Stewart Macpherson

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Charles (Charles) Stewart Macpherson (29 March 1865 – 27 March 1941) was an English musician of Scottish descent. Born in Liverpool, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London with George Alexander Macfarren and Walter Cecil Macfarren. He served as organist at Immanuel and St Andrew Church in Streatham and conducted several choral and orchestral groups, including the Westminster Orchestral Society from 1885 to 1902.

Macpherson joined the Royal Academy of Music staff in 1887, teaching harmony and composition. He was professor of composition at the Royal Normal College for the Blind from 1903 to 1921. In 1908, with Ernest Read and Percy Scholes, he founded the Music Teachers’ Association and led it as chairman until 1923. He was dean of the Faculty of Music at the University of London from 1924 to 1927. His notable students included John Waterhouse, Winifred Christie, and Susan Spain-Dunk. He wrote influential textbooks such as Practical Harmony (1894), Form in Music (1908), Melody and Harmony (1920), and Music and its Appreciation (1910), the first book on music appreciation. He also worked as an Associated Board examiner, traveling to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

As a composer, Macpherson wrote a Symphony in C (1889), a Concertstück for piano and orchestra (1893), a Mass in D (1898), and a Concerto alla fantasia for violin and orchestra, first performed at the Proms on 4 August 1904 with Spencer Dyke as soloist. He also composed a Ballade and Notturno for orchestra, a Romance for oboe and piano, and other works for piano, songs and church music. He won the Charles Lucas Medal for composition in 1884. He lived at Burley Cottage, Burkes Road, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, and retired from the Royal Academy in 1931. Macpherson died in London on 27 March 1941, aged 75.