Colin McAlpin

Colin McAlpin (9 April 1870 – 13 May 1942) was an English composer of songs, operas and ballet music, an organist and a writer of critical essays on music.

Colin McAlpin was born in 1870, at 15 Gallowtree Gate, Leicester, England. He was the fourth child of a clothier John William McAlpin, and his German wife Marie Louise (née Gerdes). His elder siblings were Kenneth, Donal and Janet, and his younger brothers Alan and John.

McAlpin published his first composition when he was only 15 and at Wellingborough School: a song called The Cuckoo published in the Midland Musical Journal. At the age of 16 he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Music to study harmony with F. W. Davenport and organ playing with Charles Steggall, and after three years he acquired silver medals in both areas of study. In 1892 Robin Hood, his first dramatic work, was performed at Wellingborough School and that year he was appointed organist and choirmaster at Kensington Presbyterian Church.

In 1897, King Arthur, an opera in three acts, commissioned by impresario Herbert Marshall, was performed by the Leicester Philharmonic Society under H. S. Ellis. In that year three of McAlpin's Ten Songs were performed in one of Granville Bantock's concerts for British composers. The Ten Songs were published by Cary & Son, the first of dozens of his pieces to be published by this company. In his thirtieth year McAlpin was appointed organist and choirmaster of Trinity Presbyterian Church Clapham, where his sacred cantata The Prince of Peace had its first performance. He was in 1920 appointed organist and choirmaster of Ealing Presbyterian Church, and in that year his cantata Excalibur was performed in London.

In 1903 King Arthur was performed at the Royalty Theatre, London. In the same year his opera in four acts, The Cross and the Crescent, first produced at Covent Garden by the Moody-Manners company, won him the Manners Prize of £250 for the best opera by a British composer, and it was performed subsequently in Glasgow and Edinburgh. A one-act opera The Vow staged at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham won him the same prize twelve years later.

His writings included critical essays published in journals The Musical Times and The Musical Quarterly, and his book Hermaia: a Study in Comparative Esthetics, which his biographer David J. Fisher describes as "a remarkable study of comparative aesthetics", has been recognised as culturally important.

In 1907 McAlpin had his portrait painted by Richard Jack RA, and a bronze bust was sculpted by W. B. Fagan FRBS.

He married an artist Susette Peach (1871-1950) in 1899, and they had one son Roderic McAlpin (1907-1965).

Colin McAlpin died at Dorking, Surrey, on 13 May 1942.