Conductor

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

With Igor Stravinsky (left), January 5, 1937. The Russian composer visited Canada for the first time at the invitation of MacMillan to guest conduct the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in two of his own works,Petrouchka and the The Firebird Suite. Photo by Alexandra Studio, Toronto.

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. . . I have found that I have a natural talent for conducting which I should greatly like to develop; how, where and when remains to be seen. 1

Settled back in Canada, MacMillan was appointed organist and choirmaster at one of Toronto's wealthiest churches, Timothy Eaton Memorial Church in December 1919. He viewed the church as the natural setting for the presentation of large-scale religious works. On April 4, 1920 the choir and church soloists presented a portion of Handel's Messiah. Shortly after, with the cooperation of two other church choirs, he began rehearsals for Brahms's Requiem, to be presented the following spring. In addition to the difficulties of assembling an orchestra he was faced with the unexpected threat of a law-suit for holding some rehearsals on Sundays, in contravention of the Lord's Day Act of Canada.

MacMillan made his initial mark as a conductor with annual performances of Bach's St. Matthew Passion. The first complete performance in Toronto took place at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church on March 27, 1923. The choirs of Old St. Andrew's and Timothy Eaton Memorial Churches were combined and both Richard Tattersall and Healey Willan collaborated in the preparation and performance. Thus began a series of annual performances conducted by MacMillan which would span the next 30 years and become an important event in the schedule of concerts in Toronto. (No performance was given in 1933.) The later performances (1948-53) were broadcast nationally by the CBC. When MacMillan resigned his post at the Church in 1925, the performances moved to the University of Toronto's Convocation Hall (until 1950) and then to Massey Hall. From 1934 to 1942, the Toronto Conservatory Choir sang the choral part. When he became conductor of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in 1942, MacMillan amalgamated his Conservatory Choir with it. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir sang the work between 1943 and 1953.

Under MacMillan, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir's first performance was Handel's Messiah which became an annual Christmas presentation. This work and the St. Matthew Passion were recorded in 1952 and 1953 respectively for Beaver Records and were then performed in 1954 at Carnegie Hall. Although the choir became identified with these two works, its repertoire also included Verdi's Requiem during the 1942-43 season and a three-day Bach Festival in 1950 to commemorate the bicentenary of the composer's death. While MacMillan resigned as conductor in 1957 he served as honorary president between 1962 and 1973.

In 1931, MacMillan was appointed conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, succeeding the late Luigi von Kunits. Prior to this, he had conducted the orchestra on two occasions. On May 7, 1924, a particularly noteworthy programme brought together the orchestra's past, current, and future conductors. Frank Welsman conducted Luigi von Kunits' E Minor Violin Concerto with the composer as soloist and MacMillan conducted the première of his own Overture. In January 1929, he once again conducted the Orchestra and the Toronto Conservatory Choir in a performance of Sir Hubert Parry's The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

MacMillan led the Toronto Symphony Orchestra through difficult times in the 1930s and 1940s, from the Great Depression through World War II. These were perhaps foreshadowed when MacMillan had to conduct his first concert of the 1931-32 season with his left arm, as his right arm was in a cast due to an automobile accident.

Prior to MacMillan becoming conductor of the Orchestra, its season comprised ten one-hour concerts held at 5:00 p.m. In his first year, the Canadian National Railways sponsored a series of Sunday afternoon national broadcasts to help finance the expansion of the Orchestra. These did not last due to the Depression; however, with the establishment of the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission in 1932, a new series was initiated. MacMillan was able to add 15 new players to the ensemble. He was also anxious to change the concert time from 5:00 p.m. to an evening hour. By 1933, the talking motion picture had transformed the entertainment scene. As a result, many former theatre musicians were now free to play evening concerts on a regular basis. The two-hour evening performances attracted a much wider audience and MacMillan was able to present a more ambitious repertoire. In addition, in a move that was unusually bold for the Depression period, the Orchestra's Board of Directors increased tickets to a price ranging from 50¢ to $2.50.

In the 1930s MacMillan introduced the Orchestra and its audience to the music of various living composers including Jean Sibelius, Sir Edward Elgar, Frederick Delius, Sir Arnold Bax and Sir William Walton. Gustav Holst's The Planets became the most often repeated piece during his tenure and was one of the Orchestra's first recorded works. MacMillan often dealt with objections from Board members, guarantors and subscribers regarding new repertoire. Finances were precarious and toward the end of the decade, he refunded part of his annual conducting stipend to help offset the deficit.

Almost unique among the presentations of orchestras anywhere were the Christmas Box Symphony concerts, an annual fund-raising tradition begun in 1935, in which the Orchestra, guest "soloists" and conductor "let their hair down". Along with a selection of Christmas music and carol arrangements encouraging audience participation, the players presented original burlesque performances and skits. MacMillan appeared in many guises including Santa Claus, a jazz cultist and a German music scholar. The first concert featured Haydn's Farewell Symphony during which the players left the stage one by one until only the conductor remained. At another concert, MacMillan appeared in overalls with a monkey-wrench for a baton to conduct Alexander Mossolov's Iron Foundry. A frequent participant was Anna Russell, who freely admitted that it was these concerts and MacMillan's insistence that set her on the road to later stardom and a notable career as a "musical cartoonist." These concerts proved to be so popular that it became necessary to repeat the programmes two and three times. With MacMillan's retirement, the Christmas Box Symphony concerts ceased. The changing social patterns and tastes of Toronto in the 1950s and 1960s may also have contributed.

MacMillan began to receive invitations as guest conductor, the first with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1933. He fulfilled four engagements with the Orchestra before the war curtailed travel abroad. By the mid-1930s and into the war years, MacMillan gained fame as a guest conductor in the United States, appearing in such prominent series as the Hollywood Bowl concerts, and with the orchestras of Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., as well as with the NBC Symphony Orchestra (New York). He was the first Canadian invited to conduct five programmes in CBS' Ford Sunday Evening Hour broadcasts. In Canada, he became a frequent guest with the Concerts symphoniques de Montréal (now the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal) and the Vancouver Symphony Society (now the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra). In fact, in 1936 both these orchestras invited MacMillan as their first "guest conductor of distinction." By the end of the 1940s, MacMillan had conducted the Vancouver Symphony on 45 occasions and Les Concerts symphoniques de Montréal in 25 performances. At the invitation of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, MacMillan toured that country for three months in 1945 conducting 30 concerts in the continental state capitals of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. He also visited Brazil in 1946 to guest conduct the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira.

In a letter written in 1938 to Arthur Judson, president of Columbia Concerts Corporation (New York), MacMillan indicated his desire to seek a conducting position elsewhere, but was persuaded to stay in Toronto. He actually tendered his resignation to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1939 but withdrew it with the entry of Canada into World War II. The war years proved to be a difficult period for the orchestra. Suspension of concerts was seriously considered in 1940. However, the importance of music to wartime morale was recognized and a new spirit of cultural vitality ensued. In 1943, after many years of campaigning, the orchestra received its first grant ($1500.00) from the Toronto City Council.

The immediate post-war years (1945 to 1950) were the most successful in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's history. Artistic calibre improved and audiences increased until by 1946 each subscription concert needed to be presented twice.

Works by Canadians including Claude Champagne, Robert Farnon, Harry Somers and John Weinzweig were presented during the 1940s and in 1948, with the sponsorship of CAPAC (Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada), MacMillan led the Orchestra in its first live concert of Canadian music. Innovations in the repertoire included works by Béla Bartók, Dmitri Shostakovich and American composers Aaron Copland and Roy Harris. Canadian soloists including Hyman Goodman and Elie Spivak regularly shared guest billing with such international luminaries as Jascha Heifetz, Myra Hess, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Claudio Arrau and Arthur Rubinstein. Although Igor Stravinsky had appeared as guest conductor of his own works the Firebird Suite and Petrouchka as early as 1937, there were few guest conductors in the 1940s. Among these were: Georges Enesco, Hans Kindler, Pierre Monteux, Charles Munch, Fabien Sevitzky and Leopold Stokowski.

At the height of the Orchestra's popularity, in 1951, it was engaged to give its first U.S. concert in Detroit. The effects of McCarthyism resulted in six of the players being refused entry to the United States. They were replaced for the concert which went ahead. For the following season, further U.S. concerts had been booked in such cities as New York, Boston and Philadelphia. In order to fulfil these engagements, the management decided against renewing the contracts of the six players. The incident of the "Symphony Six" became controversial and divisive, resulting in the resignations of several Board members. MacMillan's stature and the prestige of the Orchestra both suffered. Announcing his resignation as conductor at the end of his 25th season (1955-56), he acknowledged it to be in both his own and the Orchestra's best interests.

Tribute was paid publicly to the great strides the Toronto Symphony Orchestra had made under MacMillan's direction. The Orchestra had lengthened its season, increased its annual number of concerts about five-fold, attracted renowned instrumentalists to its ranks, branched out into recording and broadcasting, and altogether solidified its claim to status among major North American orchestras. It had introduced Canadians to much new repertoire. Interestingly, during all MacMillan's years with the Orchestra, his contract was simply a verbal agreement.

Notes

1. Letter to Elsie Keith, August 12, 1917. Sir Ernest MacMillan fonds, Manuscript Section, Music Division, National Library of Canada.

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