Short Name: | Henry Thomas Smart |
Full Name: | Smart, Henry Thomas, 1813-1879 |
Birth Year: | 1813 |
Death Year: | 1879 |
Henry Smart (b. Marylebone, London, England, 1813; d. Hampstead, London, 1879), a capable composer of church music who wrote some very fine hymn tunes (REGENT SQUARE, 354, is the best-known).
Smart gave up a career in the legal profession for one in music. Although largely self taught, he became proficient in organ playing and composition, and he was a music teacher and critic. Organist in a number of London churches, including St. Luke's, Old Street (1844-1864), and St. Pancras (1864-1869), Smart was famous for his extemporizations and for his accompaniment of congregational singing. He became completely blind at the age of fifty-two, but his remarkable memory enabled him to continue playing the organ. Fascinated by organs as a youth, Smart designed organs for important places such as St. Andrew Hall in Glasgow and the Town Hall in Leeds. He composed an opera, oratorios, part-songs, some instrumental music, and many hymn tunes, as well as a large number of works for organ and choir. He edited the Choralebook (1858), the English Presbyterian Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (1867), and the Scottish Presbyterian Hymnal (1875). Some of his hymn tunes were first published in Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861).
Bert Polman
Texts by Henry Thomas Smart (6)![]() | As | Authority Languages | Instances |
---|---|---|---|
For the beauty of the earth | Henry Smart (Author) | English | 1 |
For thy mercy aye pursuing | Henry Smart (Author) | 1 | |
Forward be our watchword, Hearts and voices joined | Henry Smart (Author) | English | 3 |
He who suns and worlds upholdeth [upholds] | Henry Smart (Author) | English | 1 |
Jesus came, the heavens adoring | Henry Smart (Author) | English | 1 |
Lead on, O King Eternal, The day of march has come | Henry Smart (Author) | English | 2 |