MacCunn, Hamish (1868-1916)

Scottish composer and conductor. His overture Cior Mhor was performed at the Crystal Palace, London, when he was 17 years old. After 1890 he conducted the Carl Rosa Opera Company for some time, and also conducted Edward German's light operas at the Savoy Theatre, London.

He studied with Parry and Stanford at the Royal College of Music in London. In 1889 he married a daughter of the painter John Pettie.

Works Opera Jeanie Deans (after Scott, 1894), Diarmid (1897), and Breast of Light (unfinished); light opera, including The Golden Girl (1905) and Prue; music for The Masque of War and Peace and Pageant of Darkness and Light.

Cantatas The Moss Rose (1885), Lord Ullin's Daughter (Thomas Campbell, 1888), The Lay of the Last Minstrel (after Scott), Bonny Kilmeny (James Hogg), The Cameronian's Dream (James Hyslop, 1890), Queen Hynde of Caledon (Hogg), The Death of Parcy Reed, The Wreck of the Hesperus (Longfellow, 1905), and others.

Other Psalm 8 for chorus and organ; overture The Land of the Mountain and the Flood; ballads ‘The Ship o' the Fiend’ and ‘The Dowie Dens o' Yarrow’, three descriptive pieces Highland Memories for orchestra; three Romantic pieces for cello and piano (1914).