Mapping Canada's Music: Selected Writings of Helmut Kallmann

7. James Paton Clarke, Canada’s First Mus.Bac. (1970)

7 James Paton Clarke, Canada’s First Mus.Bac. Many of HK’s findings on the Scottish-born Canadian musical pioneer James Paton Clarke had been included in his book A History of Music in Canada 1534–1914 a decade before this essay was first published. Here he reveals how as a historian he sorted out conflicting biographical information; he also comments critically on the main items in Clarke’s creative output. The result is an unusually full picture of a professional musician and his local environment in a mid-nineteenth-century Canadian city (Toronto). Examples of Clarke’s music are reproduced in The Canadian Musical Heritage/Le Patrimoine musical canadien, volumes 1, 2, 3, 5, and 17.  James Paton Clarke was the first person in Canada to receive an academic music degree. This distinction alone should arouse our curiosity about his career. But Clarke also may be considered the first musician who had a substantial number of compositions published in Canada and the first in Toronto whose activities were sufficiently broad in scope to stamp him as the leading musician of the city, even though he enjoyed this role neither for as long a period nor as firmly as Frederick Herbert Torrington, Augustus Stephen Vogt and Sir Ernest MacMillan did in later years. Yet another “first” has to be registered: Clarke was the first musician in Canada whose name has been entered in a large number of music The Canada Music Book / Les Cahiers canadiens de musique 1 (Spring-Summer 1970), 41–51. The list of works by J.P. Clarke (pages 52–53) has been omitted here. Mapping Canada’s Music 66 dictionaries, including such standard works as Baker’s, Grove’s, Riemann’s and Thompson’s.1 And in this circumstance of Clarke’s posthumous reputation lies fascination as well as mystery for the curious student. It is easy to demonstrate why by juxtaposing a few salient quotations: Clarke, James Peyton, Scottish organist; b. 1808; d. Toronto, Aug. 27, 1877. In 1829, leader of psalmody in St. George’s Church, Edinburgh … emigrated to Canada, 1835, settling as a farmer in Ellora, but went to Toronto about 1841; about 1845 was elected prof. of music in Upper Canada University … (Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 5th ed., 1958)2 He was born in 1807 … His position as an organist and teacher was of such distinction that Toronto University gave him his doctorate in 1877 … (John D. Mahoney, “Dr. Hugh A. Clarke, Musician,” General Magazine and Historical Chronicle, Pennsylvania University, General Alumni Society, Philadelphia , vol. 48, April 1941). James Paton C. was an Oxford Mus. Doc., prof. of music at Upper Canada Univ. (J. D. Champlin, Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians, New York, 1888–90). James Peyton Clarke, a Scottish organist (1808–77) who, after an active career in Edinburgh, went to Canada to become organist of St. James’s Cathedral, Toronto, and was later head of the musical faculty of the University of Toronto. (Hector Charlesworth, Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Supplementary Volume, ed. H.C. Colles, 1940). Mus. Dr. James Paton C. (1808–77, Musiklehrer an der Canadischen Universit ät) … (Riemanns Musiklexikon, 11th ed., 1929). Clarke’s is obviously a classic case of biographical distortion through superficial research and careless copying by one writer or editor from another . The only undisputed facts in the above excerpts are the spelling of James and Clarke and the dates of his emigration and death! Nearly all other facets of his career—his middle name, the identity of his father , the location of St. George’s Church, the nature of his association with the University of Toronto, his doctoral degree—have been handed down in conflicting versions, adding an element of speculation and mystery to a man who appears to have been a rather sober and quiet kind of person, a “conscientious and earnest musician.”3 The account which follows clarifies some of the puzzles but leaves open a wide field for future investigation.4 James Paton Clarke, Canada’s First Mus.Bac. 67 Clarke’s earliest reported activity was that of a music-seller’s assistant in Edinburgh. Indeed, his middle name Paton (the correct spelling) points towards his roots in that city. One of the Edinburgh Patons, Mary Ann (1802–1864) became a famous singer; her father was an amateur musician . Since the middle name Archibald appears in J.P. Clarke’s son and granddaughter...