M A C K E N Z I E, SIR ALEXANDER CAMPBELL (1847-1935), British composer, son of an eminent Edinburgh violinist and conductor, was born on Aug. 22, 1847. Mackenzie studied at the Sondershausen conservatorium under Ulrich and Stein, and in 1861 entered the ducal orchestra as a violinist. At this time he made Liszt's acquaintance. On his return home he spent three years at the Royal Academy of Music. He took part in Chappell's quartette concerts, and started a set of classical concerts. He was appointed precentor of St. George's Church in 187o, and conductor of the Scottish vocal music association in 1873. The most important compositions of this period of Mac kenzie's life were the Quartette in E flat for piano and strings, Op. I I, and an overture, Cervantes, which owed its first perform ance to the encouragement and help of von Billow. On the advice of this great pianist, he settled in Florence in order to compose. The cantatas The Bride (Worcester, 1881) and Jason (Bristol, 1882) belong to this time, as well as his first opera, Colomba (1883), commissioned for the Carl Rosa Company. Mackenzie's
second opera, The Troubadour, was produced by the same com pany in 1886 ; and his third dramatic work was His Majesty, an excellent comic opera (Savoy Theatre, 1897). In 1888 he suc ceeded Macfarren as principal of the Royal Academy of Music. This post he held until 1924, and the importance of his influence over the younger generation of English musicians was very great. From 1892 to 1899 Mackenzie conducted the Philharmonic Con certs, and was knighted in the year 1894. In the two "Scottish Rhapsodies" for orchestra, in the music to The Little Minister, and in a beautiful fantasia for pianoforte and orchestra on Scottish themes, he has seized the essential, not the accidental features of his native music.
Mackenzie's works include The Rose of Sharon (Norwich fes• tival, 1884) ; three Scottish Rhapsodies : No. 1 (Glasgow, 188o); No. 2, "Burns" (Glasgow, 1881) ; No. 3, "Tarn O'Shanter" (Int. Music Congress, London, 1911); the Pibroch suite for violin (Leeds, 1889), etc. See his A Musician's Narrative (1927).