Background
George Alexander Macfarren was born on March 2, 1813, in London to George Macfarren and Elizabeth Macfarren.
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George Alexander Macfarren was born on March 2, 1813, in London to George Macfarren and Elizabeth Macfarren.
At the age of seven, Macfarren was sent to Dr. Nicholas's school in Ealing. His health was poor, however, and his eyesight weak, so much so that he was given a large-type edition of the Bible and had to use a powerful magnifying-glass for all other reading. In 1823 he was withdrawn from the school to undergo a course of eye treatment. The treatment was unsuccessful, and his eyesight progressively worsened until he became totally blind.
Macfarren began to study music when he was fourteen, under Charles Lucas. In 1829, at the age of sixteen, he entered the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied composition under Cipriani Potter as well as piano under William Henry Holmes and trombone with John Smithies. His ability to perform, however, was hindered by his poor eyesight and he soon concentrated upon composing only. In his first year at the Academy, Macfarren composed his first work, the Symphony in C minor.
A symphony by him was played at an Academy concert in September 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 Chase 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, one of his best works. In 1845 he became conductor at Covent Garden, producing the Antigone with Mendelssohn's music; his opera on Don Quixote was produced under Bunn at Drury Lane in 1846; his subsequent operas include Charles II (1849), Robin Hood (1860), She Stoops to Conquer (1864), and Helvellyn (1864). 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 Stern- dale 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 on October 31, 1887, at his house in Hamilton Terrace, St John's Wood.
Quotations: "Let's dance and sing and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year. "
On September 27, 1844, George Alexander Macfarren married Clarina Thalia Andrae, subsequently known as Natalia Macfarren.
George Macfarren was a dancing-master, dramatic author and journalist.
Elizabeth Macfarren (née Jackson) was the daughter of a French officer and an Indian "princess."
Walter Cecil Macfarren was an English pianist, composer and conductor, and a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music.
