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Lowell Mason

1792 - 1872 Scripture: Mark 8:6 Harmonizer of "HENDON" in Voices Together Dr. Lowell Mason (the degree was conferred by the University of New York) is justly called the father of American church music; and by his labors were founded the germinating principles of national musical intelligence and knowledge, which afforded a soil upon which all higher musical culture has been founded. To him we owe some of our best ideas in religious church music, elementary musical education, music in the schools, the popularization of classical chorus singing, and the art of teaching music upon the Inductive or Pestalozzian plan. More than that, we owe him no small share of the respect which the profession of music enjoys at the present time as contrasted with the contempt in which it was held a century or more ago. In fact, the entire art of music, as now understood and practiced in America, has derived advantage from the work of this great man. Lowell Mason was born in Medfield, Mass., January 8, 1792. From childhood he had manifested an intense love for music, and had devoted all his spare time and effort to improving himself according to such opportunities as were available to him. At the age of twenty he found himself filling a clerkship in a banking house in Savannah, Ga. Here he lost no opportunity of gratifying his passion for musical advancement, and was fortunate to meet for the first time a thoroughly qualified instructor, in the person of F. L. Abel. Applying his spare hours assiduously to the cultivation of the pursuit to which his passion inclined him, he soon acquired a proficiency that enabled him to enter the field of original composition, and his first work of this kind was embodied in the compilation of a collection of church music, which contained many of his own compositions. The manuscript was offered unavailingly to publishers in Philadelphia and in Boston. Fortunately for our musical advancement it finally secured the attention of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, and by its committee was submitted to Dr. G. K. Jackson, the severest critic in Boston. Dr. Jackson approved most heartily of the work, and added a few of his own compositions to it. Thus enlarged, it was finally published in 1822 as The Handel and Haydn Society Collection of Church Music. Mason's name was omitted from the publication at his own request, which he thus explains, "I was then a bank officer in Savannah, and did not wish to be known as a musical man, as I had not the least thought of ever making music a profession." President Winchester, of the Handel and Haydn Society, sold the copyright for the young man. Mr. Mason went back to Savannah with probably $500 in his pocket as the preliminary result of his Boston visit. The book soon sprang into universal popularity, being at once adopted by the singing schools of New England, and through this means entering into the church choirs, to whom it opened up a higher field of harmonic beauty. Its career of success ran through some seventeen editions. On realizing this success, Mason determined to accept an invitation to come to Boston and enter upon a musical career. This was in 1826. He was made an honorary member of the Handel and Haydn Society, but declined to accept this, and entered the ranks as an active member. He had been invited to come to Boston by President Winchester and other musical friends and was guaranteed an income of $2,000 a year. He was also appointed, by the influence of these friends, director of music at the Hanover, Green, and Park Street churches, to alternate six months with each congregation. Finally he made a permanent arrangement with the Bowdoin Street Church, and gave up the guarantee, but again friendly influence stepped in and procured for him the position of teller at the American Bank. In 1827 Lowell Mason became president and conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society. It was the beginning of a career that was to win for him as has been already stated the title of "The Father of American Church Music." Although this may seem rather a bold claim it is not too much under the circumstances. Mr. Mason might have been in the average ranks of musicianship had he lived in Europe; in America he was well in advance of his surroundings. It was not too high praise (in spite of Mason's very simple style) when Dr. Jackson wrote of his song collection: "It is much the best book I have seen published in this country, and I do not hesitate to give it my most decided approbation," or that the great contrapuntist, Hauptmann, should say the harmonies of the tunes were dignified and churchlike and that the counterpoint was good, plain, singable and melodious. Charles C. Perkins gives a few of the reasons why Lowell Mason was the very man to lead American music as it then existed. He says, "First and foremost, he was not so very much superior to the members as to be unreasonably impatient at their shortcomings. Second, he was a born teacher, who, by hard work, had fitted himself to give instruction in singing. Third, he was one of themselves, a plain, self-made man, who could understand them and be understood of them." The personality of Dr. Mason was of great use to the art and appreciation of music in this country. He was of strong mind, dignified manners, sensitive, yet sweet and engaging. Prof. Horace Mann, one of the great educators of that day, said he would walk fifty miles to see and hear Mr. Mason teach if he could not otherwise have that advantage. Dr. Mason visited a number of the music schools in Europe, studied their methods, and incorporated the best things in his own work. He founded the Boston Academy of Music. The aim of this institution was to reach the masses and introduce music into the public schools. Dr. Mason resided in Boston from 1826 to 1851, when he removed to New York. Not only Boston benefited directly by this enthusiastic teacher's instruction, but he was constantly traveling to other societies in distant cities and helping their work. He had a notable class at North Reading, Mass., and he went in his later years as far as Rochester, where he trained a chorus of five hundred voices, many of them teachers, and some of them coming long distances to study under him. Before 1810 he had developed his idea of "Teachers' Conventions," and, as in these he had representatives from different states, he made musical missionaries for almost the entire country. He left behind him no less than fifty volumes of musical collections, instruction books, and manuals. As a composer of solid, enduring church music. Dr. Mason was one of the most successful this country has introduced. He was a deeply pious man, and was a communicant of the Presbyterian Church. Dr. Mason in 1817 married Miss Abigail Gregory, of Leesborough, Mass. The family consisted of four sons, Daniel Gregory, Lowell, William and Henry. The two former founded the publishing house of Mason Bros., dissolved by the death of the former in 1869. Lowell and Henry were the founders of the great organ manufacturer of Mason & Hamlin. Dr. William Mason was one of the most eminent musicians that America has yet produced. Dr. Lowell Mason died at "Silverspring," a beautiful residence on the side of Orange Mountain, New Jersey, August 11, 1872, bequeathing his great musical library, much of which had been collected abroad, to Yale College. --Hall, J. H. (c1914). Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company.

Ronald F. Krisman

Person Name: Ronald F. Krisman, b. 1946 Scripture: Mark 8:34-35 Translator of "Come and Follow Me (Ven y Sígueme)" in Oramos Cantando = We Pray In Song

Erik Routley

1917 - 1982 Scripture: Mark 8:38 Author of "The Earth is the Lord's" in Scripture Song Database

Thomas Jarman

1776 - 1861 Person Name: Thomas Jarman (1782-1862) Scripture: Mark 8:22-26 Composer of "DESERT (LYNGHAM)" in Church Hymnary (4th ed.) Thomas Jarman was born on 21st December 1776 in Clipston, a small village near the northern border of the County of Northampton. His father was not only a Baptist lay preacher, but also a tailor, and Thomas was brought up in the same trade, although his brother, John, followed his father’s calling to become a minister. His natural taste for music, however, considerably interfered with his work, and he was frequently reduced to dire straits, from which only the extreme liberality of his publishers relieved him. He was a man of fine, commanding presence, but self-willed, and endowed with a considerable gift of irony, as choirs frequently found to their cost. Weston quotes from Kant that Jarman neglected his work and ‘this kept him poor and soured his temper’. He joined the choir of the Baptist chapel in his native village when quite a youth, and soon became the choirmaster there. He adopted music as a profession (with occasional returns to his old trade), and was engaged as teacher of harmony and singing in many of the neighbouring villages. He was a successful choir-trainer, spending several years at Leamington, and conducted concerts as well as services, for which he was ‘constantly composing works’. The village choir festival held under his direction at Naseby, in 1837, is said to have been the talk of the district for long after. He spent some six or seven years at Leamington, during which time he enjoyed the friendship of C. Rider, a wealthy Methodist who did much good for the psalmody of Lancashire and elsewhere some fifty or sixty years ago. Jarman published an enormous quantity of music, including over six hundred hymn-tunes, besides anthems, services, and similar pieces. Amongst his many anthems written for special occasions there is one for the opening of the new Baptist chapel at Clipston. Another is a MAGNIFICAT for Dr Marsh's Episcopal chapel at Leamington, where Thomas Jarman was called to assist the quire in their study and performance of psalmody. Thomas Jarman lived to the good old age of eighty-five, dying in 1861, and lies buried in the graveyard attached to the Baptist chapel at Clipston in Northants. --immanuelsground.com/composers/ (excerpts)

John Stainer

1840 - 1901 Person Name: John Stainer, 1840-1901 Scripture: Mark 8:27-38 Composer of "CROSS OF JESUS" in Common Praise (1998)

Hubert P. Main

1839 - 1925 Scripture: Mark 8:34 Arranger of "[Jesus, I my cross have taken]" in Hymns of Faith Hubert Platt Main DD USA 1839-1925. Born at Ridgefield, CT, he attended singing school as a teenager. In 1854 he went to New York City and worked as an errand boy in a wallpaper house. The next year he became an errand boy in the Bristow & Morse Piano Company. He was an organist, choir leader, and compiled books of music. He also helped his father edit the “Lute Songbook” by Isaac Woodbury. In 1866 he married Olphelia Louise Degraff, and they had two sons: Lucius, and Hubert. In 1867 he filled a position at William B Bradbury’s publishing house. After Bradbury’s death in 1868 the Bigelow & Main Publishers were formed as its successor. He also worked with his father until his father’s death in 1873. Contributors to their efforts were Fanny Crosby, Ira Sankey, Wilbur Crafts, and others. In addition to publishing, Main wrote 1000+ pieces of music, including part song, singing school songs, Sunday school music, hymns, anthems, etc. He also arranged music and collected music books. He 1891 he sold his collection of over 3500 volumes to the Newberry Library in Chicago, IL, where they were known as the Main Library. Some of his major publications include: “Book of Praise for the Sunday school” (1875), “Little pilgrim songs” (1884), “Hymns of Praise” (`1884), “Gems of song for the Sunday school” (1901), “Quartettes for men’s voices: Sacred & social selections” (1913). In 1922 Hope Publishing Company acquired Bigelow & Main. He was an editor, author, compiler, and composer, as well as publisher. He died in Newark, NJ. John Perry

Henry Thomas Smart

1813 - 1879 Person Name: Henry Smart (1812-1879) Scripture: Mark 8:34 Composer of "BETHABARA" in Many Voices; or, Carmina Sanctorum, Evangelistic Edition with Tunes 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

Thomas B. Southgate

1814 - 1868 Scripture: Mark 8:38 Composer of "BROOKFIELD" in Trinity Hymnal (Rev. ed.) Southgate, Thomas Bishop, born at Hornsey, Middlesex, June 8, 1814; educated in the school of the Chapel Royal, where he was a chorister; studied harmony under Thomas Attwood and Sir John Goss, and the organ under Samuel Wesley; organist of Hornsey Church from 1834 to 1853, and of St Anne's, Highgate Rise, London, from the latter year until his death, which occured at Highgate, November 3, 1868. EVENSONG, No. 320 F.C.H., was published in sheet form in 1858, set to the words "God that madest earth and heaven." --James Love, Scottish Church Music: Its Composers and Sources (1891)

Georg Joseph

1630 - 1668 Person Name: Georg Josephi Scripture: Mark 8:38 Composer of "ANGELUS" in Many Voices; or, Carmina Sanctorum, Evangelistic Edition with Tunes Born: Probably circa 1630, Breslau, Silesia (now Wrocław, Poland). Died: Circa 1668. A musician in the service of the Prince-Bishop of Breslau in last half of the 17th Century, Joseph collaborated published five hymn volumes with Johann Scheffler. Sources Erickson, p. 325 Stulken, p. 218 Music: ANGELUS --www.hymntime.com/tch

George Nelson Allen

1812 - 1877 Person Name: Prof. George Nelson Allen (1812-1877) Scripture: Mark 8:34 Author of "No Cross, no Crown" in Songs of Praise with Tunes George Nelson Allen (1812-1871), studied at Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Oh OH and with Lowell Mason in Boston. Allen gave a strong musical foundation to Oberlin College in its earliest years; in addition to being Professor of Music he also served as Professor of Geology and Natural History, Secretary and Treasurer. In 1835 he compiled The Oberlin Social and Sabbath Hymn Book, in which appeared his most well known tune MAITLAND (also known as CROSS AND CROWN or WESTERN MELODY) with the text "Must Jesus bear the cross alone?". This was adapted by Thomas A. Dorsey in 1938 for his hymn "Precious Lord, take my hand". hand." He composed anthems and wrote some additional music for Isaac Woodbury's Oratorio "Absalom." He compiled a small 3" x 4" hymnal that every student should keep in his pocket that went through several printings. Mary Louise VanDyke