Clarence Lucas

Clarence Lucas, composer, writer, conductor (b at Six Nations Reserve near Brantford 19 Oct 1866; d at Sèvres, near Paris 1 Jul 1947) was the son of a Methodist minister who settled in Montréal in 1878. There Clarence studied piano, organ and violin, and organized a school orchestra. In 1885 he went to Europe, where he studied in Paris and married a student of Clara Schumann, Clara Asher. They both began teaching at the Toronto College of Music in 1888. By 1889 Lucas was also music director of the Wesleyan Ladies College in Hamilton and conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic Society. In 1890-92 he was also teaching in Utica, NY, but by 1893 returned to London, England. He taught theory and composition to Mark and Jan Hambourg among others, read proofs and revised manuscripts for Chappell, and prepared a vocal score of Gounod's Faust. In 1893 he was awarded a BMus degree from the University of Toronto. In 1903 he began his 30-year association with the Musical Courier of New York as a correspondent and photographer.

Along with continuing to produce a vast array of his own compositions for piano, voice, chamber music, the orchestral overtures to Othello, As You Like It, and Macbeth, the cantata Birth of Christ, the musical Peggy Machree and the opera The Monkey Spider, he conducted various productions throughout the British Isles. He conducted the US premiere of Grieg's incidental music for Ibsen's Peer Gynt in 1906 and toured the US with the production as well as his own Peggy Machree. From 1907 to 1919 he was based in New York, where he conducted and composed music in both popular and classical veins. His lyrics were used for Joseph Carl Breil's songs (including The Perfect Song) of D.W. Griffith's film Intolerance (1916). The remainder of his life was spent in Europe, either in London or Sèvres, where he freelanced as a transcriber, arranger, lyricist and translator. Because Lucas was the most versatile Canadian composer of the late 19th century, a number of his compositions have been republished in volumes 3, 4, 6, 8, 14, 18, 20, 22, 23 and 25 of the CANADIAN MUSICAL HERITAGE SOCIETY. His papers and manuscripts have been deposited at the LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA.