Sir Ernest Macmillan

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This selection of 20 essays and lectures covers the period from 1928 to 1964.

High quality reprint of Music In Canada by Ernest Macmillan.

The last few years have seen a tremendous increase in almost every area of musical life in Canada; more orchestras are playing longer seasons; Canadian composers are winning recognition at home and abroad; opera is coming into its own; the National Arts Centre in Ottawa is now a reality; as are various other centres for the arts; and interest in music among local groups, and among young people especially, is continually growing. Yet in spite of this emcouraging upsurge, it is also true that only about four per cent of Canadian adults actively support fine art, music, ballet, theatre and opera. One of the aims of this volume is to draw together the various, sometimes paradoxical, aspects of the country's musical life to provide a realistic and well-rounded survey of the current situation. This is the second volume of essays about music in Canada published by the Canadian Music Council and University of Toronto Press. The first, Music in Canada, edited by Sir Ernest MacMillan, described and documented Canada's musical life in the mid-fifties. That book receded into history with the accelerated tempo of musical development. Since then, the musical scene has changed fundamentally and beyond recognition. Aspects of Music in Canada delves into most, if not all, of the main areas of Canada's musical life, records its considerable achievements without ignoring its shortcomings, and pays tribute to Canadian artists and educators who have succeeded in a few short years in reaching international standards. Composition, performance (live and on the air), and education are surveyed and carefully documented. Essays on history, on folk and aboriginal music, and on musical organizations are also included. All who are intersted in the role that music has played and is playing in Canadian life will welcome this book of essays.

In addition to his activities as conductor, administrator, educator, composer, and organist, Sir Ernest MacMillan (1893-1973) found time to write more than one hundred essays and lectures on music. Always ready to use his enormous prestige to further the causes of music, MacMillan took every opportunity to admonish Canadians to develop our own composers, to honour our own performers, to educate our children musically, and to offer opportunities for all to hear, learn about, and enjoy great music. This selection of twenty essays and lectures covers the period from 1928 to 1964, and ranges over the gamut of MacMillan’s life and interests: the cause of the Canadian composer; music education for adults as well as children; critical reviews; his early years as an organist; internment in a German prison camp during the First World War; Shakespeare and music; church music; and the lighter side in two humorous send-ups of academic lectures on Bach and Wagner. Here is a panorama of music over thirty-five years at mid-century, through the eyes of one of Canada’s most brilliant and all-embracing musicians.

This is an account of the life and cultural contribution of one of Canadas most talented conductors. He was known for his limitless enthusiasm and support of Canadian music and young musicians, as well as for his insistence on playing music by Canadian composers.