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Lowell Mason

1792 - 1872 Person Name: L. Mason Composer of "ARIEL" in Book of Worship 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.

S. W. Straub

1842 - 1899 Person Name: Solomon W. Straub Composer of "EL NIÑO" in The Cyber Hymnal Solomon.W Straub Solomon was the brother of Maria Straub. His father Joseph was a farmer. His parents, who were of German descent. From Hymnary user, via email

Henry Moore

1732 - 1802 Person Name: Henry Moore, 1732-18-2 Author of "My God, Thy Boundless Love I Praise" in The Cyber Hymnal Moore, Henry, 1732-1802. Son of a Presbyterian minister of the same name at Plymouth. Educated at Doddridge's Academy at Northampton, from 1757 to 1788 minister at Modbury, and then at Liskeard. Author of Lyrical and Miscellaneous Poems, published posthumously with a memoir by Dr. Aikin. Of his hymns, which are frequent in the books later than Kippis, the Dukinfield Collection, 1822, gives 5. 1. All earthly charms, however dear. The unfading beauty of holiness. 2. Amidst a world of hopes and fears. A prayer for guidance. 3. Assist us, Lord, to act, to be. Divine Help Solicited. 4. My God, thy boundless love I praise. The divine Love. 5. Soft are the fruitful showers that bring. A song of spring and New Life. 6. Supreme and universal light. Prayer for spiritual excellence. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Henry More

1614 - 1687 Person Name: H. More Author of "The love of God" in The Hymn Book of the African Methodist Episcopal Church More, Henry, D.D., was b. at Grantham in 1614, and educated at Eton and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1635, and became a Fellow of his College in 1639. He declined various offers of high preferment. He spent his time mainly in the study of philosophy and as a private tutor. He died in 1687. In 1640 he published his Psychozoia, or the First Part of the Sony of the Soul, containing a Christiano-Platonic display of Life. In 1647 this was republished with additions as Philosophical Poems. His poems, collected and edited by Dr. Grosart, are included in the Chertsey Worthies Library. His "Philosopher's Devotion," beginning "Sing aloud! His praise rehearse," is given in Macdonald's England's Antiphon. His Memoirs were published in 1710. His Divine Dialogues with Divine Hymns added thereto were published in 1668. From a hymn in this work, beginning "When Christ His body up had borne," J. Wesley took 10 stanzas and moulded them into two hymns, which lie included in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, 1780, as "Father, if justly still we claim" (The Holy Spirit desired), No. 444; and "On all the earth Thy Spirit shower," No. 445. These hymns are in common use in Great Britain and America. [W. T. Brooke] --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)