Mackenzie, Alexander Campbell

Alexander Campbell Mackenzie – Suite dramatique for orchestra op. 61

(b. Edinburgh, 22 August 1847; d. London, 28 April 1935)

(Coriolanus)

Prelude p. 2
(Entr’act) Alla Marcia. p. 36
Marcia Funebre p. 57
(Entr’act) Voces Populi p. 61

Preface
It is not usual for a 10-year old Scottish lad to be taken by his father to study music in Germany and, on being left there in the ducal town of Sondershausen, told that he will never see his father again. That was what happened to Alexander Mackenzie, for his father was ill and knew he was dying. Was it cruel of him to leave the lad alone on the edge of the Harz mountains, apprenticed to Kapellmeister Stein? No, it was not. It was a selfless gift of a future for a talented boy who rose to eminence in European music, admired by Liszt, Busoni, Hans von Bülow, Pablo Sarasate and Edward Elgar; who was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1895 and made Knight Commander of the Victorian Order by King Edward VII in 1922 and, to this day, shamefully neglected by his own nation.

Virtually orphaned, there was no money to support Mackenzie in Sondershausen, but such were his talents that he was supporting himself from the age of 11 as a second violinist in the ducal orchestra. When he eventually left Germany for Edinburgh and then on to study in London, he had to re-learn English – or perhaps one should say Scots, for he never lost his Scottish accent and was affectionately referred to as “Mac”. …

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