John McCormack
Encyclopedia
John Count McCormack, in full, John Francis Count McCormack (14 June 188416 September 1945) was a world-famous Irish
tenor
singer, celebrated for his performances of the operatic and popular song repertoires, and renowned for his diction and breath control. He was also a Papal Count.
McCormack received his early education from the Marist Brothers
in Athlone, and later attended Summerhill College
, Sligo
. In 1903 he won the coveted gold medal of the Dublin Feis Ceoil
.
He married Lily Foley in 1906 and they had two children, Cyril and Gwen.
In March 1904, McCormack became associated with James Joyce
,
who at the time had singing ambitions himself. Richard Ellmann
, in his biography of Joyce, states that, "Joyce spent several evenings with him" (i.e. McCormack), practising; along with Joyce's acquaintance Richard Best, McCormack persuaded Joyce to enter the Feis Ceoil
that year.
) in Milan
. Sabatini found McCormack's voice naturally tuned and concentrated on perfecting his breath control, an element that would become part of the basis of his renown as a vocalist.
In 1906, he made his operatic début at the Teatro Chiabrera, Savona
. The next year he began his first important operatic performance at Covent Garden
in Mascagni
's Cavalleria rusticana
, becoming the theatre's youngest principal tenor. In 1909 he began his career in America. Michael Scott ("The Record of Singing" 1978) writes that at this stage of his career he should be considered a tenor of the Italian style—and he sang (and recorded) French operatic arias in the Italian language. Steane ("The Grand Tradition" 1971) stresses that, for all his later devotion to the concert platform (and his Irish identity), he was (for albeit a relatively brief period) in essence an Italian operatic tenor.
In February 1911, McCormack played Lieutenant Paul Merrill in the world premiere of Victor Herbert
's drama Natoma with Mary Garden
in the title role. Later that year he toured Australia
after Dame Nellie Melba
engaged him, then at the height of his operatic career aged 27, as a star tenor for the Melba Grand Opera Season. He returned for concert tours in subsequent years.
By 1912, he was beginning to become involved increasingly with concert performances, where his voice quality and charisma ensured that he became the most celebrated lyric tenor of his time. He did not, however, retire from the operatic stage until after his performance of 1923 in Monte Carlo (see biography below), although by now the top notes of his voice had contracted. Famous for his extraordinary breath control, he could sing 64 notes on one breath in Mozart's
Il mio tesoro from Don Giovanni
, and his Handelian
singing was just as impressive in this regard.
McCormack made hundreds of recordings, the first on phonograph cylinder
in 1904. His most commercially successful series of records were those for the Victor Talking Machine Company
during the 1910s and 1920s. He also broadcast regularly by radio
and performed in a few sound film
s, among them the first British colour film, Wings of the Morning
(1937), and Orson Welles
' Citizen Kane
(1941), where he had a small uncredited part.
McCormack was the first artist to record the famous World War I
song "It's a Long Way to Tipperary
" in 1914. He also recorded the song "Keep The Home Fires Burning
" in 1917, though he was not the first to do so. He also sang songs expressive of Irish nationalism: his recording of "The Wearing of the Green
", a song about the Irish rebellion of 1798, encouraged 20th century efforts for Irish Home Rule, and endorsed the Irish Nationalist estrangement from the United Kingdom
. McCormack was associated particularly with the songs of Thomas Moore
, notably "The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls", "The Minstrel Boy
", "Believe Me If All (Those Endearing Young Charms)", and "The Last Rose of Summer
". Between 1914 and 1922, he recorded almost two dozen songs with violin accompaniment provided by Fritz Kreisler
, with whom he also toured. He recorded songs of Hugo Wolf for the Hugo Wolf Society in German.
In 1917, McCormack became a naturalized citizen of the United States
. In June 1918, he donated $11,458 towards the USA's world war effort. By now, his career was a huge financial success, earning millions in his lifetime from record sales and appearances, though he never was invited to sing at La Scala
in Milan
.
By 1920, Edwin Schneider
had become McCormack's accompanist and the two were "inseparable." McCormack would spend the next 25 years traveling and working with Schneider.
In 1927, McCormack moved into Moore Abbey, Monasterevan, County Kildare
and lived an opulent life by Irish standards. He had apartments in London
and New York
. He hoped that one of his racehorses, such as Golden Lullaby, would win the Epsom Derby
, but was unlucky.
McCormack also bought Runyon Canyon in Hollywood in 1930 from Carman Runyon. McCormack saw and liked the estate while there filming Song o' My Heart (1930), an early all-talking, all-singing picture. McCormack used his salary for this movie to purchase the estate and built a mansion he called 'San Patrizio', after Saint Patrick
. McCormack and his wife lived in the mansion until they returned to England in 1938.
McCormack toured often, and in his absence the mansion was often rented to celebrities such as Janet Gaynor
and Charles Boyer
. The McCormacks made many friends in Hollywood, among them Will Rogers
, John Barrymore
, Basil Rathbone
, Charles E. Toberman
and the Dohenys. After his farewell tour of America in 1937, the McCormacks deeded the estate back to Carman Runyon expecting to return to the estate at a later date. World War II intervened and McCormack did not return.
McCormack originally ended his career at the Royal Albert Hall
in London, during 1938. However, one year after that farewell concert, he was back singing for the Red Cross and in support of the war effort.
He did concerts, toured, broadcast and recorded in this capacity until 1943, when failing health finally forced him to retire permanently.
Ill with emphysema
, he bought a house near the sea, "Glena", Booterstown
, Dublin. After a series of infectious illnesses, including influenza and pneumonia, McCormack died in September 1945.
He is buried in Deansgrange Cemetery
.
in recognition of his work for Catholic
charities. He had earlier received three papal knighthoods, Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre
, Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great
and Knight of the Order of St. Sylvester
. He was also a Knight of Malta
and a Privy Chamberlain of the Sword and Cape, an honour which is known now as a Gentlemen of His Holiness
.
One of the most famous acts of McCormack's Irish career was his singing of César Franck
's Panis Angelicus
to the thousands who thronged Dublin's Phoenix Park
for the 1932 Eucharistic Congress
.
A life-sized bronze statue of McCormack, by sculptor Elizabeth O'Kane, was established in Dublin, on 19 June 2008. The statue stands in the Iveagh Gardens
, close to the National Concert Hall.
In his hometown of Athlone, he is commemorated by Athlone Institute of Technology
who named their performance hall after him. It is called the John Count McCormack Hall. As well as musical performances, it also hosts various social events.
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
singer, celebrated for his performances of the operatic and popular song repertoires, and renowned for his diction and breath control. He was also a Papal Count.
Early life
McCormack was born in Athlone, Ireland, the fourth of eleven children of Andrew McCormack and Hannah Watson on 14 June 1884, and was baptised in St. Mary's Church, Athlone on 23 June 1884. His parents were employed at the Athlone Woollen Mills.McCormack received his early education from the Marist Brothers
Marist Brothers
The Marist Brothers, or Little Brothers of Mary, are a Catholic religious order of brothers and affiliated lay people. The order was founded in France, at La Valla-en-Gier near Lyon in 1817 by Saint Marcellin Champagnat, a young French priest of the Society of Mary...
in Athlone, and later attended Summerhill College
Summerhill College
Summerhill College is a Roman Catholic voluntary secondary school for boys in Sligo, County Sligo, Ireland.- History :...
, Sligo
Sligo
Sligo is the county town of County Sligo in Ireland. The town is a borough and has a charter and a town mayor. It is sometimes referred to as a city, and sometimes as a town, and is the second largest urban area in Connacht...
. In 1903 he won the coveted gold medal of the Dublin Feis Ceoil
Feis Ceoil
Feis Ceoil is an annual Irish cultural festival of music and dance. It was first organized in 1897 by Dr. Annie Patterson and Edward Martyn. It consisted of competitions for performance and composition and was supported by all musicians of the day, both national and classical...
.
He married Lily Foley in 1906 and they had two children, Cyril and Gwen.
In March 1904, McCormack became associated with James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
,
who at the time had singing ambitions himself. Richard Ellmann
Richard Ellmann
Richard David Ellmann was a prominent American literary critic and biographer of the Irish writers James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler Yeats...
, in his biography of Joyce, states that, "Joyce spent several evenings with him" (i.e. McCormack), practising; along with Joyce's acquaintance Richard Best, McCormack persuaded Joyce to enter the Feis Ceoil
Feis Ceoil
Feis Ceoil is an annual Irish cultural festival of music and dance. It was first organized in 1897 by Dr. Annie Patterson and Edward Martyn. It consisted of competitions for performance and composition and was supported by all musicians of the day, both national and classical...
that year.
Career
Fundraising activities on his behalf enabled McCormack to travel to Italy in 1905 to have his voice trained by Vincenzo Sabatini (father of the novelist Rafael SabatiniRafael Sabatini
Rafael Sabatini was an Italian/British writer of novels of romance and adventure.-Life:Rafael Sabatini was born in Iesi, Italy, to an English mother and Italian father...
) in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. Sabatini found McCormack's voice naturally tuned and concentrated on perfecting his breath control, an element that would become part of the basis of his renown as a vocalist.
In 1906, he made his operatic début at the Teatro Chiabrera, Savona
Savona
Savona is a seaport and comune in the northern Italian region of Liguria, capital of the Province of Savona, in the Riviera di Ponente on the Mediterranean Sea....
. The next year he began his first important operatic performance at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
's Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
, becoming the theatre's youngest principal tenor. In 1909 he began his career in America. Michael Scott ("The Record of Singing" 1978) writes that at this stage of his career he should be considered a tenor of the Italian style—and he sang (and recorded) French operatic arias in the Italian language. Steane ("The Grand Tradition" 1971) stresses that, for all his later devotion to the concert platform (and his Irish identity), he was (for albeit a relatively brief period) in essence an Italian operatic tenor.
In February 1911, McCormack played Lieutenant Paul Merrill in the world premiere of Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
's drama Natoma with Mary Garden
Mary Garden
Mary Garden , was a Scottish operatic soprano with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century...
in the title role. Later that year he toured Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
after Dame Nellie Melba
Nellie Melba
Dame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...
engaged him, then at the height of his operatic career aged 27, as a star tenor for the Melba Grand Opera Season. He returned for concert tours in subsequent years.
By 1912, he was beginning to become involved increasingly with concert performances, where his voice quality and charisma ensured that he became the most celebrated lyric tenor of his time. He did not, however, retire from the operatic stage until after his performance of 1923 in Monte Carlo (see biography below), although by now the top notes of his voice had contracted. Famous for his extraordinary breath control, he could sing 64 notes on one breath in Mozart's
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
Il mio tesoro from Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, and his Handelian
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
singing was just as impressive in this regard.
McCormack made hundreds of recordings, the first on phonograph cylinder
Phonograph cylinder
Phonograph cylinders were the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity , these cylinder shaped objects had an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which could be reproduced when the cylinder was...
in 1904. His most commercially successful series of records were those for the Victor Talking Machine Company
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
during the 1910s and 1920s. He also broadcast regularly by radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
and performed in a few sound film
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
s, among them the first British colour film, Wings of the Morning
Wings of the Morning (film)
Wings of the Morning is a 1937 British drama film directed by Harold D. Schuster and starring Annabella, Henry Fonda and Leslie Banks. Glenn Tryon was the originally director but he was fired and replaced by Schuster...
(1937), and Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
' Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
(1941), where he had a small uncredited part.
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
song "It's a Long Way to Tipperary
It's a Long Way to Tipperary
It's a Long Way to Tipperary is a British music hall and marching song written by Jack Judge and co-credited to, but not co-written by, Henry James "Harry" Williams. It was allegedly written for a 5 shilling bet in Stalybridge on 30 January 1912 and performed the next night at the local music hall...
" in 1914. He also recorded the song "Keep The Home Fires Burning
Keep the Home Fires Burning
"Keep the Home Fires Burning" is a song by The Bluetones, released as the first single from their third album, Science & Nature. It peaked at number 13 on the UK Singles Chart. Its music video was directed by Edgar Wright....
" in 1917, though he was not the first to do so. He also sang songs expressive of Irish nationalism: his recording of "The Wearing of the Green
The Wearing of the Green
"The Wearing of the Green" is an anonymously-penned Irish street ballad dating to 1798. The context of the song is the repression around the time of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Wearing a shamrock in the "caubeen" was a sign of rebellion and green was the colour of the Society of the United...
", a song about the Irish rebellion of 1798, encouraged 20th century efforts for Irish Home Rule, and endorsed the Irish Nationalist estrangement from the United Kingdom
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
. McCormack was associated particularly with the songs of Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...
, notably "The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls", "The Minstrel Boy
The Minstrel Boy
"The Minstrel Boy" is an Irish patriotic song written by Thomas Moore who set it to the melody of The Moreen, an old Irish air. It is widely believed that Moore composed the song in remembrance of a number of his friends, whom he met while studying at Trinity College, Dublin and who had...
", "Believe Me If All (Those Endearing Young Charms)", and "The Last Rose of Summer
The Last Rose of Summer
The Last Rose of Summer is a poem by Irish poet Thomas Moore, who was a friend of Byron and Shelley. Moore wrote it in 1805 while at Jenkinstown Park in County Kilkenny, Ireland...
". Between 1914 and 1922, he recorded almost two dozen songs with violin accompaniment provided by Fritz Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler
Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...
, with whom he also toured. He recorded songs of Hugo Wolf for the Hugo Wolf Society in German.
In 1917, McCormack became a naturalized citizen of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. In June 1918, he donated $11,458 towards the USA's world war effort. By now, his career was a huge financial success, earning millions in his lifetime from record sales and appearances, though he never was invited to sing at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
.
By 1920, Edwin Schneider
Edwin Schneider
Edwin Schneider was an American pianist, teacher, and music editor. He is best known as the partner and accompanist of Irish tenor John McCormack. Before meeting McCormack, he was an editor and translator for the John Church Company.-References:...
had become McCormack's accompanist and the two were "inseparable." McCormack would spend the next 25 years traveling and working with Schneider.
In 1927, McCormack moved into Moore Abbey, Monasterevan, County Kildare
County Kildare
County Kildare is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Kildare. Kildare County Council is the local authority for the county...
and lived an opulent life by Irish standards. He had apartments in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. He hoped that one of his racehorses, such as Golden Lullaby, would win the Epsom Derby
Epsom Derby
The Derby Stakes, popularly known as The Derby, internationally as the Epsom Derby, and under its present sponsor as the Investec Derby, is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies...
, but was unlucky.
McCormack also bought Runyon Canyon in Hollywood in 1930 from Carman Runyon. McCormack saw and liked the estate while there filming Song o' My Heart (1930), an early all-talking, all-singing picture. McCormack used his salary for this movie to purchase the estate and built a mansion he called 'San Patrizio', after Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick was a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognized patron saint of Ireland or the Apostle of Ireland, although Brigid of Kildare and Colmcille are also formally patron saints....
. McCormack and his wife lived in the mansion until they returned to England in 1938.
McCormack toured often, and in his absence the mansion was often rented to celebrities such as Janet Gaynor
Janet Gaynor
Janet Gaynor was an American actress and painter.One of the most popular actresses of the silent film era, in 1928 Gaynor became the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in three films: Seventh Heaven , Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Street Angel...
and Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...
. The McCormacks made many friends in Hollywood, among them Will Rogers
Will Rogers
William "Will" Penn Adair Rogers was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, film actor, and one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s....
, John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
, Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone
Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...
, Charles E. Toberman
Charles E. Toberman
Charles E. Toberman was a real estate developer who was known as "Mr. Hollywood" and the "Father of Hollywood" for his role in developing Hollywood and many of its landmarks, including the Hollywood Bowl, Grauman's Chinese Theater, El Capitan Theatre, the Roosevelt Hotel, the Grauman's Egyptian...
and the Dohenys. After his farewell tour of America in 1937, the McCormacks deeded the estate back to Carman Runyon expecting to return to the estate at a later date. World War II intervened and McCormack did not return.
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
in London, during 1938. However, one year after that farewell concert, he was back singing for the Red Cross and in support of the war effort.
He did concerts, toured, broadcast and recorded in this capacity until 1943, when failing health finally forced him to retire permanently.
Ill with emphysema
Emphysema
Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath. In people with emphysema, the tissues necessary to support the physical shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary...
, he bought a house near the sea, "Glena", Booterstown
Booterstown
Booterstown,, is a coastal townland and civil parish, situated in the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council area of the former County Dublin, about south of the city of Dublin in Ireland.-Location and access:...
, Dublin. After a series of infectious illnesses, including influenza and pneumonia, McCormack died in September 1945.
He is buried in Deansgrange Cemetery
Deans Grange Cemetery
Deans Grange Cemetery, or more commonly known today as Deansgrange Cemetery, is situated in the suburban area of Deansgrange in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown part of the former County Dublin, Ireland. Since it first opened in 1865, over 150,000 people have been buried there...
.
Honours
He was much honoured and decorated for his musical career. In 1928, he received the title of Papal Count from Pope Pius XIPope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
in recognition of his work for Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
charities. He had earlier received three papal knighthoods, Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre
Order of the Holy Sepulchre
The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem is a Roman Catholic order of knighthood under the protection of the pope. It traces its roots to Duke Godfrey of Bouillon, principal leader of the First Crusade...
, Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great
Order of St. Gregory the Great
The Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great , was established on September 1, 1831, by Pope Gregory XVI, seven months after his election.It is one of the five orders of knighthood of the Holy See...
and Knight of the Order of St. Sylvester
Order of St. Sylvester
The Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Sylvester Pope and Martyr , sometimes referred to as the Sylvestrine Order, or the Pontifical Order of Pope St Sylvester, is one of five Orders of Knighthood awarded directly by the Pope as Supreme Pontiff and head of the Catholic Church and as the Head of...
. He was also a Knight of Malta
Knights Hospitaller
The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta , also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta , Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Roman Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of military, chivalrous, noble nature. It is the world's...
and a Privy Chamberlain of the Sword and Cape, an honour which is known now as a Gentlemen of His Holiness
Papal Gentlemen
The Papal Gentlemen, also called the Gentlemen of His Holiness, are the lay attendants of the pope and his papal household in Vatican City. They serve in the Apostolic Palace near St. Peter's Basilica...
.
One of the most famous acts of McCormack's Irish career was his singing of César Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
's Panis Angelicus
Panis Angelicus
Panis angelicus is the penultimate strophe of the hymn Sacris solemniis written by Saint Thomas Aquinas for the Feast of Corpus Christi as part of a complete liturgy of the Feast including prayers for the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours....
to the thousands who thronged Dublin's Phoenix Park
Phoenix Park
Phoenix Park is an urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying 2–4 km west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its 16 km perimeter wall encloses , one of the largest walled city parks in Europe. It includes large areas of grassland and tree-lined avenues, and since the seventeenth...
for the 1932 Eucharistic Congress
Eucharistic Congress of Dublin (1932)
The 31st International Eucharistic Congress, held in Dublin 22–26 June 1932, was one of the largest eucharistic congresses of the 20th century....
.
A life-sized bronze statue of McCormack, by sculptor Elizabeth O'Kane, was established in Dublin, on 19 June 2008. The statue stands in the Iveagh Gardens
Iveagh Gardens
The Iveagh Gardens is a public park located just behind the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland.The gardens in their present form were laid out in 1863 by Benjamin Guinness after he had built what is now Iveagh House on St. Stephen's Green...
, close to the National Concert Hall.
In his hometown of Athlone, he is commemorated by Athlone Institute of Technology
Athlone Institute of Technology
Athlone Institute of Technology is the only higher education institution in the midlands of Ireland. Established in 1970 as Athlone Regional Technical College, it has expanded in size, scope, and influence over the period...
who named their performance hall after him. It is called the John Count McCormack Hall. As well as musical performances, it also hosts various social events.
External links
- The John McCormack Society
- Public domain recordings of John McCormack at the Internet Archive.
- History of the Tenor - Sound Clips and Narration
- An essay on John McCormack at London Poetry Review
- Discography of John McCormack on Victor RecordsVictor Talking Machine CompanyThe Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
from the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR)