, two concerts for electronic organ, orchestral pieces (including Babbling , Parade of the Sunbeams , Rondelet , Algonquin Legend ), a Stabat Mater , ten masses, and a cantata and choral pieces, about fifty songs, piano and organ pieces, a string quartet, three trios and a duo for violin and piano.

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• Quentin Maclean ( English, French ) In: Encyclopedia of Music in Canada . published by The Canadian Encyclopedia .
• Quentin Maclean at Allmusic (English)
• Thomas Lipski: Who was Quentin M. Maclean? (Society of Organ Friends)