Sir Ernest Alexander Campbell MacMillan (18 August 1893 – 6 May 1973) was a Canadian conductor, composer and organist. He was Canada's only "Musical Knight", and is widely regarded as being Canada's pre-eminent musician from the 1920s through the 1950s. His contributions to the development of music in Canada were sustained and varied, as conductor, performer, composer, administrator, lecturer, adjudicator, writer, humourist, and statesman.
Early life and education (1893–1914)
Ernest Alexander Campbell MacMillan was born in Mimico (Etobicoke), Ontario, the first-born of Reverend Alexander MacMillan (1864-1961), and Wilhelmina "Minnie" Ross (1870-1932). His parents had moved to Mimico the previous December, when Rev. MacMillan, educated in Edinburgh, Scotland, was called to be the first resident minister of Mimico Presbyterian Church, that had been formed in 1889. His mother, was a third generation of ministers daughters from Scotland, and in her case from Pictou, Nova Scotia.
His first musical influences were his parents. From a very young age, he became fascinated while watching his mother play piano and decided to learn music. His father, who became minister at Toronto's St. Enoch's Presbyterian Church in 1895, bought an organ for a new house the family moved to in 1898. The house had an adjoined drawing room and study room, with enough space for both an organ and piano. Thereafter, Macmillan was officially hooked.
Macmillan started studying the organ at the age of 8 with Arthur Blakely. A child prodigy, he gave his first organ recital at the age of ten. His talents astonished the public and critics alike in 1904 when he performed in the "Festival of Lillies", which "firmly established him a prodigy". 4000 people were known to attend. Moreover, he was the appointed organist at St. Enoch's, which gave him a sense of importance and great experience in accompanying singers. Between 1908 and 1910, MacMillan held his first professional appointment as an organist and choirmaster in Toronto at Knox (Presbyterian) Church. In 1910 he had his first official organ recital. After that, he performed elsewhere in Toronto and environs until 1914, including St. Paul's Presbyterian Church (Hamilton, Ontario). He earned the associateship and fellowship diplomas of the Royal College of Organists, and from 1911 to 1914 studied modern history at the University of Toronto, earning his BA. He was a member of the Canadian fraternity, Phi Kappa Pi.
Internment in Germany (1914–1919)
MacMillan travelled to Paris in the spring of 1914 and began to study piano privately with Thérèse Chaigneau. He was visiting Bayreuth, Germany, to attend performances of the Bayreuth Festival, when the First World War began in August, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June. MacMillan was initially detained by the German police, and then imprisoned as an enemy alien, as Canada had declared war on Imperial Germany on 5 August. MacMillan was subsequently interned for the duration of the war at Ruhleben, a British civilian detention camp, located on the site of a former horse racing track, on the outskirts of Berlin. During this period, he became a prominent member of the Ruhleben Musical Society and directed performances of The Mikado (with orchestra) and a pantomime version of Cinderella. MacMillan transcribed the music for the former from memory with the help of four other musicians, including Benjamin Dale. Among those attending these performances was James W. Gerard, the United States Ambassador to Germany. MacMillan was also a member of the Ruhleben Drama Society and acted in productions of Othello, Twelfth Night, and The Importance of Being Earnest. MacMillan gave lectures on each of the nine symphonies of Beethoven; at the end of each lecture, MacMillan and Dale would perform a four hand piano arrangement of the symphony under discussion. MacMillan was later interviewed about his experiences as an internee at Ruhleben, as part of a series of CBC interviews with Canadian First World War veterans.
Upon return to Canada in 1919, MacMillan was appointed organist and choirmaster in Toronto at the Timothy Eaton Memorial Church (then Methodist), where he served until the consummation of the United Church of Canada in June 1925. He was especially known there for his performances of Handel's Messiah and Brahms' Requiem His career as a conductor truly began when he conducted a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion in the Timothy Eaton Memorial Church in 1923. MacMillan conducted annual performances of this work for the next 30 years. Another annual tradition Macmillan initiated during his career includes the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir's Christmas-time performance of Handel's Messiah.
Throughout his time with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, MacMillan accomplished many of the major achievements of his conducting career. His authority as a composer influenced some major changes within the orchestra. During the Depression, he changed the concert times from 5 pm to a more "evening hour".
As many theatre musicians were out of work during the Depression era, MacMillan hired them to play in these evening concerts on a regular basis. As a result, MacMillan was able to select much more ambitious repertoire for this stronger performing force, as well as lengthening its season, and increased their number of concerts.
MacMillan tried to make concerts fun and entertaining. The Christmas Box Symphony Concerts were a great example of this. Not only did MacMillan conduct, but he dressed up as Santa Claus and had the audience participate by singing along. He also "appeared in overalls with a monkey wrench for a baton to conduct Alexander Mosolov's Iron Foundry".
The entry of Canada into WWII proved to be "a difficult period", but it was during the post-war years that his conducting was regaled as being "the most successful in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's history". MacMillan innovations in his repertoire changed yet again. He included Canadian music, as well as works by Hungarian and Russian composers Béla Bartók, and Dmitri Shostakovich.
During World War II, he gained fame as a guest conductor in the United States. He conducted many Hollywood Bowl concerts, and the National Broadcasting Company Symphony Orchestra in NYC. In Canada, he guest-conducted the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. By the end of the 1940s, he had conducted the Vancouver Symphony on 45 different occasions, and 25 different occasions in Montreal. MacMillan toured Australia as well for three months and conducted 30 concerts in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Later in his career (1948–1953), MacMillan introduced Canada to entirely new prospects of recording and broadcasting. A good number of performances he conducted were recorded for Beaver Records; these were also broadcast nationally by CBC Radio. However, his silence over the Symphony Six issue prompted criticism.
While a prisoner in Ruhleben, MacMillan wrote what is seen to be his most significant composition, titled String Quartet in C-minor. Influenced by the "war-time style and themes", the first performance of this piece was heard on 8 February 1925, by the Hart House String Quartet, and was conducted by MacMillan himself. Although MacMillan's composing abilities were much praised during this performance, he stated composition was not his main preoccupation; he preferred conducting to composing.
Nevertheless, not only did the musical language of the 19th century romantic period influence MacMillan, but he was interested in Folklore music also. In 1927, he travelled alongside Marius Barbeau to the Nass River region of British Columbia to "hear, record and notate music of the Tsimshian People". As a result, he composed Three Songs of the West Coast, arranged for voice and piano.
MacMillan composed less during his commitment to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Still, he managed to compose Scottish and French songs for the ballad opera "Prince Charming". In addition, he composed Te Deum Landamus in E Minor (1936) and Song of Deliverance (1944), both choral works.