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William Gardiner

1770 - 1853 Person Name: W. Gardiner Composer of "DEDHAM" in Jubilate Deo William Gardiner (b. Leicester, England, 1770; d. Leicester, 1853) The son of an English hosiery manufacturer, Gardiner took up his father's trade in addition to writing about music, composing, and editing. Having met Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven on his business travels, Gardiner then proceeded to help popularize their compositions, especially Beethoven's, in England. He recorded his memories of various musicians in Music and Friends (3 volumes, 1838-1853). In the first two volumes of Sacred Melodies (1812, 1815), Gardiner turned melodies from composers such as Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven into hymn tunes in an attempt to rejuvenate the singing of psalms. His work became an important model for American editors like Lowell Mason (see Mason's Boston Handel and Haydn Collection, 1822), and later hymnbook editors often turned to Gardiner as a source of tunes derived from classical music. Bert Polman

John Weiss

1818 - 1879 Author of "A wondrous star our pioneer" in Jubilate Deo Weiss, Rev. John. (Boston, Massachusetts, June 28, 1828 [sic]--March 9, 1879, Boston). He graduated from Harvard College in 1837, and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1843. He was ordained minister of the First Church, (Unitarian), Watertown, Mass., in 1843; was minister of the First Church, New Bedford, Mass., 1847-1858; and served the church at Watertown again 1862-1869. He was a leader in the anti-slavery movement and a prolific author of books and essays. For Visitation Day at the Divinity School, 1843, he wrote a hymn beginning "A wondrous star our pioneer," which was included in the Book of Hymns, 1846, compiled by S. Longfellow and S. Johnson, and in their later book, Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. The Book of Hymns also included in a hymn "For a Summer Festival" beginning "Beneath thy trees we meet today," which is in the Universalist Church Harmonies, 1895. His hymn "The world throws wide its brazen gates" was included in Hedge and Huntington's Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853. Three other hymns by him, which have not found their way into any hymn books, are printed in Putnam's Singers and Songs. Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith, 1875, gives his birth date as June 28, 1818. --Henry Wilder Foote, DNAH Archives