We tend to think of composition in Canada as a barren landscape before World War II. But the long view obscures the pretty little wildflowers — like Sir Ernest MacMillan’s C minor String Quartet.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
There’s an excellent recording of the MacMillan quartet released four years ago on the ATMA Classique label by Montreal’s Quatuor Alcan, which shows off an accomplished compositional hand in an idiom very similar to that of Edward Elgar — who wrote his three major chamber works (the Violin Sonata, String Quartet and Piano Quintet, all dating from 1918) after MacMillan’s quartet.
MacMillan, born in the western suburbs of Toronto in 1893, was an incredibly busy youngster, making his début as solo organist at Massey Hall in the spring of 1904 and landing his first serious church organist job at 15, at Knox Presbyterian on Spadina Ave.
The organist decided he wanted to be a composer, too, and set off for Europe after studying history at University of Toronto for three years (even then, he couldn’t help getting involved with music, contributing to the 1912 edition of the University Hymn Book).
He took off for Paris before finishing his B.A., went to Bayreuth to take in some Wagner and ended up stranded in Germany at the outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914. He was detained and put into a prisoner-of-war camp for the duration.
It was there that he wrote the String Quartet. The organizational prowess that made him such a productive musical force in Toronto after the war wasn’t wasted at the camp, where he learned how to conduct by pulling together every available musician to present concerts and musical theatre productions.
(This is a great excuse to stop and remind ourselves how human-rights treaties ensured that prisoners of war were treated better a century ago than they often are today — MacMillan was provided with musical notation paper, and was allowed to send another composition from the German camp to Oxford in order to earn his Doctorate in music.)
It’s been 100 years since the last summer before Europe buried the Gilded Age in the bones and ashes of war. MacMillan’s quartet, to me, has a kinship with this time, while also sounding modern. It’s too bad we don’t hear this music more often.
Here are the Alcans — violinsits Laura Andriani and Nathalie Camus, violist Luc Beauchemin and cellist David Ellis — doing full justice to this thematically rich piece:
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
