Charles Mackerras
Encyclopedia
Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH
, CBE (məˈkɛrəs; 1925 2010) was an Australian conductor
. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček
and Mozart
, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan
. He was long associated with the English National Opera
(and its predecessor) and Welsh National Opera
and was the first Australian chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
.
, to Australian parents, Alan Mackerras and Catherine MacLaurin. His father was an electrical engineer and a Quaker. In 1928, when Charles was aged three, the family moved to Sydney
, Australia. They initially lived in the suburb of Vaucluse
, and in 1933, moved to the then semi-rural suburb of Turramurra
. Mackerras was the eldest of their seven children, including five brothers, the others being Malcolm
, Colin, Alastair and Neil and two sisters, Joan and Elisabeth. They are descendants of the pioneer Australian musician Isaac Nathan
. Mackerras studied violin at the age of seven and later the flute and was setting poems to music at eight, and wrote a piano concerto when he was 12.
Mackerras initially attended his father's alma mater, Sydney Grammar School
, and also St Aloysius College in Sydney. While at Sydney Grammar, he showed a precocious talent by composing operas and conducting student performances in his early teens but his non-musical studies suffered. Unconvinced that music was a viable profession, his parents removed the young Mackerras from temptation by sending him to board at The King's School. The school's focus on sport and discipline led the young artist to run away several times and he was eventually expelled.
At age 16, Mackerras studied oboe, piano and composition at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music
. He earned additional income from writing orchestral scores from recordings. In 1943, Mackerras joined the ABC Sydney Orchestra
as second oboist
and at age 19, became principal oboist. On 1947, Mackerras sailed for England on the RMS Rangitiki intending to pursue conducting. He joined Sadler's Wells Theatre
as an orchestral oboist and cor anglais player. He later won a British Council
Scholarship, enabling him to study conducting with Václav Talich
at the Prague Academy of Music. While there, he formed a strong friendship with Jiří Tancibudek
, Principal Oboe of the Czech Philharmonic, who introduced him to the operas of Leoš Janáček
, thus commencing Mackerras's life-long passion for that composer's music. Tancibudek later emigrated to Australia himself.
In 1947, Mackerras married Judy Wilkins, a clarinet
tist. They had two daughters, Fiona and Catherine. Fiona died of cancer in 2007. He was also the uncle of the Australian conductor Alexander Briger.
, conducting, among others, Janáček
, Handel
, Gluck
, Bach
, and Donizetti
. In the 1950s, well before the "authenticity" movement had come to general notice, Mackerras focused on the study and practical realization of period performance techniques, culminating in his landmark 1959 recording of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks using the original wind band instrumentation. In his 1965 performance of The Marriage of Figaro
, he added the ornamentation
in a historically informed
style.
Mackerras also strongly championed the music of Janáček outside Czechoslovakia, where Mackerras himself judged his work with Janáček as his single most important legacy to music. In 1951, he conducted the British premiere of Káťa Kabanová
. He was also a noted authority on Mozart
's operas and those of Sir Arthur Sullivan
. His Sullivan ballet arrangement Pineapple Poll
(1951, just after the expiration of copyright on Sullivan's music), based on one of Gilbert's Bab Ballads
, continues to be a popular light music favourite in English speaking countries. Mackerras also arranged music by Giuseppe Verdi
for the ballet The Lady and the Fool
. He also arranged a suite from John Ireland
's score for the 1946 film The Overlanders
, after Ireland's death in 1962.
He became principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra
from 1954 to 1956. In 1963, he made his debut at London's Covent Garden conducting Shostakovich's Katerina Izmailova
. He directed the Hamburg State Opera
from 1965 to 1969 and the English National Opera
from 1970 to 1977. In 1972, he made his Metropolitan Opera
debut in New York conducting Gluck
's Orfeo ed Euridice
. Mackerras worked closely with Benjamin Britten
for a time until 1958, when, during rehearsals for Britten's opera Noye's Fludde, he made comments about Britten liking prepubescent boys' company and they subsequently severed their relationship. The events are described in John Bridcut's Britten's Children.
He conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
and Birgit Nilsson
in the opening concert of the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House
, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II, in 1973.
for The Pirates of Penzance
and The Mikado
during the 1975 D'Oyly Carte Centenary season at the Savoy. He later joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Trust and later its Board of Trustees. In 1982 he was the first Australian national appointed chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
, a post he held until 1985.
In 1980, he became the first non-Briton to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra
at the Last Night of the Proms.
Mackerras directed the Welsh National Opera
from 1987 to 1992, where his Janáček productions won particular praise. One of the highlights of the 1991 season was the reopening of the Estates Theatre in Prague, scene of the original premiere of Mozart's Don Giovanni
, in which Mackerras conducted a new production of that opera to mark the bicentenary of Mozart's death. As Conductor Emeritus of Welsh National Opera, his successes included Tristan und Isolde
, The Yeomen of the Guard
, and La clemenza di Tito
(all of which productions were brought to London). He was the principal guest conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
(SCO) from 1992 to 1995, and held the title of Conductor Laureate with the SCO. He was principal guest conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
from 1993 to 1996. During the same period, he was also principal guest conductor of the San Francisco Opera
. From 1998 to 2001 he was the music director of the Orchestra of St. Luke's
. From 1987, he regularly conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
and was appointed Emeritus Conductor in 2007.
In 2004, he became principal guest conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra
. He was also principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
. With the Royal Opera, he conducted productions of Gounod
's Roméo et Juliette
and Handel
's Semele
. Mackerras also had a long association with the Metropolitan Opera
, where he conducted The Makropulos Case, Káťa Kabanová
and The Magic Flute
.
In August 2008, Mackerras was announced as the new Honorary President
of the Edinburgh International Festival
Society. He was only the second person to hold this role, after Yehudi Menuhin
. As the original part of the largest arts festival in the world
, the Edinburgh International Festival featured performances from Mackerras throughout six decades since his first in 1952.
Mackerras summarised his strategy for working with an orchestra as follows:
Mackerras was the President of Trinity College of Music
, London. He also served as Music Advisor to City Opera of Vancouver
, a professional chamber opera company led by conductor Charles Barber. He was also a Patron of Bampton Classical Opera
.
On 18 December 2008, Mackerras served as the conductor for Alfred Brendel
's final concert performance with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
. Mackerras's last public performance saw him conduct Così fan tutte
at Glyndebourne
in the summer of 2010.
Since 1999 Mackerras was a Patron of the Australian children's cancer charity Redkite.
performing Mozart's Idomeneo
at the Edinburgh International Festival
in August 2010, which would have been his 56th appearance at the festival. The director of the BBC Proms, Roger Wright, announced that a Prom would be dedicated to Mackerras's memory. Wright paid tribute to Mackerras, saying "Sir Charles was a great conductor and his loss will be deeply felt by musicians and audiences alike", while Rory Jeffes of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
said that Australia had "lost a living treasure" Mackerras is survived by his wife, Judy, and their daughter, Catherine. His funeral was held at St Paul's, Covent Garden
on 23 July 2010.
, in the final days of 78 rpm records, and he continued recording well into the era of compact discs in the multi-channel Super Audio CD
format. In 1952, he conducted his first recording of his own Pineapple Poll
ballet, which was issued on twelve sides, and subsequently transferred to LP. Some of his early recording sessions were for Walter Legge
, standing in when Otto Klemperer
and other eminent conductors were ill.
He did not always restrict himself to the classical repertoire. For example, on 1955 he recorded Albert Arlen
's song Clancy of the Overflow
(to Banjo Paterson
's poem) with Peter Dawson and the London Symphony Orchestra
.
A smaller UK record company, Pye Records
, asked Mackerras to record Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks. 'We had to do that in the middle of the night, in order to get our twenty-six oboes together.' The recording, issued in 1959, was received with critical acclaim for attempting to reproduce the sound Handel would have heard, rather than the smoother orchestral arrangements usually played at that time.
In the 1960s Mackerras made the first recording of the Italian version of Gluck's Orfeo
. For DG
he conducted Purcell's Dido and Aeneas
, and for EMI a 'new-look' Messiah
, with scholarly texts, small forces and sprightly tempi. He followed that up with Handel's Saul
and Israel in Egypt for DG. He also recorded the first complete Roberto Devereux
with Beverly Sills
.
In 1986, he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra
in the soundtrack to Carroll Ballard
's film version of The Nutcracker
(better known as Nutcracker: The Motion Picture), the first full-length film version of Tchaikovsky
's ballet to be given a major release in theatres.
Mackerras recorded three Mahler
symphonies and all of the symphonies of Mozart, Brahms
and Beethoven
. Along with the Mozart operas, these recordings continue to attract critical acclaim; as do his recordings of the operas of Janáček (Decca, Supraphon, and Chandos), and major works of Handel, Dvořák
, Martinů
, Richard Strauss
, Shostakovich
, Sibelius
, Donizetti
, Elgar
, Delius
, Walton
, Holst
, and Haydn
, among many others.
For Telarc he also conducted Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury
, H.M.S. Pinafore
, The Pirates of Penzance
, The Mikado
, and The Yeomen of the Guard
. In collaboration with David Mackie he reconstructed Sullivan's "lost" cello concerto
, conducting its first performance with cellist Julian Lloyd Webber
and the London Symphony Orchestra
at Barbican Hall
, London, in April 1986, and a recording for EMI shortly afterwards.
Mackerras's discography also includes a recording of Britten's Gloriana
, which won Gramophone magazine's "Best Opera Recording" in 1994. In 1997, Mackerras recorded Le delizie dell'amor, with the soprano Andrea Rost
, for Sony Classical. His most recent release for that label was Lucia di Lammermoor
with the Hanover Band (S2K 63174). Other recent recordings for Sony Classical include Chopin
's two piano concertos with Emanuel Ax
and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
(SK 60771) and (SK 63371). He also recorded Dvořák's Rusalka
(Decca) and Slavonic Dances (Supraphon), Josef Suk
's A Summer Tale (Decca), Mozart's Piano Concerto
s Nos. 20 and 24 with Alfred Brendel
(Philips), and Brahms's two orchestral serenades (Telarc). For Linn Records
he recorded a two-SACD set of Mozart's last four symphonies with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in August 2007.
, and was knighted
in the 1979 New Year Honours. In 1978, he was presented with the Janáček Medal for services to Czech music, on stage at the Coliseum Theatre
, by the Czechoslovak ambassador. In 1990, he was awarded an Honorary Degree by the University of Hull
. In 1996, he received the Medal of Merit from the Czech Republic, and, in 1997 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for services to music and Australian music.Citation: For service to music as an operatic conductor and for the promotion of the international status of Australian music. In 2001, he was awarded the Centenary Medal
, created to mark the centenary of the Federation of Australia
.Citation: For service to Australian society and music In 2003 he was made a Companion of Honour (CH) in the Queen's Birthday Honours
. In 2005, he was presented with the Royal Philharmonic Society
Gold Medal, and he was also the first recipient of the Queen's Medal for Music, announced by the Master of the Queen's Music
, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, on the stage of the Royal Albert Hall
before a Proms performance of HMS Pinafore
.
Order of the Companions of Honour
The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded by King George V in June 1917, as a reward for outstanding achievements in the arts, literature, music, science, politics, industry or religion....
, CBE (məˈkɛrəs; 1925 2010) was an Australian conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
and Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
. He was long associated with the English National Opera
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
(and its predecessor) and Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera is an opera company founded in Cardiff, Wales in 1943. The WNO tours Wales, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world extensively. Annually, it gives more than 120 performances of eight main stage operas to a combined audience of around 150,000 people...
and was the first Australian chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...
.
Early life and background
Charles was born in Schenectady, New YorkSchenectady, New York
Schenectady is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 66,135...
, to Australian parents, Alan Mackerras and Catherine MacLaurin. His father was an electrical engineer and a Quaker. In 1928, when Charles was aged three, the family moved to Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia. They initially lived in the suburb of Vaucluse
Vaucluse, New South Wales
Vaucluse is an eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Vaucluse is located north-east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of Waverley Council and the Municipality of Woollahra....
, and in 1933, moved to the then semi-rural suburb of Turramurra
Turramurra, New South Wales
Turramurra is a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Turramurra is located north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Ku-ring-gai Council...
. Mackerras was the eldest of their seven children, including five brothers, the others being Malcolm
Malcolm Mackerras
Malcolm Hugh Mackerras AO is an Australian psephologist and commentator and lecturer on Australian and American politics.-Education and works:...
, Colin, Alastair and Neil and two sisters, Joan and Elisabeth. They are descendants of the pioneer Australian musician Isaac Nathan
Isaac Nathan
Isaac Nathan was an Anglo-Australian composer, musicologist, journalist and self-publicist, who ended an eventful career by becoming the "father of Australian music".-Early success:...
. Mackerras studied violin at the age of seven and later the flute and was setting poems to music at eight, and wrote a piano concerto when he was 12.
Mackerras initially attended his father's alma mater, Sydney Grammar School
Sydney Grammar School
Sydney Grammar School is an independent, non-denominational, selective, day school for boys, located in Darlinghurst, Edgecliff and St Ives, all suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
, and also St Aloysius College in Sydney. While at Sydney Grammar, he showed a precocious talent by composing operas and conducting student performances in his early teens but his non-musical studies suffered. Unconvinced that music was a viable profession, his parents removed the young Mackerras from temptation by sending him to board at The King's School. The school's focus on sport and discipline led the young artist to run away several times and he was eventually expelled.
At age 16, Mackerras studied oboe, piano and composition at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music
Sydney Conservatorium of Music
The Sydney Conservatorium of Music is one of the oldest and most prestigious music schools in Australia...
. He earned additional income from writing orchestral scores from recordings. In 1943, Mackerras joined the ABC Sydney Orchestra
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...
as second oboist
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
and at age 19, became principal oboist. On 1947, Mackerras sailed for England on the RMS Rangitiki intending to pursue conducting. He joined Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue located in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington. The present day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500 seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive...
as an orchestral oboist and cor anglais player. He later won a British Council
British Council
The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
Scholarship, enabling him to study conducting with Václav Talich
Václav Talich
Václav Talich was a Czech conductor, violinist and pedagogue.- Life :Born in Kroměříž, Moravia, he started his musical career in a student orchestra in Klatovy. From 1897 to 1903 he studied at the conservatory in Prague with Otakar Ševčík...
at the Prague Academy of Music. While there, he formed a strong friendship with Jiří Tancibudek
Jiří Tancibudek
Jiří Tancibudek AM was a Czech-born Australian oboist, conductor and teacher of great renown in his adopted country and elsewhere. His obituary in the Adelaide Review, titled "Prince of the oboe", said of his playing:-Biography:...
, Principal Oboe of the Czech Philharmonic, who introduced him to the operas of Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
, thus commencing Mackerras's life-long passion for that composer's music. Tancibudek later emigrated to Australia himself.
In 1947, Mackerras married Judy Wilkins, a clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
tist. They had two daughters, Fiona and Catherine. Fiona died of cancer in 2007. He was also the uncle of the Australian conductor Alexander Briger.
Early career
Returning to England from Prague in 1948, Mackerras rejoined Sadler's Wells and began his life-long association with the Sadler's Wells Opera, now English National OperaEnglish National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
, conducting, among others, Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
, Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
, Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
, Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, and Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
. In the 1950s, well before the "authenticity" movement had come to general notice, Mackerras focused on the study and practical realization of period performance techniques, culminating in his landmark 1959 recording of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks using the original wind band instrumentation. In his 1965 performance of The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
, he added the ornamentation
Ornament (music)
In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody , but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note...
in a historically informed
Historically informed performance
Historically informed performance is an approach in the performance of music and theater. Within this approach, the performance adheres to state-of-the-art knowledge of the aesthetic criteria of the period in which the music or theatre work was conceived...
style.
Mackerras also strongly championed the music of Janáček outside Czechoslovakia, where Mackerras himself judged his work with Janáček as his single most important legacy to music. In 1951, he conducted the British premiere of Káťa Kabanová
Káta Kabanová
Káťa Kabanová is an opera in three acts, with music by Leoš Janáček to a libretto by Vincenc Červinka, based on The Storm, a play by Alexander Ostrovsky. The opera was also largely inspired by Janáček's love for Kamila Stösslová...
. He was also a noted authority on Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's operas and those of Sir Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
. His Sullivan ballet arrangement Pineapple Poll
Pineapple Poll
Pineapple Poll is a Gilbert and Sullivan-inspired comic ballet, created by choreographer John Cranko with arranger Sir Charles Mackerras. Pineapple Poll is based on "The Bumboat Woman's Story", one of W. S. Gilbert's Bab Ballads, written in 1870. The Gilbert and Sullivan opera H.M.S. Pinafore was...
(1951, just after the expiration of copyright on Sullivan's music), based on one of Gilbert's Bab Ballads
Bab Ballads
The Bab Ballads are a collection of light verse by W. S. Gilbert, illustrated with his own comic drawings. Gilbert wrote the Ballads before he became famous for his comic opera librettos with Arthur Sullivan...
, continues to be a popular light music favourite in English speaking countries. Mackerras also arranged music by Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
for the ballet The Lady and the Fool
The Lady and the Fool
The Lady and the Fool is a comic ballet, created by choreographer John Cranko with lesser-known operatic music by Verdi arranged by Sir Charles Mackerras...
. He also arranged a suite from John Ireland
John Ireland (composer)
John Nicholson Ireland was an English composer.- Life :John Ireland was born in Bowdon, near Altrincham, Manchester, into a family of Scottish descent and some cultural distinction. His father, Alexander Ireland, a publisher and newspaper proprietor, was aged 70 at John's birth...
's score for the 1946 film The Overlanders
The Overlanders (film)
The Overlanders is a 1946 Australian-British film about drovers droving a large herd of cattle 1600 miles overland from Wyndham in Western Australia through the Northern Territory outback of Australia to pastures north of Brisbane, Queensland during World War II.The film was one of several produced...
, after Ireland's death in 1962.
He became principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra
BBC Concert Orchestra
The BBC Concert Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five which is not a full-scale symphony orchestra....
from 1954 to 1956. In 1963, he made his debut at London's Covent Garden conducting Shostakovich's Katerina Izmailova
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (opera)
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District is an opera in four acts by Dmitri Shostakovich, his Op.29. The libretto was written by Alexander Preis and the composer, and is based on the story Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov. The opera is sometimes referred to informally as Lady Macbeth...
. He directed the Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg State Opera
The Hamburg State Opera is one of the leading opera companies in Germany.Opera in Hamburg dates back to 2 January 1678 when the "Opern-Theatrum" was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile...
from 1965 to 1969 and the English National Opera
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
from 1970 to 1977. In 1972, he made his Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
debut in New York conducting Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
's Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing...
. Mackerras worked closely with Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
for a time until 1958, when, during rehearsals for Britten's opera Noye's Fludde, he made comments about Britten liking prepubescent boys' company and they subsequently severed their relationship. The events are described in John Bridcut's Britten's Children.
He conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...
and Birgit Nilsson
Birgit Nilsson
right|thumb|Nilsson in 1948.Birgit Nilsson was a celebrated Swedish dramatic soprano who specialized in operatic and symphonic works...
in the opening concert of the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II, in 1973.
Later career
Mackerras was a guest conductor of the D'Oyly Carte Opera CompanyD'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
for The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
and The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
during the 1975 D'Oyly Carte Centenary season at the Savoy. He later joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Trust and later its Board of Trustees. In 1982 he was the first Australian national appointed chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...
, a post he held until 1985.
In 1980, he became the first non-Briton to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain.-History:...
at the Last Night of the Proms.
Mackerras directed the Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera is an opera company founded in Cardiff, Wales in 1943. The WNO tours Wales, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world extensively. Annually, it gives more than 120 performances of eight main stage operas to a combined audience of around 150,000 people...
from 1987 to 1992, where his Janáček productions won particular praise. One of the highlights of the 1991 season was the reopening of the Estates Theatre in Prague, scene of the original premiere of Mozart's Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, in which Mackerras conducted a new production of that opera to mark the bicentenary of Mozart's death. As Conductor Emeritus of Welsh National Opera, his successes included Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
, The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman and His Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888, and ran for 423 performances...
, and La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito , K. 621, is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Metastasio...
(all of which productions were brought to London). He was the principal guest conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is Scotland's national chamber orchestra, based in Edinburgh. One of Scotland’s five National Performing Arts Companies, the SCO performs throughout Scotland, including annual tours of the Scottish Highlands and Islands and South of Scotland. The SCO appears...
(SCO) from 1992 to 1995, and held the title of Conductor Laureate with the SCO. He was principal guest conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...
from 1993 to 1996. During the same period, he was also principal guest conductor of the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
. From 1998 to 2001 he was the music director of the Orchestra of St. Luke's
Orchestra of St. Luke's
The Orchestra of St. Luke's is an American chamber orchestra based in New York City.It was founded in the summer of 1979 at the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah, New York....
. From 1987, he regularly conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is a British period instrument orchestra. The OAE is a resident orchestra of the Southbank Centre, London, associate orchestra at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and has its headquarters at Kings Place...
and was appointed Emeritus Conductor in 2007.
In 2004, he became principal guest conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra
Philharmonia Orchestra
The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...
. He was also principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
The Česká filharmonie is a symphony orchestra based in Prague and is the best-known and most respected orchestra in the Czech Republic.- History :...
. With the Royal Opera, he conducted productions of Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
's Roméo et Juliette
Roméo et Juliette
Roméo et Juliette is an opéra in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique , Paris on 27 April 1867...
and Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Semele
Semele
Semele , in Greek mythology, daughter of the Boeotian hero Cadmus and Harmonia, was the mortal mother of Dionysus by Zeus in one of his many origin myths. In another version of his mythic origin, he is the son of Persephone...
. Mackerras also had a long association with the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, where he conducted The Makropulos Case, Káťa Kabanová
Káta Kabanová
Káťa Kabanová is an opera in three acts, with music by Leoš Janáček to a libretto by Vincenc Červinka, based on The Storm, a play by Alexander Ostrovsky. The opera was also largely inspired by Janáček's love for Kamila Stösslová...
and The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
.
In August 2008, Mackerras was announced as the new Honorary President
Title of honor
An honorary title or title of honor is a title bestowed upon individuals or organizations as an award in recognition of their merits.Sometimes the title bears the same or nearly the same name as a title of authority, but the person bestowed does not have to carry any duties, possibly except for...
of the Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
Society. He was only the second person to hold this role, after Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
. As the original part of the largest arts festival in the world
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
, the Edinburgh International Festival featured performances from Mackerras throughout six decades since his first in 1952.
Mackerras summarised his strategy for working with an orchestra as follows:
Mackerras was the President of Trinity College of Music
Trinity College of Music
Trinity College of Music is one of the London music conservatories, based in Greenwich. It is part of Trinity Laban.The conservatoire is inheritor of elegant riverside buildings of the former Greenwich Hospital, designed in part by Sir Christopher Wren...
, London. He also served as Music Advisor to City Opera of Vancouver
City Opera of Vancouver
City Opera of Vancouver is a professional chamber opera company founded in 2005. It was the lead company in efforts to restore Vancouver's Pantages Theatre, built by Alexander Pantages in 1907. The 650 seat building was considered to be the oldest remaining vaudeville theatre in Canada...
, a professional chamber opera company led by conductor Charles Barber. He was also a Patron of Bampton Classical Opera
Bampton Classical Opera
Bampton Classical Opera is an opera company based in Bampton, Oxfordshire specialising in the production of lesser known opera from the Classical period...
.
On 18 December 2008, Mackerras served as the conductor for Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel KBE is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.-Biography:...
's final concert performance with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
The Vienna Philharmonic is an orchestra in Austria, regularly considered one of the finest in the world....
. Mackerras's last public performance saw him conduct Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
at Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne is a country house, thought to be about six hundred years old, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England. It is also the site of an opera house which, with the exception of its closing during the Second World War, for a few immediate post-war years, and in 1993 during the...
in the summer of 2010.
Since 1999 Mackerras was a Patron of the Australian children's cancer charity Redkite.
Death
Mackerras died in London on 14 July 2010 at the age of 84, having suffered from cancer. Throughout his final illness, he had continued to conduct, and had been scheduled to direct two of the BBC Proms on and 2010. He was also due to conduct the Scottish Chamber OrchestraScottish Chamber Orchestra
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is Scotland's national chamber orchestra, based in Edinburgh. One of Scotland’s five National Performing Arts Companies, the SCO performs throughout Scotland, including annual tours of the Scottish Highlands and Islands and South of Scotland. The SCO appears...
performing Mozart's Idomeneo
Idomeneo
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...
at the Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
in August 2010, which would have been his 56th appearance at the festival. The director of the BBC Proms, Roger Wright, announced that a Prom would be dedicated to Mackerras's memory. Wright paid tribute to Mackerras, saying "Sir Charles was a great conductor and his loss will be deeply felt by musicians and audiences alike", while Rory Jeffes of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...
said that Australia had "lost a living treasure" Mackerras is survived by his wife, Judy, and their daughter, Catherine. His funeral was held at St Paul's, Covent Garden
St Paul's, Covent Garden
St Paul's Church, also commonly known as the Actors' Church, is a church designed by Inigo Jones as part of a commission by Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford in 1631 to create "houses and buildings fitt for the habitacons of Gentlemen and men of ability" in Covent Garden, London, England.As well...
on 23 July 2010.
Recordings
Mackerras made his earliest records for EMIEMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
, in the final days of 78 rpm records, and he continued recording well into the era of compact discs in the multi-channel Super Audio CD
Super Audio CD
Super Audio CD is a high-resolution, read-only optical disc for audio storage. Sony and Philips Electronics jointly developed the technology, and publicized it in 1999. It is designated as the Scarlet Book standard. Sony and Philips previously collaborated to define the Compact Disc standard...
format. In 1952, he conducted his first recording of his own Pineapple Poll
Pineapple Poll
Pineapple Poll is a Gilbert and Sullivan-inspired comic ballet, created by choreographer John Cranko with arranger Sir Charles Mackerras. Pineapple Poll is based on "The Bumboat Woman's Story", one of W. S. Gilbert's Bab Ballads, written in 1870. The Gilbert and Sullivan opera H.M.S. Pinafore was...
ballet, which was issued on twelve sides, and subsequently transferred to LP. Some of his early recording sessions were for Walter Legge
Walter Legge
Harry Walter Legge was an influential English classical record producer, most notably for EMI. His recordings include many sets later regarded as classics and reissued by EMI as "Great Recordings of the Century". He worked in the recording industry from 1927, combining this with the post of junior...
, standing in when Otto Klemperer
Otto Klemperer
Otto Klemperer was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century.-Biography:Otto Klemperer was born in Breslau, Silesia Province, then in Germany...
and other eminent conductors were ill.
He did not always restrict himself to the classical repertoire. For example, on 1955 he recorded Albert Arlen
Albert Arlen
Albert Arlen AM was a Turkish Australian pianist, composer, actor and playwright. He is best known for his musical The Sentimental Bloke , the "Alamein Concerto", and his setting of Banjo Paterson’s Clancy of the Overflow.-Biography:Albert Aarons was born in Sydney in 1905 to Turkish immigrants...
's song Clancy of the Overflow
Clancy of the Overflow
"Clancy of The Overflow" is a poem by Banjo Paterson, first published in The Bulletin, an Australian news magazine, on 21 December 1889. The poem is typical of Paterson, offering a romantic view of rural life, and is one of his best-known works.-History:...
(to Banjo Paterson
Banjo Paterson
Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, OBE was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales where he spent much of his childhood...
's poem) with Peter Dawson and the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
.
A smaller UK record company, Pye Records
Pye Records
Pye Records was a British record label. In its first incarnation, perhaps Pye's best known artists were Lonnie Donegan , Petula Clark , The Searchers , The Kinks , Sandie Shaw and Brotherhood of Man...
, asked Mackerras to record Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks. 'We had to do that in the middle of the night, in order to get our twenty-six oboes together.' The recording, issued in 1959, was received with critical acclaim for attempting to reproduce the sound Handel would have heard, rather than the smoother orchestral arrangements usually played at that time.
In the 1960s Mackerras made the first recording of the Italian version of Gluck's Orfeo
Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing...
. For DG
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
he conducted Purcell's Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at Josias Priest's girls' school in London no later than the summer of 1688. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid...
, and for EMI a 'new-look' Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
, with scholarly texts, small forces and sprightly tempi. He followed that up with Handel's Saul
Saul (Handel)
Saul is an oratorio in three acts written by George Frideric Handel with a libretto by Charles Jennens. Taken from the 1st Book of Samuel, the story of Saul focuses on the first king of Israel’s relationship with his eventual successor, David; one which turns from admiration to envy and hatred,...
and Israel in Egypt for DG. He also recorded the first complete Roberto Devereux
Roberto Devereux
Roberto Devereux is a tragedia lirica, or tragic opera, by Gaetano Donizetti...
with Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s. In her prime she was the only real rival to Joan Sutherland as the leading bel canto stylist...
.
In 1986, he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
in the soundtrack to Carroll Ballard
Carroll Ballard
-Biography:Carroll Ballard started out making documentaries for the U.S. Information Agency, Beyond This Winter's Wheat and Harvest ; the latter was nominated for an Academy Award...
's film version of The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...
(better known as Nutcracker: The Motion Picture), the first full-length film version of Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's ballet to be given a major release in theatres.
Mackerras recorded three Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
symphonies and all of the symphonies of Mozart, Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
and Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
. Along with the Mozart operas, these recordings continue to attract critical acclaim; as do his recordings of the operas of Janáček (Decca, Supraphon, and Chandos), and major works of Handel, Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
, Martinů
Bohuslav Martinu
Bohuslav Martinů was a prolific Czech composer of modern classical music. He was of Czech and Rumanian ancestry. Martinů wrote six symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. Martinů became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic...
, Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
, Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
, Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
, Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
, Delius
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
, Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
, Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
, and Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
, among many others.
For Telarc he also conducted Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its...
, H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
, The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
, The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
, and The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman and His Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888, and ran for 423 performances...
. In collaboration with David Mackie he reconstructed Sullivan's "lost" cello concerto
Cello Concerto (Sullivan)
The Cello Concerto in D major is Arthur Sullivan’s only concerto. It was premièred on 24 November 1866 at the Crystal Palace with August Manns conducting and was one of Sullivan's earliest major works.There are three movements:*Allegro moderato...
, conducting its first performance with cellist Julian Lloyd Webber
Julian Lloyd Webber
Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist who has been described as the "doyen of British cellists".-Early life:Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer William Lloyd Webber and his wife Jean Johnstone . He is the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber...
and the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
at Barbican Hall
Barbican Centre
The Barbican Centre is the largest performing arts centre in Europe. Located in the City of London, England, the Centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory...
, London, in April 1986, and a recording for EMI shortly afterwards.
Mackerras's discography also includes a recording of Britten's Gloriana
Gloriana
Gloriana is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten to an English libretto by William Plomer, based on Elizabeth and Essex by Lytton Strachey...
, which won Gramophone magazine's "Best Opera Recording" in 1994. In 1997, Mackerras recorded Le delizie dell'amor, with the soprano Andrea Rost
Andrea Rost
Andrea Rost is a Hungarian lyric soprano. She has performed in leading roles with the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, the Royal Opera House, Opéra National de Paris, the Metropolitan Opera and the Salzburg Festival...
, for Sony Classical. His most recent release for that label was Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
with the Hanover Band (S2K 63174). Other recent recordings for Sony Classical include Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
's two piano concertos with Emanuel Ax
Emanuel Ax
Emanuel Ax is a Grammy-winning American classical pianist. He is currently a teacher on the faculty of the Juilliard School. He is considered one of the best known concert pianists of the 21st century.-Early life:...
and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is a British period instrument orchestra. The OAE is a resident orchestra of the Southbank Centre, London, associate orchestra at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and has its headquarters at Kings Place...
(SK 60771) and (SK 63371). He also recorded Dvořák's Rusalka
Rusalka (opera)
Rusalka is an opera by Antonín Dvořák. The Czech libretto was written by the poet Jaroslav Kvapil based on the fairy tales of Karel Jaromír Erben and Božena Němcová. Rusalka is one of the most successful Czech operas, and represents a cornerstone of the repertoire of Czech opera houses...
(Decca) and Slavonic Dances (Supraphon), Josef Suk
Josef Suk (composer)
Josef Suk was a Czech composer and violinist.- Life :Suk was born in Křečovice. He studied at Prague Conservatory from 1885 to 1892, where he was a pupil of Antonín Dvořák and Antonín Bennewitz. In 1898, he married Dvořák's eldest daughter, Otilie Dvořáková , affectionately known as Otilka...
's A Summer Tale (Decca), Mozart's Piano Concerto
Piano concerto
A piano concerto is a concerto written for piano and orchestra.See also harpsichord concerto; some of these works are occasionally played on piano...
s Nos. 20 and 24 with Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel KBE is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.-Biography:...
(Philips), and Brahms's two orchestral serenades (Telarc). For Linn Records
Linn Records
Linn Records is a Glasgow-based record label which specialises in classical, jazz and Scottish music. It is part of Linn Products.-History:While Linn engineers were testing their flagship product, the Sondek LP12 turntable, they became frustrated with some of the specialist test LPs they were using...
he recorded a two-SACD set of Mozart's last four symphonies with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in August 2007.
Honours
Charles Mackerras was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1974 New Year HonoursNew Year Honours
The New Year Honours is a part of the British honours system, being a civic occasion on the New Year annually in which new members of most Commonwealth Realms honours are named. The awards are presented by the reigning monarch or head of state, currently Queen Elizabeth II...
, and was knighted
Knight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in the 1979 New Year Honours. In 1978, he was presented with the Janáček Medal for services to Czech music, on stage at the Coliseum Theatre
Coliseum Theatre
The London Coliseum is an opera house and major performing venue on St. Martin's Lane, central London. It is one of London's largest and best equipped theatres and opened in 1904, designed by theatrical architect Frank Matcham , for impresario Oswald Stoll...
, by the Czechoslovak ambassador. In 1990, he was awarded an Honorary Degree by the University of Hull
University of Hull
The University of Hull, known informally as Hull University, is an English university, founded in 1927, located in Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire...
. In 1996, he received the Medal of Merit from the Czech Republic, and, in 1997 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for services to music and Australian music.Citation: For service to music as an operatic conductor and for the promotion of the international status of Australian music. In 2001, he was awarded the Centenary Medal
Centenary Medal
The Centenary Medal is an award created by the Australian Government in 2001. It was established to commemorate the Centenary of Federation of Australia and to honour people who have made a contribution to Australian society or government...
, created to mark the centenary of the Federation of Australia
Federation of Australia
The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia formed one nation...
.Citation: For service to Australian society and music In 2003 he was made a Companion of Honour (CH) in the Queen's Birthday Honours
Queen's Birthday Honours
The Queen's Birthday Honours is a part of the British honours system, being a civic occasion on the celebration of the Queen's Official Birthday in which new members of most Commonwealth Realms honours are named. The awards are presented by the reigning monarch or head of state, currently Queen...
. In 2005, he was presented with the Royal Philharmonic Society
Royal Philharmonic Society
The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...
Gold Medal, and he was also the first recipient of the Queen's Medal for Music, announced by the Master of the Queen's Music
Master of the Queen's Music
Master of the Queen's Music is a post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The holder of the post originally served the monarch of England.The post is roughly comparable to that of Poet Laureate...
, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, on the stage of the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
before a Proms performance of HMS Pinafore
HMS Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
.
External links
- Charles Mackerras at the Bach Cantatas Website
- Charles Mackerras profile and interview at ClassicsToday.com
- Charles Mackerras biography and interview at the Philharmonia OrchestraPhilharmonia OrchestraThe Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...
- Interview with Charles Mackerras at the City of Birmingham Symphony OrchestraCity of Birmingham Symphony OrchestraThe City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. The Orchestra's current chief executive, appointed in 1999, is Stephen Maddock...
- Profile focusing on Mackerras's Sullivan connections
- Recent profile of Mackerras
- Clip of Mackerras conducting
- Photos of Mackerras throughout his life
- Mackerras and the Sydney Symphony OrchestraSydney Symphony OrchestraThe Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...
at the 'Sydney Opera House Opening Concert' in 1973