Composer

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

With Chief Tralahaet, nicknamed Gitiks (also known under the English name of Frank Bolton), Nass River, B.C., 1927.
Canadian Museum of Civilization, Negative no. 69614. Photographer: Marius Barbeau.

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Musical composition, though less widely recognized, is in the long run more important; through our creative output we shall be ultimately judged as a musical nation. 1

Although composition was not MacMillan's main preoccupation, he regarded it as a normal activity of the complete musician. His String Quartet in C minor is probably his most significant work. The first three movements were composed in 1914 while he was detained at Nuremberg. The work was revised extensively and the Finale completed following his return to Toronto. It was first performed in its entirety on February 8, 1925 by the Hart House String Quartet, considered to be Canada's most famous chamber ensemble of the first half of the 20th century. The work does not reflect any evidence of his wartime experience. Rather, its style and themes, employing traditional sonata forms and a romantic late 19th-century musical language, depict a less troubled era. Given this, it is now of interest more for historical than purely musical reasons.

MacMillan composed his most extensive work during World War I, while he was interned at Ruhleben. This choral-orchestral setting to Algernon Charles Swinburne's ode "England" earned him the degree of Doctor of Music from Oxford University in 1918. An article providing an analysis appeared in the September 1, 1920 issue of London's Musical Times. Appropriately, the première performance was given in England on March 7, 1921 by Henry Coward and the Sheffield Musical Union. The work received its Canadian première in 1921 at Massey Hall in Toronto with the renowned Leopold Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.

The first major work he completed following his return to Canada after the War was his Overture for orchestra. It was at Ruhleben that MacMillan had acquired a taste and developed a talent for orchestral conducting. Now he was anxious for there to be an orchestra once again in Toronto. In 1922 a group of players persuaded Luigi von Kunits to form what became known as the New Symphony Orchestra, which gave its first public concert in April 1923. It had been five years since the earlier Toronto Symphony Orchestra had disbanded, a late casualty of World War I. MacMillan's Overture was composed in honour of the New Symphony Orchestra and von Kunits, who invited MacMillan to conduct its première.

As his interest in folklore developed, it became the inspiration for a number of compositions. In 1925, he became familiar with the work of Marius Barbeau, the noted Canadian anthropologist, ethnologist and folklorist. MacMillan was asked to review the book Folk Songs of French Canada compiled by Barbeau and Edward Sapir (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1925). The Canadian Forum published the sympathetic review which revealed MacMillan's strong interest in the songs. Barbeau was so taken with the comments that, on his next visit to Toronto, he invited MacMillan to participate in the 1927 Folksong and Handicraft Festival (CPR Festivals) in Quebec City. MacMillan had noted two melodies in particular, Notre Seigneur en pauvre and À Saint-Malo. At the request of John Murray Gibbon, he arranged these as Two Sketches Based on French Canadian Airs for a performance by the Hart House String Quartet. It is considered today one of the most successful, well-known, and frequently performed Canadian compositions, especially in its later version for string orchestra. An attractive sequel, Six Bergerettes du Bas-Canada for voices and small ensemble was presented at the 1928 CPR Festival. To commemorate MacMillan's 75th birthday, Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft released the first recording of his String Quartet in C minor together with his Two Sketches Based on French Canadian Airs (in their original quartet version) performed by the Amadeus Quartet. This was the first recording devoted to one Canadian composer to be distributed on a world-wide scale.

In the summer of 1927, MacMillan accompanied Barbeau to the Nass River region of northern British Columbia to hear, record and notate music of the Tsimshian People. Three of these transcriptions were arranged for voice and piano under the title Three Songs of the West Coast. The first is that sung by a new chieftain to his tribe, boasting of his suitability for the position. The second is a lullaby. The last song had originally been sung for MacMillan by the polygamous old chief Gitiks. Many years before, he had been ordered by Queen Victoria to observe the monogamous custom of her domains and content himself with one wife. There was great speculation in the village as to which one of the three wives he would keep. He fooled the people leaving all three for an attractive young girl. The members of the tribe were scandalized and Gitiks found it necessary to sing this song telling them to mind their own business. A number of the transcriptions were also published in The Tsimshian: Their Arts and Music (New York: J.J. Augustin, 1951).

In addition to MacMillan's numerous arrangements and settings, he was responsible for editing an important collective work, the volume Twenty-one Folk-Songs of French Canada (Oakville, Ont.: Frederick Harris Co.,1928). MacMillan and other composers of his generation inspired by Barbeau were the first to introduce an indigenous element into Canadian musical literature.

MacMillan composed less after his appointment to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, "finding it a difficult task while his head was constantly filled with the music of others."2 According to a comment by Godfrey Ridout, MacMillan preferred conducting. Nevertheless, in addition to a few settings of Canadian folk songs, he composed several major works. A ballad-opera, Prince Charming, on a libretto by J.E. Middleton, was intended for the CPR's Banff Festival in 1931 but never performed. The music was based on Scottish and French folk songs. Two substantial choral works were Te Deum Laudamus in E minor (1936) and Song of Deliverance (1944). The first was originally written for the Conservatory Choir in honour of the 50th anniversary of the Toronto Conservatory of Music. Song of Deliverance was written at the War's end.

He was also known for his arrangements of works by composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Handel, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Ralph Vaughan Williams. His orchestration of J.S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in G minor was frequently performed by both Canadian and U.S. orchestras.

MacMillan's improvisational fluency, his natural buoyancy and sheer sense of fun are reflected in his orchestral arrangements, medleys, and parodies for Toronto Symphony Orchestra performances on such occasions as the Pop and Christmas Box Symphony concerts. Such works include A Medley of Sea Chanties, A Saint Andrew's Day Medley (1946, later retitled Fantasy on Scottish Melodies), a medley of Christmas Carols (1945) and There Was an Old Woman (1946), with apologies to J.S. Bach. No score of the first has been located; however, it was performed at a Pop concert in April 1946 and included such well-known tunes as Blow the Wind Down and What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor. The second, also performed at a Pop concert the day before St. Andrew's Day 1946, showed MacMillan's pride in his Scottish ancestry. His medley of Christmas Carols was frequently repeated at the annual Christmas Box Symphony concerts.

Despite his noted career as organist, MacMillan's only mature work for the instrument is his Cortège académique. In 1953, he was invited to compose this processional and perform it for the centenary of his Alma Mater, University College, Toronto.

Notes

1. MacMillan, "Some Problems of the Canadian Composer," The Samuel Robertson Memorial Lecture, delivered at Prince of Wales College, Charlottetown, P.E.I., May 7, 1956, p. 13. Sir Ernest MacMillan fonds, Manuscript Section, Music Division, National Library of Canada.

2. Keith MacMillan, "Parallel Tracks: Ernest Campbell MacMillan in the 1930s and 1940s," in Canadian Music in the 1930s and 1940s (Kingston, Ont.: Queen's University, 1986), p. 11.

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