Malcolm MacDonald (music critic) explained

Malcolm MacDonald (26 February 1948 – 27 May 2014), also known by the alias Calum MacDonald, was a British author, mainly about music.

Biography

MacDonald was born in Nairn, Scotland and educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, and Downing College, Cambridge. He lived in England from 1971 until his death, first in London and from 1992 in Gloucestershire. He died at Leckhampton Hospice.[1]

He wrote several books, notably volumes on Brahms, Schoenberg, John Foulds, Edgard Varèse, the Scottish composer-pianist Ronald Stevenson[2] and a three-volume study of the 32 symphonies of Havergal Brian. Other books include a tourist guidebook to the city of Edinburgh and a multi-volume edition of the musical journalism of Havergal Brian. He contributed chapters to symposia on Brahms, Alan Bush, Erik Bergman, Shostakovich, Bernard Stevens, Ronald Stevenson, Varèse, an essay on Czesław Marek to a symposium on Swiss Composers, and another on Scottish composers to a symposium on musical nationalism in Great Britain and Finland. He also compiled catalogues of the works of John Foulds, Shostakovich, Luigi Dallapiccola and Antal Doráti and contributed articles to many musical encyclopaedias such as the New Grove.

He was editor of the modern-music journal Tempo, which he joined in 1972 as assistant to the then editor David Drew, until December 2013, and was a copious contributor to other English-language music-journals and magazines. For these and other journalistic purposes he used the nom-de-plume "Calum MacDonald" because at the outset of his writing career, which began with record reviewing for the journal Records & Recording, confusion arose between him and the composer Malcolm MacDonald, who was a long-established record reviewer for The Gramophone. As Calum MacDonald he also reviewed regularly for BBC Music Magazine and International Record Review.

In 1996 he edited for performance, and orchestrated the final portions of, the ballet Soirées de Barcelone by Roberto Gerhard, which was broadcast that year, performed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, in a concert to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the BBC Third Programme. MacDonald was a prime mover in the revival of interest in the music of John Foulds, publishing his book on Foulds in 1975 and working with Lewis Foreman on the four volumes of his light music recorded by Dutton Epoch between 2010 and 2013.[3] He also composed a number of works, mainly piano pieces and songs.

Writings (selected list)

Books

Articles in symposia

Articles

Sources

Mainly from the flyleaves of his books, and an autobiographical article, 'Too Many Records' in International Record Review (June 2002 edition)

References

  1. Web site: An encyclopedia of music has died. 28 May 2014. 16 March 2022.
  2. Ronald Stevenson, composer-pianist : an exegetical critique from a pianistic perspective. Mark. Gasser. 1 January 2013. Theses: Doctorates and Masters. 16 March 2022.
  3. Foreman, Lewis. Recording British Music (2024), pp. 45-48
  4. Web site: Grossel Brian Bibliography. 18 October 2007. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20060510235142/http://users.ox.ac.uk/~chri0154/brian/books.html. 10 May 2006. dmy-all.

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