Foreword

Sir Ernest MacMillan:
Portrait of a Canadian Musician (1893 - 1973)

Other nations are proud to set their national figures on pedestals, why not we? … We learned in school of [notable men and women] who helped shape Canadian history but . . . only in the minds of a minority do these [people] really live. To the vast majority they are mere names. This is [even] truer in the case of writers and artists. To be sure, we have produced no Shakespeares, Bachs or Michelangelos but we have not lacked creative artists of distinction who should be accorded a more significant place than they [have] in our national consciousness. 1

Sir Ernest MacMillan was a dominant force in the Canadian musical world for over 40 years from the mid-1920s until the late 1960s. For a measure of the scope and impact of his activities, one need only try to think of a successor or even a pretender to the title of musical paterfamilias or elder statesman in Canada today. There is no one who fits the description as convincingly as MacMillan did.

Ernest MacMillan was a man of many facets. Although he was a fine organist and pianist, and a capable albeit conservative composer, his most noteworthy successes were accomplished as a conductor, administrator and educator. Canadian musicians of his era will remember his 25-year tenure as conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, during which time the orchestra matured artistically, expanded its ranks, lengthened its season, and made its first recordings and international tours. Choral buffs remember fondly his 15-year leadership of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and its annual presentations of Handel's Messiah at Christmas and Bach's St. Mathew Passion at Easter. These were important events in the musical life of Toronto and, indeed, of the country when those performances began to be broadcast nationally on CBC radio. The eminent harpsichordist Greta Kraus recently described her reaction to hearing one of Sir Ernest's early performances of the St. Mathew Passion: "I had heard it in Vienna and didn't think that this performance would be very good. But I went -- and I was stunned! Sir Ernest conducted it magnificently...and I was amazed by the high level of choral singing -- much higher than in Vienna...."

Music students in Toronto benefited from the higher standards of performance and instruction he espoused in his 16 years as principal of the Toronto (now Royal) Conservatory of Music and 25 years as dean of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Music. Canadian composers will recall him as a champion of Canadian music, with both the baton and the pen. For example, MacMillan conducted more premieres of Canadian music than anyone else in his time. He also served 22 distinguished years as president of the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada (CAPAC, now SOCAN), working at both the national and international levels to secure improved conditions for the payment of royalties to Canadian composers whose music was performed, recorded or broadcast anywhere in the world. Those who were involved in the post-war establishment of a Canadian cultural infrastructure recollect that his presence gave visibility to the newly formed Canada Council and other national bodies such as the Canadian Music Council and the Canadian Music Centre, both of which he served as president early in their respective histories. Away from home he was a respected cultural ambassador for Canada, guest-conducting and lecturing in the United States, England, South America and Australia.

Amateur musicians and aspiring professionals who met him as he travelled the length and breadth of Canada remember his multifarious activities: festival adjudicator, Conservatory examiner, author of textbooks and editor of musical anthologies, patron of the Sir Ernest MacMillan Fine Arts Clubs, and promoter of young talent. He took special interest in the early careers of soprano Lois Marshall, cellist Zara Nelsova, conductor Victor Feldbrill, pianist Glenn Gould, and tenor Jon Vickers, for example, and in his later years was involved with the annual CBC Talent Festival variously as conductor or adjudicator. Ordinary citizens will remember MacMillan as an engaging and knowledgeable radio commentator, lecturer, essayist and editor, and those in Toronto may possibly cherish most of all their memories of attending Toronto Symphony Pop and Christmas Box Symphony benefit concerts conducted by MacMillan, where his lighter side was given free rein via the many witty and humorous musical arrangements and parodies he wrote for the orchestra.

As befits so distinguished a career of service to music, Ernest MacMillan received many honours and accolades. He received ten honorary doctorates from universities in the United States and Canada, and was the only Canadian musician ever to be knighted by a British monarch. A distinguished lecture series carrying his name took place annually at the University of Toronto from 1963 until 1977, with financial support from CAPAC. In 1964 the University of Toronto's Faculty of Music named its MacMillan Theatre after him -- the same year he received the Canada Council Medal, and in 1969 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 1973 he was posthumously awarded the Canadian Music Council Medal and in 1993, the centenary of MacMillan's birth, public tributes and performances of his music were scheduled by the Toronto Symphony, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and the University of Toronto, among others. The Festival of the Sound in Parry Sound, Ontario, devoted an entire weekend of its 1993 schedule to a MacMillan retrospective. The Canadian Music Centre issued a commemorative compact disc of his compositions which had been available earlier on vinyl discs, including the Amadeus Quartet's long-deleted recording of his String Quartet in C minor, and CBC Records was producing a new recording of the same work by the St. Lawrence String Quartet. The University of Toronto re-instituted its lecture series as the SOCAN-MacMillan Lectures in the fall of 1993.

The National Library, custodian of MacMillan's substantial archives acquired from the family in 1984, also participated in the centenary commemorations. In the fall of 1993 it provided a second venue for the initial SOCAN-MacMillan Lecture and in December of that year, with financial assistance from the Sir Ernest MacMillan Memorial Foundation, the Library mounted an exhibit of MacMillan memorabilia at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. The Library's Music Division collaborated in 1994 with Analekta Recording Inc. of Montreal in the preparation of another MacMillan CD, this one containing recorded performances of MacMillan as performer and conductor as well as composer. Activities at the Library reach a peak with the opening of this major exhibition in Ottawa in October 1994. Related events during the run of the exhibition include the 1994 SOCAN-MacMillan lecture, a reading from the first published biography of MacMillan, by Ezra Schabas, and the launching of the Analekta CD, to name a few.

It is fitting that this man who played such a crucial role earlier this century in Canada's musical development be remembered and celebrated for his accomplishments. His story should be known by all aspiring Canadian musicians and students of Canadian culture as a model of personal achievement and service to profession and country. We at the National Library of Canada are pleased to do our part in upholding his memory and hope that this exhibition gives ample testimony of Ernest MacMillan's remarkable life and career in music.

Notes

1. Ernest MacMillan, [Memoirs] (unpublished, n.d.), chapter "Canadiana," pp. 3-4. Sir Ernest MacMillan fonds, Manuscript Section, Music Division, National Library of Canada.

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