Alexander Malcolm (writer on music)

Alexander Malcolm (1685 - 1763) was the Scottish author of A Treatise on Musick, Speculative, Practical & Historical, Edinburgh, 1721.

Alexander Malcolm was born in Edinburgh 25 December 1685,^[1] the son of a minister. Nothing is known of his education, but as a young man he established himself as a teacher of mathematics. His most important publication, A Treatise on Musick, Speculative, Practical & Historical, Edinburgh, was published in 1721, and reprinted in 1779. His other publications were New Treatise on Arithmetic and Book Keeping, Edinburgh, 1718 and A New System of Arithmetic, Theoretical and Practical London, 1730 ^[2]

Charles Burney commented that the work had considerable merit, but was too scientific for an elementary tract and too superficial in the rules for practical harmony. Nevertheless, Ephraim Chambers used Malcolm extensively when writing the first edition of his Cyclopaedia.^[3]

Malcolm had migrated to America, and in 1734 was established in New York as master of a grammar school. He was rector of Saint Michael's Church, Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1740, and in 1749 became rector of St Anne's Parish Church, Annapolis, Maryland. He moved in 1754 on his appointment as rector of St Paul's Parish Church, in Queen Anne County, Maryland. Later he was appointed master of the Free School there. He resigned this post in 1759, following a dispute about what should be taught there. Malcolm died in June 1763.^[2]

Footnotes

1. 1685 for his birth date is cited by Heintze in Grove Music Online, but Maurer (1952) has 1687.
2. Maurer, Maurer (1952). "Alexander Malcolm in America". Music and Letters. 33 (3): 226–231. JSTOR 729237.
3. Burney, Charles (1812). "Malcolm, Alexander". Rees's Cyclopaedia. 22.

Sources

• Burney, Charles, 'Malcolm, Alexander' in Rees's Cyclopaedia, Vol 22, 1812, unpaginated. [This is largely a review of Malcolm's Treatise on Music. Burney did not mention him in his History of Music.]
• Maurer, Maurer, 'Alexander Malcolm in America', in Music & Letters, vol 33, No. 3, (July 1952) pp 226–231, http://www.jstor.org/stable/729237 (subscription required)
• Kassler, Jamie Kroy, The Science of Music in Britain: A Catalogue of writings, Lectures and Inventions, 2 vol, Garland, 1979 [Malcolm is discussed at pp 732–738 as well as numerous index references.]
• Heintze, James R., "Malcolm, Alexander." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 3 Oct. 2014. (Subscription required)