Stewart Macpherson

(Charles) Stewart Macpherson (29 March 1865 – 27 March 1941) was an English musician of Scottish descent. He was born in Liverpool, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 1887, he joined the RAM staff, and taught harmony and composition. He founded the Music Teachers' Association in 1908, and was its chairman until 1923. From 1925 to 1927, he was dean of the Faculty of Music in the University of London. One of his notable students was violinist John Waterhouse.

Macpherson was primarily a music educator, and is remembered for such textbooks as Practical Harmony (1894), Form in Music (1908), and Melody and Harmony (1920). Also a composer, he wrote a Symphony in C (1880), a Mass in D (1898), and a Concerto alla fantasia for violin and orchestra (1904).

He died in the British capital, London, on 27 March 1941.

Writings

• Practical Harmony (1894)
• Practical Counterpoint (1900)
• The Rudiments of Music (1903)
• Questions and Exercises upon the Rudiments of Music (1907)
• Form in Music (1908)
• Music and its Appreciation (1910)
• The Appreciative Aspects of Music-Study (1910)
• Studies in Phrasing and Form (1911)
• Modern Ideas in the Teaching of Harmony (1912)
• Aural Culture based upon Musical Appreciation (1912–21, with E. Read)
• Ear-Training and the Teaching of the Minor Mode (1913)
• The Musical Education of the Child (1915)
• Melody and Harmony (1920)
• The Appreciation Class (1923)
• Studies in the Art of Counterpoint (1928)
• A Simple Introduction to the Principles of Tonality (1929)
• A Commentary on … the Forty-Eight Preludes and Fugues (Das Wohltemperirte Klavier) of Johann Sebastian Bach (1934–7)
• Cameos of Musical History (1937)

Sources

• Shaw, Watkins. "Macpherson, (Charles) Stewart". Grove Music Online (subscription access)