Mackenzie, Alexander Campbell

Mackenzie, Alexander Campbell – Ballet music and Rustic March from the opera ‘Colomba’ Op. 28

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

Preface
Alexander Mackenzie belongs to that generation of British composers just before Edward Elgar whose rediscovery is still largely pending. Born in Edinburgh into a family of musicians, he received his training from the age of ten in Sondershausen (Thuringia) with the town musician August Barthel, with an obligation to serve in the court orchestra. Barthel was talented in various instruments and appeared as a trumpeter, oboist, pianist and violist. Mackenzie became a student at the Sondershausen Conservatoire and performed as second violin in the orchestra of the Prince of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen. In 1862, a King’s scholarship enabled him to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London, supplementing his income as a musician at Boucicault’s Westminster Theatre and later as a piano accompanist at Strand Musick Hall; he also gained orchestral experience in classical concerts under Michael Costa. This occasionally affected his studies; once, when he had not prepared a piece by a classical composer for a piano exam, he improvised, ‘starting off in A minor and taking care to end in the same key,’ and convinced the examiners that it was a little-known work by Schubert. Recalling this trick in his old age, he added, ‘I have never ceased to wonder at my escape, and would certainly not advise any student to run a similar risk today.’

From 1864 to 1873, he was an orchestral violinist at the Birmingham Festivals, where he met guest performers, including the conductor Hans von Bülow, who became a close friend. In 1865, Mackenzie returned to Edinburgh and took on numerous teaching commitments; from 1870, he was music director at St George’s, Charlotte Square, and in 1873 he took over the conductorship of the Scottish Vocal Association. In 1874, he married Mary Malina Burnside, the marriage produced one daughter. He had been composing regularly since the early 1860s; his concert overture Cervantes premiered in Sondershausen in 1877 and was also included in Bülow’s repertoire. …

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