George Macfarren

Sir George Alexander Macfarren (March 2, 1813 – October 31, 1887) was an English composer.

He was born in London, and entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1829. A symphony by him was played at an Academy concert in 1830; for the opening of the Queen's Theatre in Tottenham Street, under the management of his father, in 1831, he wrote an overture. His Chevy Chace overture, the orchestral work by which he is perhaps best known, was written as early as 1836, and in a single night. On leaving the Academy in 1836, Macfarren was for about a year a music teacher in the Isle of Man, and wrote two unsuccessful operas. In 1837 he was appointed a professor at the Academy, and wrote his "Romeo and Juliet" overture. In the following year he brought out "The Devil's Opera", considered one of his best works.

In 1845 he became conductor at Covent Garden, producing the "Antigone" with Mendelssohn's music; his opera on "An Adventure of Don Quixote" was produced under Alfred Bunn at Drury Lane in 1846; his subsequent operas include "King Charles II" (1849), "Robin Hood" (1860), "She Stoops to Conquer" (1864), and "Helvellyn" (1864). [cite web|title=Stanford Opera Site-M|url=http://opera.stanford.edu/composers/M.html|accessdate=2007-01-10] A gradual failure of his eyesight, which had been defective from boyhood, resulted in total blindness in 1865, but he overcame the difficulties by employing an amanuensis in composition, and made hardly a break in the course of his work.

He was made principal of the Royal Academy of Music in succession to Sterndale Bennett in February 1875, and in March of the same year professor of music in Cambridge University. Shortly before this he had begun a series of oratorios: "St John the Baptist" (Bristol, 1873); "Resurrection" (Birmingham, 1876); "Joseph" (Leeds, 1877); and "King David" (Leeds, 1883). In spite of their solid workmanship, and the skill with which the ideas are treated, it is difficult to hear or read them through without smiling at some of the touches of quite unconscious humour often resulting from the way in which the Biblical narratives have been, as it were, dramatized. He delivered many lectures of great and lasting value, and his theoretical works, such as the Rudiments of Harmony, and the treatise on counterpoint, will probably be remembered longer than many of his compositions. He was knighted in 1883, and died suddenly in London on 31 October, 1887.

Among his theoretical works was an analysis of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis (described as Beethoven's Grand Service in D, and published in 1854) [cite web|title=Permalink for Beethoven score and analysis at New York Public Library|url=http://catnyp.nypl.org/record=b6080838|accessdate=2007-01-10] .

Two of his symphonies have been recorded (his fourth and seventh, by the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Werner Andreas Albert), as has his overture "Chevy Chace". It is possible that the fourth symphony is the F minor symphony that was played in 1834 by the Society of British Musicians [cite journal|last=Banister|first=Henry Charles|title=The Life and Work of Sir G. A. MacFarren|journal=Proceedings of the Musical Association|volume=1887-1888|pages=67–88|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=February 6, 1888|url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0958-8442(1887%2F1888)14%3C67%3ATLAWOS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6|accessdate=2007-01-10]

References

*1911

Further reading

*cite book|last=Banister|first=Henry Charles|title=George Alexander Macfarren: his life, works, and influence. [With a portrait.] |publisher=London: G. Bell & Sons|date=1891|id=OCLC 1720974