Colin Carhart McPhee (March 15, 1900 – January 7, 1964) was a Canadian-American
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
and
ethnomusicologist. He is best known for being the first Western composer to make a musicological study of
Bali
Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...
,
and developing
American gamelan
American gamelan could refer to both instruments and music; the term has been used to refer to gamelan-style instruments built by Americans, as well as to music written by American composers to be played on gamelan instruments. American gamelan ...
along with fellow composer
Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his for ...
. He wrote original music influenced by that of Bali and
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
, decades before such compositions that were based on
world music became widespread.
Early life and career
Childhood
McPhee was born on March 15, 1900, in
Montréal, Québec
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, to a family of mostly Scottish and German ancestry. His father, Alexander McPhee, was an advertising executive for
Bell Telephone Company
The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint stock company, was organized in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 1877, by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped organize a sister company – the New Englan ...
. His mother, Lavinia McPhee (née Carhart) was originally from New Jersey and settled in Montréal after marrying Alexander.
First musical education
He enrolled in the
Peabody Institute
The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University is a private conservatory and preparatory school in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1857 and opened in 1866 by merchant/financier and philanthropist George Peabody (1795–1869) ...
in 1918, studying composition with
Gustav Strube
Gustav Strube (3 March 1867 – 2 February 1953) was a German-born conductor and composer. He was the founding conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 1916, and taught at the Peabody Conservatory. He wrote two operas, ''Ramona'', which ...
and piano with Harold Randolph; subsequently he studied with the avant-garde composer
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; he coined ...
before marrying Jane Belo, a disciple of
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s.
She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard Co ...
, in 1931.
Career
McPhee joined the circle of experimental composers known as the "ultra-modernists" and was among those—along with the group's leader,
Henry Cowell
Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 202 ...
,
John J. Becker, and Cowell protégé
Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his for ...
—particularly interested in what would later become known as "world music." McPhee and his wife moved to Bali together for Belo's anthropological work. Once there McPhee studied, filmed and wrote extensively about the culture and music of the
gamelan
Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...
s, and in 1936 wrote an original musical score, ''Tabuh Tabuhan'', in the Balinese style.
McPhee, who was
gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
,
divorced Belo in 1939. In the early 1940s he lived in a large brownstone in Brooklyn, which he shared with
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...
and
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
, among others.
In 1942 he arranged Britten's ''
Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge
Variation or Variations may refer to:
Science and mathematics
* Variation (astronomy), any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon
* Genetic variation, the difference in DNA among individuals ...
'', a work for string orchestra, for two pianos, to be used for
Lew Christensen
Lewellyn Farr Christensen (May 6, 1909 – October 9, 1984) was a ballet dancer, choreographer and director for many companies. He was largely associated with George Balanchine and the San Francisco Ballet, which he directed from 1952–1984. ...
's ballet ''Jinx''.
McPhee was responsible for introducing Britten to the Balinese music that influenced such works by the British composer as ''The Prince of the Pagodas'', ''
Curlew River
''Curlew River – A Parable for Church Performance'' (Op. 71) is an English music drama, with music by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by William Plomer. The first of Britten's three 'Parables for Church Performance', the work is based on the ...
'', and ''
Death in Venice
''Death in Venice ''(German: ''Der Tod in Venedig'') is a novella by German author Thomas Mann, published in 1912. It presents an ennobled writer who visits Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed by the sight of a Poli ...
''.
In 1947 McPhee published a book ''A House in Bali'', about Balinese culture and music during the 1930s.
["The Best Travel Books About Bali"]
''National Geographic'', February 24, 2016, By Don George Later in the decade, McPhee fell into an alcohol-fueled depression, but began to write music again during the 1950s. He became professor of ethnomusicology at UCLA in 1958 and was also a respected jazz
critic
A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governmen ...
. He died in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
.
In the 1990s,
Alex Pauk's
Esprit Orchestra recorded and released renditions of several never previously recorded compositions by McPhee. This resulted in McPhee receiving posthumous
Juno Award
The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...
nominations for
Best Classical Composition for "Symphony No. 2" at the
Juno Awards of 1998
The Juno Awards of 1998 were presented in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The primary ceremonies at GM Place before an audience of 10 000 on 22 March 1998.
Actor Jason Priestley of the television series ''Beverly Hills, 90210'' host ...
and "Concerto for Wind Orchestra" at the
Juno Awards of 1999
The Juno Awards of 1999 honouring Canadian music industry achievements were held in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The primary ceremonies at Copps Coliseum on 7 March 1999 were broadcast by CBC Television and hosted by Mike Bullard.
Nominations we ...
. He won the award in 1999.
On June 26 and 27, 2009, an opera about McPhee's life by the American composer
Evan Ziporyn
Evan Ziporyn (b. Chicago, Illinois, December 14, 1959) is an American composer of post-minimalist music with a cross-cultural orientation, drawing equally from classical music, avant-garde, various world music traditions, and jazz. Ziporyn h ...
, entitled ''A House in Bali'', premiered at Puri Saraswati in
Ubud
Ubud is a town on the Indonesian island of Bali in Ubud District, located amongst rice paddies and steep ravines in the central foothills of the Gianyar regency. Promoted as an arts and culture centre, it has developed a large tourism industry. ...
, Bali.
In 2017, an album ''Peter Pears: Balinese Ceremonial Music'', performed Thomas Bartlett & Nico Muhly and partly based on McPhee's transcriptions, was released on the Nonesuch/Warners label.
Published works
McPhee's ''A House in Bali'', the chronicle of his life there, is still considered a valuable introduction to Balinese culture.
His posthumously published ''Music in Bali'' was the first comprehensive analysis of Balinese music published in English.
His best-known musical work is ''Tabuh-Tabuhan: Toccata for Orchestra,'' composed and premiered in Mexico in 1936. Its title translates as "collection of percussion instruments," and it combines Balinese and traditional Western musical elements. It is scored for Western orchestra but, in McPhee's description, the core of the ensemble is a "'nuclear gamelan' composed of two pianos,
celesta
The celesta or celeste , also called a bell-piano, is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. It looks similar to an upright piano (four- or five-octave), albeit with smaller keys and a much smaller cabinet, or a large wooden music box ( ...
, xylophone,
marimba
The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
, and
glockenspiel
The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone.
The glo ...
," giving it a percussive balance of sound. The orchestra is augmented by two Balinese gongs and cymbals. The work is in three movements: "Ostinatos," a flute-related "Nocturne," and a syncopated "Finale." Some of the themes in it derive from Balinese folk sources. In 2013 the piece was choreographed and performed by the American Ballet Theater Company.
"American Ballet Theater's 'Sylphides' and 'Gong'"
''New York Times'' - Nov. 3, 2013 Allistair Macaulay
*''Angkloeng gamelans in Bali''. (1937?)
*''Balinese wajang koelit and its music''. (1936?, 1981)
*''Children and music in Bali''. (1938) Publisher: Overdruk Uit Djawa
*''A House in Bali''. (1944) Publisher: The Asia Press with The John Day Company, New York
*''Transitions for orchestra''. (1954)
*''Music in Bali: a study in form and instrumental organization in Balinese orchestral music''. (1966, 1976)
*''A House in Bali''. (1980) (introduction by James Murdoch
James Rupert Jacob Murdoch (born 13 December 1972) is a British-American businessman, the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and was the chief executive officer (CEO) of 21st Century Fox from 2015 to 2019.
He was the chairman and CEO fo ...
)
*''Club of small men : a children's tale from Bali''. (2002)
Films
*1985: ''Colin McPhee: The Lure of Asian Music'' (dir. Michael Blackwood)
References
Further reading
*
External links
UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive: Colin McPhee Collection
- includes links to three silent movies by McPhee.
UCLA Ethnomusicolgy Archive - Multimedia
- a slideshow about Colin McPhee with photos and audio recordings from the collection.
Colin McPhee's entry in the ''Canadian Encyclopedia''
*Larry Polansky. Ethnomusicology
Listening
Portrait of Composer Colin McPhee by Charles Amirkhanian (November 5, 1980)
Colin McPhee: the Lure of Asian Music
- a clip from the documentary offering a brief gamelan concert followed by an excerpt of a piece by Colin McPhee.
{{DEFAULTSORT:McPhee, Colin
1900 births
1964 deaths
20th-century American composers
20th-century American educators
20th-century American male musicians
20th-century American musicians
20th-century American pianists
20th-century Canadian composers
20th-century Canadian male musicians
20th-century Canadian musicians
20th-century classical composers
20th-century classical pianists
20th-century essayists
20th-century LGBT people
20th-century musicologists
American avant-garde musicians
Canadian classical composers
Canadian ethnomusicologists
Canadian gay musicians
Canadian male classical composers
Canadian people of English descent
Canadian people of German descent
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Experimental composers
Gamelan
Juno Award for Classical Composition of the Year winners
Jazz writers
LGBT artists from the United States
LGBT classical composers
LGBT classical musicians
American LGBT musicians
American LGBT writers
Modernist composers
Music & Arts artists
Music theorists
Musicians from Montreal
University of California, Los Angeles faculty