The Music of Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847-1935): A Critical Study Duncan James Barker Ph.D. thesis, University of Durham, March 1999 ABSTRACT This thesis aims to provide a contextual survey of the music of the Scottish composer, conductor and educator Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847-1935). His life and works have not previously been the subject of extensive research and, among other issues, this thesis will address why Mackenzie has been hitherto neglected in favour of his contemporaries and the subsequent generation of composers. As a musician and administrator, Mackenzie was an important figure in the British musical establishment during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and his career had a great impact on the development of important national institutions such as the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Royal Academy of Music. Having been brought up in Scotland, trained in both Germany and London, and resident in Tuscany for almost a decade during his thirties, Mackenzie was a truly cosmopolitan composer and the influence of these cultural experiences is evident in his work. Through a generic survey of his output, this thesis sets the composer's major works in their historical and biographical contexts, isolates stylistic precedents from other nineteenth-century composers, and examines more general compositional tendencies and preoccupations in his music. The discussion in each chapter concentrates on a representative number of works from each genre, while drawing parallels with other pieces not described in detail. To complement the main musical discussion, the thesis also contains an introductory biographical chapter, a timeline showing the more significant events in the composer's career, a family tree, and a fully comprehensive catalogue of works. These sections all draw on a large number of unpublished primary sources held in public and private collections in the United Kingdom and abroad to give as full a picture of Mackenzie's career as possible. The Music of Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847-1935): A Critical Study Duncan James Barker A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Music Department University of Durham 1999 Volume 1 of 2 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the written consent of the author and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 23 AUG 1999 Contents Volume 1 Declaration ii Statement of Copyright ii Acknowledgements iii Portrait v Foreword 1 Chapter 1: Biography 5 Chapter 2: The Chamber Music 26 Chapter 3: The Lyrical Dramas 49 Chapter 4: The Choral Music 103 Chapter 5: The Later Operas 151 Chapter 6: The Concerted Music 173 Chapter 7: The Orchestral Music 211 Volume 2 Appendix 1: Biographical Timeline 246 Appendix 2: The Mackenzie Family Tree 257 Appendix 3: A Catalogue of Works 260 by Alexander Campbell Mackenzie List of Manuscript Sources 396 Bibliography 399 Declaration I confirm that no part of the material offered has previously been submitted by me for a degree in this or in any other University. If material has been generated through joint work, my independent contribution has been clearly indicated. In all other cases material from the work of others has been acknowledged and quotations and paraphrases suitably indicated. Statement of Copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 11 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the University of Durham and the Department of Music in particular for enabling me to undertake this research with the financial support of a three- year Postgraduate Studentship (1994-97) and the supplementary help offered by the Music Department's Postgraduate Travel Fund and the Faculty of Arts Dean's Fund during my time in Durham. I would also like to thank the Trustees of Musica Britannica for awarding me the Louise Dyer Bursary in 1996 to help with the filming of Mackenzie's manuscript scores held in the British Library. Much of this thesis could not have been achieved without the kind help and support of librarians and other staff at various institutions around the country. It would be impossible to name everyone individually, but I would like to give particular thanks to following: the staff of the Palace Green section and the Interlibrary Loans desk of Durham University Library; Janet Snowman, Bridget Palmer and their colleagues in the Library at the Royal Academy of Music; Oliver Davies and Paul Collen of the Royal College of Music Portraits Department; and Chris Banks, the Curator of Music Manuscripts in the British Library. I am indebted, however, to all those who have answered my queries about Mackenzie. For their unfailing help and support during my postgraduate study I would like to thank the staff of Durham University Music Department: I cannot think of a more beautiful setting or friendly environment in which to undertake research. Thanks must also go to Hyperion Records for their continuing championship of nineteenth-century British music, particularly their Mackenzie recordings which have provided a great stimulus to my research into the composer. I was particularly pleased to contribute the sleeve notes for their premiere recording of the Violin Concerto and the Pibroch with Malcolm Stewart and the RSNO. Many people have been generous enough to offer access to their personal research or collections, and I must thank Christopher Fifield, Stephen Lloyd and Oliver Davies in respect of the former, and Mrs Alison Selford, Dr Ian Barclay and Dr Norman Macleod, Mackenzie's descendants, in respective of the latter. Moreover, I am deeply indebted to Dr John Purser for his early guidance on the subject of both Scottish music in 111 general and Mackenzie in particular, and also for allowing me to make extensive use of manuscripts related to the composer in his personal collection. Thanks must also go to my friends from both Oxford and Durham Universities who have listened to me speak endlessly on the subject of Mackenzie without complaint and have often offered help with various aspects of my work: I should name Julie, Järg, Howard, David and Stefan in this respect. In addition I should record here how much I enjoyed singing with and conducting friends in various Durham choirs, especially the Durham University Chamber Choir, Hatfield College Chapel Choir and the Durham Consort of Voices. My largest debt is to my supervisor Dr Jeremy Dibble. Without his extensive knowledge of nineteenth-century music, his enthusiasm and keen interest in my work none of the following would have been possible. I can never remember a supervision when I did not leave knowing more than I had beforehand and wanting to share his enthusiasm with others through my own work. These acknowledgements would not be complete, however, without thanking my parents, who have unstintingly supported me over the years and never once refused to help or listen whenever I needed them. iv To my parents. DJB. ,... a lifetime spent, boy and man, in the service of British music. Whether the story be worth the telling must be left for others to decide.' Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie, A Musician's Narrative (1927), 262. V Foreword Foreword Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie died yesterday at his home in London at the age of 87. He was one of the group of talented composers and able musicians whose careers initiated that renaissance of British music which dates from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Parry, Stanford and Mackenzie were its representative trio; the first an Englishman of Welsh descent, the second Anglo-Irish, the third wholly Scottish, together they necessitated the coining of the new phrase "British Music".' So wrote the obituarist in The Times the day after the death of Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847-1935), composer, educator, conductor and long-time Principal of the Royal Academy of Music. Since his death in 1935 little has been written about this man whose career spanned one of the most important periods in the development of music in Great Britain and, as we near the end of the twentieth century, little has been remembered. While the names of Parry and Stanford are forever linked with those of their famous pupils in the next generation, most prominently Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Hoist, Mackenzie's name is frequently relegated to the more obscure references in the footnotes of Victorian musical history. Yet, with a more contemporary eye than can be afforded to writers at the end of the twentieth century, the journalist of The Times rated Mackenzie as an equal partner with Parry and Stanford in the 'renaissance of British music which dates from the last quarter of the nineteenth century'. How is it that a man so integral to laying and strengthening the foundations of professional music making in this country should have fallen by the wayside of British musical history and musicological research. Not only was Mackenzie an important composer and conductor, whose musical output and writings demonstrate a notably different set of generic interests from those of Parry and Stanford, but he was also an important educator and administrator, a role which in the Victorian period held none of the negative associations that it often does in today's society. Through an examination of his music, this thesis aims to examine Mackenzie's compositional tendencies and preoccupations, to isolate, where necessary, stylistic precedents from other nineteenth-century composers, and to set each of his works in an historical context which takes account not only of British musical life, but also of Continental activities. It also aims to provide, in the first chapter, a more comprehensive I 'The Renaissance of British Music', Obituary, The Times, Monday 29 April 1935, 16.