With a look of determined concentration, Hugh Macdonald leaned over the piano keys and began a long, blistering run up the keyboard. Pushing his fingers through a mesmerizing rush of notes, he dashed off the final chord, tossed back his head and smiled modestly.
"How was that?" he asked his wife, Elizabeth, a well-known local cellist, during a rehearsal for a recital the two presented last month in Steinberg Hall Auditorium.
Performing at the highest level -- in endeavors both musical and scholarly -- always has been the goal of Hugh Macdonald, Ph.D., the Avis Blewett Professor of Music and newly appointed chair of the Department of Music in Arts and Sciences.
Recently, Macdonald has been giving a great deal of time to his development as a classical pianist. He puts in as much practice time as he can every day and said that preparing for last month's recital was challenging.
"For many years, I didn't perform at all," Macdonald said in his soft British accent, intact after nearly 10 years of living in the United States. "I'd play everything at sight. But now I'm beginning to play more seriously."
Macdonald combines a serious interest in music performance with a deep intellectual curiosity about music scholarship. He receives rewards from both pursuits.
"I would find it very hard to be interested in musical scholarship without wanting to play," Macdonald said. "Music is something to be done as much as to be thought about and studied."
As a musicologist, Macdonald's contributions to the field are prolific. He has written three books and has been published extensively in academic journals, both in the United States and in Europe. His primary scholarly interest focuses on the music and life of Hector Berlioz; Macdonald is considered the world's leading authority on the French Romantic composer.
Between traveling long distances to hear concerts that had Berlioz on the program, the young Macdonald spent his days playing the piano and learning an eclectic repertoire of classical, jazz and show tunes. Realizing a career in music, however, didn't happen until years later.
He entered Cambridge University as a mathematics major and in 1961 received a bachelor's degree in mathematics and music with first-class honors. During his early studies, Macdonald planned to become an engineer. But for "technical administrative reasons," he was unable to shift his major to engineering at the undergraduate level.
"I was seduced into music," Macdonald recalled, noting that his friends studied music full time and seemed to flourish doing so. "And so I got lured into doing that full time as well. I have no regrets about that. But it wasn't the way it was meant to be."
He went on to receive a master's degree in 1966 and a doctorate in 1969, both in music and both from Cambridge. While embarking on scholarly pursuits, Macdonald was tempted to follow his passion for jazz and musical theater and carve out a life tickling the ivories in London clubs and theaters. "But I ended up in the academic world," he said.
From 1971 to 1980, Macdonald was University Lecturer in Music and a fellow of St. John's College at Oxford University. He then took a position as the Gardiner Professor of Music at Scotland's Glasgow University, where he served from 1980-87.
He met his wife in 1979 during a stint as a visiting professor of musicology at Indiana University in Bloomington. Elizabeth Macdonald is a cellist who substitutes from time to time with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and she heads the music department's string program. The two have an 11-year-old son, Jack.
In 1987, Hugh Macdonald became the Avis Blewett Professor of Music at Washington University, where he teaches music history and conducts research. Macdonald said musical scholarship fills a number of important needs.
First, there is the archival task of sifting through the complex paper trail of musical history and cataloging historical data. Scholarship also provides the needed background and context for music, benefiting both listener and interpreter, he said.
"This requires historical knowledge to understand what the composer was hoping to achieve and a good deal of technical knowledge to know what to listen for, as well as an explanation of what it all signifies," Macdonald said.
Recent graduate Karin Di Bella said Macdonald conveys these points with enthusiasm. He is knowledgeable and excited about the material he teaches, she said.
"He presents it in a humane manner," Di Bella said. "He's not looking at the music as just a relic of history. He presents these composers as real, living, breathing human beings, which is not the case in all classes."
The "Messe Solennelle," scored for orchestra, soloists and chorus, was composed in 1824 when Berlioz was 20. The composer reportedly burned the work in 1827 after a less-than-well-received Paris performance.
Macdonald made headlines worldwide when he authenticated the manuscript after its discovery.
"That doesn't happen more than once in anyone's lifetime," Macdonald said, noting that the discovery of a new work by a major composer is exceedingly rare. "This was an extraordinary event. I was fortunate it came my way."
After declaring the manuscript genuine, Macdonald edited the work for performance. It since has been performed in Europe and the United States and has been recorded by Philips Records. Macdonald noted that while the "Messe Solennelle" represents the efforts of a young man at the beginning of his career, it does contain elements of Berlioz's future greatness. Many of the musical themes within the work appear in later Berlioz pieces, including passages in his "Fantastic Symphony" and the "Roman Carnival" overture.
While the discovery was a unique moment in Macdonald's professional career, he said there still is much work to be done on Berlioz. One of Macdonald's long-term projects is serving as general editor of "New Berlioz Edition," a 26-volume collection of the composer's complete works, published by Bärenreiter-Verlag, a German publishing company. He started the project in 1966 and plans to complete it in the year 2003 -- the bicentennial of Berlioz's birth.
"I've been at it for 30 years, and it keeps me constantly busy," Macdonald said of the ongoing research project. "But I don't just do that -- it would be rather dreary in the end."
He has done considerable research on other composers and is well-known for his translations of German, French and Italian operas into English. Macdonald also regularly presents pre-concert talks before Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra programs at Powell Symphony Hall.
He also is known for his prowess on the squash court, said John Stewart, head of the vocal program and Macdonald's squash partner. "He's amazingly quick on his feet," Stewart said. "He has a vicious backhand -- one would never believe."
More importantly, Stewart praised Macdonald's ability to balance the interests of scholarship and performance.
"That to me is what's so wonderful about his chairmanship," Stewart said. "He combines professional experience in the academic side of things with being a very, very active performer. He really is sympathetic and understands performers' needs and interests."
As music department chair, Macdonald said his main priorities are to attract the best students and promote top-notch teaching and research. He would like to increase some areas of scholarship and some areas of performance and eventually would like to see a concert hall built on campus.
"We have a good faculty and a fine library," he said. "We're very well-placed to be a major force in musical scholarship."
He also believes St. Louis is culturally well-placed. Although the region provides many musical outlets, he would like to see the community do more to recognize and elevate the arts, literature and music to the highest standards.
"The culture is there," Macdonald said. "It is just a matter of making people aware of it and understanding that this is an essential part of a civilized life."
-- Neal Learner
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