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Fred Pratt Green

1903 - 2000 Person Name: Fred Pratt Green, 1903-2000 Topics: Arts, Science; Arts, Science Author of "When in Our Music God Is Glorified" in Evangelical Lutheran Worship The name of the Rev. F. Pratt Green is one of the best-known of the contemporary school of hymnwriters in the British Isles. His name and writings appear in practically every new hymnal and "hymn supplement" wherever English is spoken and sung. And now they are appearing in American hymnals, poetry magazines, and anthologies. Mr. Green was born in Liverpool, England, in 1903. Ordained in the British Methodist ministry, he has been pastor and district superintendent in Brighton and York, and now served in Norwich. There he continued to write new hymns "that fill the gap between the hymns of the first part of this century and the 'far-out' compositions that have crowded into some churches in the last decade or more." --Seven New Hymns of Hope , 1971. Used by permission.

Charles V. Stanford

1852 - 1924 Person Name: Charles V. Stanford, 1852-1924 Topics: Arts, Science; Arts, Science Composer of "ENGELBERG" in Evangelical Lutheran Worship Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Irish composer, teacher and conductor. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was educated at the University of Cambridge before studying music in Leipzig and Berlin. He was instrumental in raising the status of the Cambridge University Musical Society, attracting international stars to perform with it. While still an undergraduate, Stanford was appointed organist of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1882, aged 29, he was one of the founding professors of the Royal College of Music, where he taught composition for the rest of his life. From 1887 he was also the professor of music at Cambridge. As a teacher, Stanford was sceptical about modernism, and based his instruction chiefly on classical principles as exemplified in the music of Brahms. Among his pupils were rising composers whose fame went on to surpass his own, such as Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. As a conductor, Stanford held posts with the Bach Choir and the Leeds triennial music festival. Stanford composed a substantial number of concert works, including seven symphonies, but his best-remembered pieces are his choral works for church performance, chiefly composed in the Anglican tradition. He was a dedicated composer of opera, but none of his nine completed operas has endured in the general repertory. Some critics regarded Stanford, together with Hubert Parry and Alexander Mackenzie, as responsible for a renaissance in English music. However, after his conspicuous success as a composer in the last two decades of the 19th century, his music was eclipsed in the 20th century by that of Edward Elgar as well as former pupils. Stanford was born in Dublin, the only son of John James Stanford and his second wife, Mary, née Henn. John Stanford was a prominent Dublin lawyer, Examiner to the Court of Chancery in Ireland and Clerk of the Crown for County Meath. His wife was the third daughter of William Henn, Master of the High Court of Chancery in Ireland. Both parents were accomplished amateur musicians; John Stanford was a cellist and a noted bass singer who was chosen to perform the title role in Mendelssohn's Elijah at the Irish premiere in 1847. Mary Stanford was an amateur pianist, capable of playing the solo parts in concertos at Dublin concerts. The young Stanford was given a conventional education at a private day school in Dublin run by Henry Tilney Bassett, who concentrated on the classics to the exclusion of other subjects. Stanford's parents encouraged the boy's precocious musical talent, employing a succession of teachers in violin, piano, organ and composition. Three of his teachers were former pupils of Ignaz Moscheles, including his godmother Elizabeth Meeke, of whom Stanford recalled, "She taught me, before I was twelve years old, to read at sight. … She made me play every day at the end of my lesson a Mazurka of Chopin: never letting me stop for a mistake. … By the time I had played through the whole fifty-two Mazurkas, I could read most music of the calibre my fingers could tackle with comparative ease." One of the young Stanford's earliest compositions, a march in D♭ major, written when he was eight years old, was performed in the pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Dublin three years later. At the age of nine, Stanford gave a piano recital for an invited audience, playing works by Beethoven, Handel, Mendelssohn, Moscheles, Mozart and Bach. One of his songs was taken up by the University of Dublin Choral Society and was well received. In the 1860s Dublin received occasional visits from international stars, and Stanford was able to hear famous performers such as Joseph Joachim, Henri Vieuxtemps and Adelina Patti. The annual visit of the Italian Opera Company from London, led by Giulia Grisi, Giovanni Matteo Mario and later Thérèse Tietjens, gave Stanford a taste for opera that remained with him all his life. When he was ten, his parents took him to London for the summer, where he stayed with his mother's uncle in Mayfair. While there he took composition lessons from the composer and teacher Arthur O'Leary, and piano lessons from Ernst Pauer, professor of piano at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM). On his return to Dublin, his godmother having left Ireland, he took lessons from Henrietta Flynn, another former Leipzig Conservatory pupil of Moscheles, and later from Robert Stewart, organist of St Patrick's Cathedral, as well as from a third Moscheles pupil, Michael Quarry. During his second spell in London two years later, he met the composer Arthur Sullivan and the musical administrator and writer George Grove, who later played important parts in his career. John Stanford hoped that his son would follow him into the legal profession but accepted his decision to pursue music as a career. However, he stipulated that Stanford should have a conventional university education before going on to musical studies abroad. Stanford tried unsuccessfully for a classics scholarship at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, but gained an organ scholarship, and later a classics scholarship, at Queens' College. By the time he went up to Cambridge he had written a substantial number of compositions, including vocal music, both sacred and secular, and orchestral works (a rondo for cello and orchestra and a concert overture). Stanford immersed himself in the musical life of the university to the detriment of his Latin and Greek studies. He composed religious and secular vocal works, a piano concerto, and incidental music for Longfellow's play A Spanish Student. In November 1870 he appeared as piano soloist with the Cambridge University Musical Society (CUMS), and quickly became its assistant conductor and a committee member. The society had declined in excellence since its foundation in 1843. Its choir consisted solely of men and boys; the lack of women singers severely limited the works that the society could present. Stanford was unable to persuade the members to admit women, and so he staged what The Musical Times called "a bloodless revolution." In February 1872 he co-founded a mixed choir, the Amateur Vocal Guild, whose performances immediately put those of the CUMS singers in the shade. The members of CUMS rapidly changed their minds, and agreed to a merger of the two choirs, with women given associate membership of the society. The conductor of the combined choir was John Larkin Hopkins, who was also organist of Trinity College. He became ill, and handed over the conductorship to Stanford in 1873. Stanford was also appointed Hopkins's deputy organist at Trinity, and moved from Queens' to Trinity in April 1873. In the summer of that year Stanford made his first trip to continental Europe. He went to Bonn for the Schumann Festival held there, where he met Joachim and Brahms. His growing love of the music of Schumann and Brahms marked him as a classicist at a time when many music-lovers were divided into the classical or the modernist camps, the latter represented by the music of Liszt and Wagner. Stanford was not constrained by the fashion for belonging to one camp or the other; he immensely admired Die Meistersinger though he was unenthusiastic about some of Wagner's other works. After leaving Bonn he returned home by way of Switzerland and then Paris, where he saw Meyerbeer's Le prophète. Hopkins's illness proved fatal, and after his death the Trinity authorities invited Stanford to take over as organist of the college. He accepted with the proviso that he was to be released each year for a spell of musical study in Germany. The fellows of the college resolved on 21 February 1874: Two days after his appointment, Stanford took the final examinations for his classics degree. He ranked 65th of 66, and was awarded a third-class degree. On the recommendation of Sir William Sterndale Bennett, former professor of music at Cambridge and now director of the Royal Academy of Music, Stanford went to Leipzig in the summer of 1874 for lessons with Carl Reinecke, professor of composition and piano at the Leipzig Conservatory. The composer Thomas Dunhill commented that by 1874 it was "the tail-end of the Leipzig ascendancy, when the great traditions of Mendelssohn had already begun to fade." Nevertheless, Stanford did not seriously consider studying anywhere else. Neither Dublin nor London offered any comparable musical training; the most prestigious British music school, the RAM, was at that time hidebound and reactionary. He was dismayed to find in Leipzig that Bennett had recommended him to a German pedant no more progressive than the teachers at the RAM. Stanford said of Reinecke, "Of all the dry musicians I have ever known he was the most desiccated. He had not a good word for any contemporary composer… He loathed Wagner … sneered at Brahms and had no enthusiasm of any sort." Stanford's biographer Paul Rodmell suggests that Reinecke's ultra-conservatism may have been unexpectedly good for his pupil "as it may have encouraged Stanford to kick against the traces." During his time in Leipzig Stanford took piano lessons from Robert Papperitz (1826–1903), organist of the city's Nikolaikirche, whom he found more helpful. Among Stanford's compositions in 1874 was a setting of part one of Longfellow's poem "The Golden Legend." He intended to set the entire poem, but gave up, defeated by Longfellow's "numerous but unconnected characters." Stanford ignored this and other early works when assigning opus numbers in his mature years. The earliest compositions in his official list of works are a four-movement Suite for piano and a Toccata for piano, which both date from 1875. After a second spell in Leipzig with Reinecke in 1875, which was no more productive than the first, Stanford was recommended by Joachim to study in Berlin the following year with Friedrich Kiel, whom Stanford found "a master at once sympathetic and able … I learnt more from him in three months, than from all the others in three years." Returning to Cambridge in the intervals of his studies in Germany, Stanford had resumed his work as conductor of CUMS. He found the society in good shape under his deputy, Eaton Faning, and able to tackle demanding new works. In 1876 the society presented one of the first performances in Britain of the Brahms Requiem. In 1877 CUMS came to national attention when it presented the first British performance of Brahms's First Symphony. During the same period, Stanford was becoming known as a composer. He was composing prolifically, though he later withdrew some of his works from these years, including a violin concerto which, according to Rodmell, suffered from "undistinguished thematic material." In 1875 his First Symphony won the second prize in a competition held at the Alexandra Palace for symphonies by British composers, although he had to wait a further two years to hear the work performed. In the same year Stanford directed the first performance of his oratorio "The Resurrection," given by CUMS. At the request of Alfred Tennyson, he wrote incidental music for Tennyson's drama Queen Mary, performed at the Lyceum Theatre, London in April 1876. In April 1878, despite the disapproval of his father, Stanford married Jane Anna Maria Wetton, known as Jennie, a singer whom he had met when she was studying in Leipzig. They had a daughter, Geraldine Mary, born in 1883 and a son, Guy Desmond, born in 1885. In 1878 and 1879 Stanford worked on his first opera, The Veiled Prophet, to a libretto by his friend William Barclay Squire. It was based on a poem by Thomas Moore with characters including a virgin priestess and a mystic prophet, and a plot that culminates in poisoning and stabbing. Stanford offered the work to the opera impresario Carl Rosa, who refused it and suggested that the composer should try to have it staged in Germany: "Its success will (unfortunately) have much greater chances here if accepted abroad." Referring to the enormous popularity of Sullivan's comic operas, Rosa added, "If the work was of the Pinafore style it would be quite another matter." Stanford had greatly enjoyed Sullivan's Cox and Box, but The Veiled Prophet was intended to be a serious work of high drama and romance. Stanford had made many useful contacts during his months in Germany, and his friend the conductor Ernst Frank got the piece staged at the Königliches Schauspiel in Hanover in 1881. Reviewing the premiere for The Musical Times, Stanford's friend J A Fuller Maitland wrote, "Mr. Stanford's style of instrumentation … is built more or less on that of Schumann; while his style of dramatic treatment bears more resemblance to Meyerbeer than to that of any other master." Other reviews were mixed, and the opera had to wait until 1893 for its English premiere. Stanford nevertheless continued to seek operatic success throughout his career. In his lifelong enthusiasm for opera he differed strikingly from his contemporary Hubert Parry, who made one attempt at composing opera and then renounced the genre. By the early 1880s, Stanford was becoming a major figure in the British musical scene. His only major rivals were seen as Sullivan, Frederic Hymen Cowen, Parry, Alexander Mackenzie and Arthur Goring Thomas. Sullivan was by this time viewed with suspicion in high-minded musical circles for composing comic rather than grand operas; Cowen was regarded more as a conductor than as a composer; and the other three, though seen as promising, had not so far made a clear mark as Stanford had done. Stanford helped Parry in particular to gain recognition, commissioning incidental music from him for a Cambridge production of Aristophanes' The Birds and a symphony (the "Cambridge") for the musical society. At Cambridge Stanford continued to raise the profile of CUMS, as well as his own, by securing appearances by leading international musicians including Joachim, Hans Richter, Alfredo Piatti and Edward Dannreuther. The society attracted further attention by premiering works by Cowen, Parry, Mackenzie, Goring Thomas and others. Stanford was also making an impression in his capacity as organist of Trinity, raising musical standards and composing what his biographer Jeremy Dibble calls "some highly distinctive church music" including a Service in B♭ (1879), the anthem "The Lord is my shepherd" (1886) and the motet Justorum animae (1888). In the first half of the 1880s, Stanford collaborated with the author Gilbert à Beckett on two operas, Savonarola, and The Canterbury Pilgrims. The former was well received at its premiere in Hamburg in April 1884, but received a critical savaging when staged at Covent Garden in July of the same year. Parry commented privately, "It seems very badly constructed for the stage, poorly conceived and the music, though clean and well-managed, is not striking or dramatic." The most severe public criticism was in The Theatre, whose reviewer wrote, "The book of Savonarola is dull, stilted, and, from a dramatic point of view, weak. It is not, however, so crushingly tiresome as the music fitted to it. Savonarola has gone far to convince me that opera is quite out of [Stanford's] line and that the sooner he abandons the stage for the cathedral, the better for his musical reputation." The Canterbury Pilgrims had been premiered in London in April 1884, three months before Savonarola was presented at Covent Garden. It had a better reception than the latter, though reviews pointed out Stanford's debt to Die Meistersinger, and complained of a lack of emotion in the love music. George Grove agreed with the critics, writing to Parry, "Charlie's music contains everything but sentiment. Love not at all – that I heard not a grain of. … And I do think that there might be more tune. Melody is not a thing to be avoided surely." In 1896 a critic wrote that the opera had "just such a 'book' as would have suited the late Alfred Cellier. He would probably have made of it a charming light English opera. But Dr. Stanford has chosen to use it for the exemplification of those advanced theories which we know him to hold, and he has given us music which would incline us to think that Die Meistersinger had been his model. The effect of the combination is not happy." In 1883, the Royal College of Music was set up to replace the short-lived and unsuccessful National Training School for Music (NTSM). Neither the NTSM nor the longer-established Royal Academy of Music had provided adequate musical training for professional orchestral players, and the founder-director of the college, George Grove, was determined that the new institution should succeed in doing so. His two principal allies in this undertaking were the violinist Henry Holmes and Stanford. In a study of the founding of the college, David Wright notes that Stanford had two main reasons for supporting Grove's aim. The first was his belief that a capable college orchestra was essential to give students of composition the chance to experience the sound of their music. His second reason was the severe contrast between the competence of German orchestras and the performance of their British counterparts. He accepted Grove's offer of the posts of professor of composition and (with Holmes) conductor of the college orchestra. He held the professorship for the rest of his life; among the best known of his many pupils were Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, John Ireland, Frank Bridge and Arthur Bliss. Stanford was never an easy-going teacher. He insisted on one-to-one tutorials, and worked his pupils hard. One of them, Herbert Howells, recalled, "Corner any Stanford pupil you like, and ask him to confess the sins he most hated being discovered in by his master. He will tell you 'slovenliness' and 'vulgarity.' When these went into the teacher's room they came out, badly damaged. Against compromise with dubious material or workmanship Stanford stubbornly set his face." Another pupil, Edgar Bainton, recalled: Stanford's teaching seemed to be without method or plan. His criticism consisted for the most part of "I like it, my boy," or "It's damned ugly, my boy" (the latter in most cases). In this, perhaps, lay its value. For in spite of his conservatism, and he was intensely and passionately conservative in music as in politics, his amazingly comprehensive knowledge of musical literature of all nations and ages made one feel that his opinions, however irritating, had weight. To Stanford's regret, many of his pupils who achieved eminence as composers broke away from his classical, Brahmsian precepts, as he had himself rebelled against Reinecke's conservatism. The composer George Dyson wrote, "In a certain sense the very rebellion he fought was the most obvious fruit of his methods. And in view of what some of these rebels have since achieved, one is tempted to wonder whether there is really anything better a teacher can do for his pupils than drive them into various forms of revolution." The works of some of Stanford's pupils, including Holst and Vaughan Williams, entered the general repertory in Britain, and to some extent elsewhere, as Stanford's never did. For many years after his death it seemed that Stanford's greatest fame would be as a teacher. Among his achievements at the RCM was the establishment of an opera class, with at least one operatic production every year. From 1885 to 1915 there were 32 productions, all of them conducted by Stanford. In 1887 Stanford was appointed professor of music at Cambridge in succession to Sir George Macfarren who died in October of that year. Up to this time, the university had awarded music degrees to candidates who had not been undergraduates at Cambridge; all that was required was to pass the university's music examinations. Stanford was determined to end the practice, and after six years he persuaded the university authorities to agree. Three years' study at the university became a prerequisite for sitting the bachelor of music examinations. During the last decades of the 19th century, Stanford's academic duties did not prevent him from composing or performing. He was appointed conductor of the Bach Choir, London, in 1885, succeeding its founding conductor Otto Goldschmidt. He held the post until 1902. Hans von Bülow conducted the German premiere of Stanford's Irish Symphony in Hamburg in January 1888, and was sufficiently impressed by the work to programme it in Berlin shortly afterwards. Richter conducted it in Vienna, and Mahler later conducted it in New York. For the Theatre Royal, Cambridge, Stanford composed incidental music for productions of Aeschylus's The Eumenides (1885), and Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos (1887). The Times said of the former, "Mr. Stanford's music is dramatically significant, as well as beautiful in itself. It has, moreover, that quality so rare among modern composers – style." In both sets of music Stanford made extensive use of leitmotifs, in the manner of Wagner; the critic of The Times noted the Wagnerian character of the prelude to Oedipus. In the 1890s, Bernard Shaw writing as "Corno di Bassetto", music critic of The World, voiced mixed feelings about Stanford. In Shaw's view, the best of Stanford's works displayed an uninhibited, Irish, character. The critic was dismissive of the composer's solemn Victorian choral music. In July 1891, Shaw's column was full of praise for Stanford's capacity for spirited tunes, declaring that Richard D'Oyly Carte should engage him to succeed Sullivan as the composer of Savoy operas. In October of the same year, Shaw attacked Stanford's oratorio Eden, bracketing the composer with Parry and Mackenzie as a mutual admiration society, purveying "sham classics": [W]ho am I that I should be believed, to the disparagement of eminent musicians? If you doubt that Eden is a masterpiece, ask Dr Parry and Dr Mackenzie, and they will applaud it to the skies. Surely Dr Mackenzie’s opinion is conclusive; for is he not the composer of Veni Creator, guaranteed as excellent music by Professor Stanford and Dr Parry? You want to know who Parry is? Why, the composer of "Blest Pair of Sirens," as to the merits of which you only have to consult Dr Mackenzie and Professor Stanford. To Fuller Maitland, the trio of composers lampooned by Shaw were the leaders of an English musical renaissance (although neither Stanford nor Mackenzie was English). This view persisted in some academic circles for many years. Stanford returned to opera in 1893, with an extensively revised and shortened version of The Veiled Prophet. It had its British premiere at Covent Garden in July. His friend Fuller Maitland was by this time the chief music critic of The Times, and the paper's review of the opera was laudatory. According to Fuller Maitland The Veiled Prophet was the best novelty of an opera season that had also included Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Bizet's Djamileh and Mascagni's I Rantzau. Stanford's next opera was Shamus O'Brien (1896), a comic opera to a libretto by George H. Jessop. The conductor was the young Henry Wood, who recalled in his memoirs that the producer, Sir Augustus Harris, managed to quell the dictatorial composer and prevent him from interfering with the staging. Stanford attempted to give Wood lessons in conducting, but the young man was unimpressed. The opera was successful, running for 82 consecutive performances. The work was given in German translation in Breslau in 1907; Thomas Beecham thought it "a colourful, racy work", and revived it in his 1910 opéra comique season at His Majesty's Theatre, London. At the end of 1894, Grove retired from the Royal College of Music. Parry was chosen to succeed him, and although Stanford wholeheartedly congratulated his friend on his appointment, their relations soon deteriorated. Stanford was known as a hot-tempered and quarrelsome man. Grove had written of a board meeting at the Royal College "where somehow the spirit of the d----l himself had been working in Stanford all the time – as it sometimes does, making him so nasty and quarrelsome and contradictious as no one but he can be! He is a most remarkably clever and able fellow, full of resource and power – no doubt of that – but one has to purchase it often at a very dear price." Parry suffered worse at Stanford's hands with frequent rows, deeply upsetting to the highly-strung Parry. Some of their rows were caused by Stanford's reluctance to accept the authority of his old friend and protégé, but on other occasions Parry seriously provoked Stanford, notably in 1895 when he reduced the funding for Stanford's orchestral classes. In 1898, Sullivan, ageing and unwell, resigned as conductor of the Leeds triennial music festival, a post which he had held since 1880. He believed that Stanford's motive for accepting the conductorship of the Leeds Philharmonic Society the previous year was to position himself to take over the festival. Stanford later felt obliged to write to The Times, denying that he had been party to a conspiracy to oust Sullivan. Sullivan was by then thought to be a dull conductor of other composers' music, and although Stanford's work as a conductor was not without its critics, he was appointed in Sullivan's place. He remained in charge until 1910. His compositions for the festival included "Songs of the Sea" (1904), "Stabat Mater" (1907) and "Songs of the Fleet (1910)." New works by other composers presented at Leeds during Stanford's years in charge included pieces by Parry, Mackenzie, and seven of Stanford's former pupils. The best-known new work from Stanford's time is probably Vaughan Williams's A Sea Symphony, premiered in 1910. In 1901 Stanford returned once again to opera, with a version of Much Ado About Nothing, to a libretto by Julian Sturgis that was exceptionally faithful to Shakespeare's original. The Manchester Guardian commented, "Not even in the Falstaff of Arrigo Boito and Giuseppe Verdi have the characteristic charm, the ripe and pungent individuality of the original comedy been more sedulously preserved." Despite good notices for the opera, Stanford's star was waning. In the first decade of the century, his music became eclipsed by that of a younger composer, Edward Elgar. In the words of the music scholar Robert Anderson, Stanford "had his innings with continental reputation in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, but then Elgar bowled him out." When Elgar was struggling for recognition in the 1890s, Stanford had been supportive of his younger colleague, conducting his music, putting him forward for a Cambridge doctorate, and proposing him for membership of the exclusive London club, the Athenaeum. He was, however, put out when Elgar's success at home and abroad eclipsed his own, with Richard Strauss (whom Stanford detested) praising Elgar as the first progressive English composer. When Elgar was appointed professor of music at Birmingham University in 1904, Stanford wrote him a letter that the recipient found "odious". Elgar retaliated in his inaugural lecture with remarks about composers of rhapsodies, widely seen as denigrating Stanford. Stanford later counter-attacked in his book A History of Music, writing of Elgar, "Cut off from his contemporaries by his religion and his want of regular academic training, he was lucky enough to enter the field and find the preliminary ploughing done." Though bitter about being sidelined, Stanford continued to compose. Between the turn of the century and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 his new works included a violin concerto (1901), a clarinet concerto (1902), a sixth and a seventh (and last) symphony (1906 and 1911), and his second piano concerto (1911). In 1916 he wrote his penultimate opera, The Critic. It was a setting of Sheridan's comedy of the same name, with the original text left mostly intact by the librettist, Lewis Cairns James. The work was well received at the premiere at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London, and was taken up later in the year by Beecham, who staged it in Manchester and London. The First World War had a severe effect on Stanford. He was frightened by air-raids, and had to move from London to Windsor to avoid them. Many of his former pupils were casualties of the fighting, including Arthur Bliss, injured, Ivor Gurney, gassed, and George Butterworth, killed. The annual RCM operatic production, which Stanford had supervised and conducted every year since 1885, had to be cancelled. His income declined, as the fall in student numbers at the college reduced the demand for his services. After a serious disagreement at the end of 1916, his relationship with Parry deteriorated to the point of hostility. Stanford's magnanimity, however, came to the fore when Parry died two years later and Stanford successfully lobbied for him to be buried in St Paul's Cathedral. After the war, Stanford handed over much of the direction of the RCM's orchestra to Adrian Boult, but continued to teach at the college. He gave occasional public lectures, including one on "Some Recent Tendencies in Composition", in January 1921 which was belligerently hostile to most of the music of the generation after his own. His last public appearance was on 5 March 1921 conducting the Royal Choral Society in his new cantata, At the Abbey Gate. Reviews were polite but unenthusiastic. The Times said, "we could not feel that the music had enough emotion behind it", The Observer thought it "quite appealing even though one feels it to be more facile than powerful." In September 1922, Stanford completed the sixth Irish Rhapsody, his final work. Two weeks later he celebrated his 70th birthday; thereafter his health declined. On 17 March 1924 he suffered a stroke and on 29 March he died at his home in London, survived by his wife and children. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 2 April and his ashes were buried in Westminster Abbey the following day. The orchestra of the Royal College of Music, conducted by Boult, played music by Stanford, ending the service with a funeral march that he had written for Tennyson's Becket in 1893. The grave is in the north choir aisle of the Abbey, near the graves of Henry Purcell, John Blow and William Sterndale Bennett. The Times said, "the conjunction of the music of Stanford with that of his great predecessors showed how thoroughly as composer he belonged to their line." Stanford's last opera, The Travelling Companion, composed during the war, was premiered by amateur performers at the David Lewis Theatre, Liverpool in 1925 with a reduced orchestra. The work was given complete at Bristol in 1928 and at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, in 1935. Stanford received many honours, including honorary doctorates from Oxford (1883), Cambridge (1888), Durham (1894), Leeds (1904), and Trinity College, Dublin (1921). He was knighted in 1902 and in 1904 was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts, Berlin. In Stanford's music the sense of style, the sense of beauty, the feeling of a great tradition is never absent. His music is in the best sense of the word Victorian, that is to say it is the musical counterpart of the art of Tennyson, Watts and Matthew Arnold. Stanford composed about 200 works, including seven symphonies, about 40 choral works, nine operas, 11 concertos and 28 chamber works, as well as songs, piano pieces, incidental music, and organ works. He suppressed most of his earliest compositions; the earliest of works that he chose to include in his catalogue date from 1875. Throughout his career as a composer, Stanford's technical mastery was rarely in doubt. The composer Edgar Bainton said of him, "Whatever opinions may be held upon Stanford's music, and they are many and various, it is, I think, always recognised that he was a master of means. Everything he turned his hand to always 'comes off.'" On the day of Stanford's death, one former pupil, Gustav Holst, said to another, Herbert Howells, "The one man who could get any one of us out of a technical mess is now gone from us." After Stanford's death most of his music was quickly forgotten, with the exception of his works for church performance. His Stabat Mater and Requiem held their place in the choral repertoire, the latter championed by Sir Thomas Beecham. Stanford's two sets of sea songs and the song "The Blue Bird" were still performed from time to time, but even his most popular opera, Shamus O'Brien came to seem old fashioned with its "stage-Irish" vocabulary. However, in his 2002 study of Stanford Dibble writes that the music, increasingly available on disc if not in live performance, still has the power to surprise. In Dibble's view, the frequent charge that Stanford is "Brahms and water" was disproved once the symphonies and concertos, much of the chamber music and many of the songs became available for reappraisal when recorded for compact disc. In 2002, Rodmell's study of Stanford included a discography running to 16 pages. The criticism most often made of Stanford's music by writers from Shaw onwards is that his music lacks passion. Shaw praised "Stanford the Celt" and abominated "Stanford the Professor", who reined in the emotions of the Celt. In Stanford's church music, the critic Nicholas Temperley finds "a thoroughly satisfying artistic experience, but one that is perhaps lacking in deeply felt religious impulse." In his operas and elsewhere, Grove, Parry and later commentators found music that ought to convey love and romance failing to do so. Like Parry, Stanford strove for seriousness, and his competitive streak led him to emulate Sullivan not in comic opera, for which Stanford had a real gift, but in oratorio in what Rodmell calls grand statements that "only occasionally matched worthiness with power or profundity." --excerpts from en.wikipedia.org

Katherine Davis

1892 - 1980 Person Name: Katherine K. Davis, 1892-1980 Topics: Arts, Science; Arts, Science Author of "Let All Things Now Living" in Evangelical Lutheran Worship Katherine Kennicott Davis (b. St. Joseph, MO, 1892; d. Concord, MA, 1980) studied at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she was also a teaching assistant in music. From 1921 to 1929 she taught singing and piano in private schools in Concord, Massachusetts, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After 1929 she devoted herself largely to music composition. She wrote some eight hundred pieces, most of which were choral (often writing under several pseudonyms). One of her most popular songs is "The Little Drummer Boy," originally called "Carol of the Drum" (1941). Her other publications include the folk operetta Cinderella (1933) and Songs of Freedom (1948). Bert Polman

Philipp Nicolai

1556 - 1608 Person Name: Philipp Nicolai, 1556--1608 Topics: Arts, Science; Arts, Science Author of "O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright!" in Evangelical Lutheran Worship Philipp Nicolai (b. Mengeringhausen, Waldeck, Germany, 1556; d. Hamburg, Germany, 1608) lived an eventful life–he fled from the Spanish army, sparred with Roman Catholic and Calvinist opponents, and ministered to plague-stricken congregations. Educated at Wittenberg University, he was ordained a Lutheran pastor in 1583 in the city of Herdecke. However, he was soon at odds with the Roman Catholic town council, and when Spanish troops arrived to reestablish Roman dominance, Nicolai fled. In 1588 he became chief pastor at Altwildungen and court preacher to Countess Argaretha of Waldeck. During that time Nicolai battled with Calvinists, who disagreed with him about the theology of the real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. These doctrinal controversies were renewed when he served the church in Unna, Westphalia. During his time as a pastor there, the plague struck twice, and Nicolai wrote both "How Bright Appears the Morning Star" and "Wake, Awake." Nicolai's last years were spent as Pastor of St. Katherine's Church in Hamburg. Bert Polman ===================== Nicolai, Philipp, D.D., son of Dieterich Nicolai, sometime Lutheran pastor at Herdecke, in Westphalia, and after 1552, at Mengeringhausen in Waldeck, was born at Mengeringhausen, August 10, 1556. (The father was son of Nicolaus Rafflenbol, of Rafflenbol, near Hagen, in Westphalia, and in later life had adopted the Latinised form Nicolai of his father's Christian name as his own surname.) In 1575 Nicolai entered the University of Erfurt, and in 1576 he went to Wittenberg. After completing his University course in 1579 (D.D. at Wittenberg July 4, 1594), he lived for some time at Volkliardinghausen, near Mengeringhausen, and frequently preached for his father. In August, 1583, he was appointed Lutheran preacher at Herdecke, but found many difficulties there, the members of the Town Council being Roman Catholics. After the invasion by the Spanish troops in April, 1586, his colleague re-introduced the Mass, and Nicolai resigned his post. In the end of 15S6 he was appointed diaconus at Niederwildungen, near Waldeck, and in 1587 he became pastor there. He then became, in Nov. 1588, chief pastor at Altwildungen, and also court preacher to the widowed Countess Margafetha of Waldeck, and tutor to her son, Count Wilhelm Ernst. Here he took an active part on the Lutheran side in the Sacramentarian controversy, and was, in Sept. 1592, inhibited from preaching by Count Franz of Waldeck, but the prohibition was soon removed, and in the Synod of 1593 held at Mengeringhausen, he found all the clergy of the principality of Waldeck willing to agree to the Formula of Concord. In October, 1596, he became pastor at Unna, in Westphalia, where he again became engaged in heated controversy with the Calvinists; passed through a frightful pestilence (see below); and then on Dec. 27, 1598, had to flee before the invasion of the Spaniards, and did not return till the end of April, 1599. Finally, in April 1601, he was elected chief pastor of St. Katherine's Church, at Hamburg, where he entered on his duties Aug. 6, 1601. On Oct. 22, 1608, he took part in the ordination of a colleague in the St. Katherine's Church, the diaconus Penshora, and returned home feeling unwell. A violent fever developed itself, under which he sank, and died Oct. 26, 1608 (D. Philipp Nicolai’s Leben und Lieder, by L. Curtze, 1859; Koch, ii. 324; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie xxiii. 607, &c). In Hamburg Nicolai was universally esteemed, was a most popular and influential preacher, and was regarded as a "pillar" of the Lutheran church. In his private life he seems to have been most lovable and estimable. Besides his fame as a preacher, his reputation rests mainly on his hymns. His printed works are mostly polemical, often very violent and acrid in tone, and such as the undoubted sincerity of his zeal to preserve pure and unadulterated Lutheranism may explain, but cannot be said to justify. Of his hymns only four seem to have been printed. Three of Nicolai's hymns were first published in his devotional work entitled Frewden-Spiegel dess ewigen Lebens, published at Frankfurt-am-Main, 1599 (see further below). The two noted here ("Wachet auf” and “Wie schon") rank as classical and epoch-making. The former is the last of the long series of Watchmen's Songs. The latter marks the transition from the objective churchly period to the more subjective and experimental period of German hymn writing; and begins the long series of Hymns of Love to Christ as the Bridegroom of the Soul, to which Franck and Scheffler contributed such beautiful examples. Both are also worthy of note for their unusual and perfect rhythms, and for their splendid melodies. They are:— i. Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme. Eternal Life. This beautiful hymn, one of the first rank, is founded on St. Matt. xxv. 1-13; Rev. xix. 6-9, and xxi. 21; 1 Cor. ii. 9; Ezek. iii. 17; and Is. lii. 8. It first appeared in the Appendix to his Frewden-Spiegel, 1599, in 3 st. of 10 1., entitled "Of the Voice at Midnight, and the Wise Virgins who meet their Heavenly Bridegroom. Matt. 25." Thence in Wackernagel v. p. 259, the Unverfälschter Liedersegen, 1851, No. 690, and most German collections. It is a reversed acrostic, W. Z. G. for the Graf zu Waldeck, viz. his former pupil Count Wilhelm Ernst, who died at Tübingen Sept. 16, 1598, in his fifteenth year. It seems to have been written in 1597 at Unna, in Wesphalia, where Nicolai was then pastor; and during the terrible pestilence which raged there from July, 1597, to January, 1598, to which in July 300, in one week in August 170, and in all over 1300 fell victims. Nicolai's parsonage overlooked the churchyard, and there daily interments took place, often to the number of thirty. In these days of distress, when every household was in mourning, Nicolai's thoughts turned to Death, and thence to God in Heaven, and to the Eternal Fatherland. Jn the preface (dated Aug. 10, 1598) to his Frewden-Spiegel he says: "There seemed to me nothing more sweet, delightful and agreeable, than the contemplation of the noble, sublime doctrine of Eternal Life obtained through the Blood of Christ. This I allowed to dwell in my heart day and night, and searched the Scriptures as to what they revealed on this matter, read also the sweet treatise of the ancient doctor Saint Augustine [De Civitate Dei]. ..... Then day by day I wrote out my meditations, found myself, thank God! wonderfully well, comforted in heart, joyful in spirit, and truly content; gave to my manuscript the name and title of a Mirror of Joy, and took this so composed Frewden-Spiegel to leave behind me (if God should call me from this world) as the token of my peaceful, joyful, Christian departure, or (if God should spare me in health) to comfort other sufferers whom He should also visit with the pestilence .... Now has the gracious, holy God most mercifully preserved me amid the dying from the dreadful pestilence, and wonderfully spared me beyond all my thoughts and hopes, so that with the Prophet David I can say to Him "0 how great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee," &c. The hymn composed under these circumstances (it may be stated that Curtze thinks both hymns were written in 1596, while Nicolai was still at Alt-Wildungen) soon became popular, and still retains its place, though often altered in the 3rd stanza. Probably the opening lines; "Wachet auf! ruft uns die Stimme Der Wachter sehr hoch auf der Zinne" are borrowed from one of the Wächter-Lieder, a form of lyric popular in the Middle Ages, introduced by Wolfram von Eschenbach. (See K. Goedeke's Deutsche Dichtung im Mittelalter, 1871, p. 918.) But while in the Songs the voice of the Watchman from his turret summons the workers of darkness to flee from discovery, with "Nicolai it is a summons to the children of light to awaken to their promised reward and full felicity. The melody appeared first along with the hymn, and is also apparently by Nicolai, though portions of it (e.g. 1. 1 by the Gregorian Fifth Tone) may have been suggested by earlier tunes. It has been called the King of Chorales, and by its majestic simplicity and dignity it well deserves the title. Since its use by Mendelssohn in his St. Paul it has become well known in England, and, in its original form, is given in Miss Winkworth's Chorale Book for England, 1863 (see below). Translations in common use:— 1. Sleepers wake, a voice is calling. This is an unrhymed translation of st. i. by W. Ball in his book of words to Mendelssohn's oratorio of St. Paul, 1836. This form is in Horder's Congregational Hymns, 1884, and others. In the South Place [London] Collection, 1873, it is a recast by A. J. Ellis, but opens with the same first line. In the Parish Hymn Book, 1875, a translation of st. ii., also unrhymed, is added. 2. "Wake ye holy maidens, wake ye. A good translation contributed by Philip Pusey to A. R. Reinagle's Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes, Oxford, 1840, p. 134. It was considerably altered, beginning "Wake, ye holy maidens, fearing" in the Salisbury Hymn Book, 1857, and this is repeated, with further alterations, in Kennedy, 1863, and the Sarum Hymnal, 1868. 3. Wake, arise! the call obeying. A good translation by A. T. Russell, as No. 110 in the Dalston Hospital Hymn Book 1848. 4. Wake, oh wake; around are flying. This is a recast, by A. T. Russell, not for the better, from his 1848 translation, as No. 268 in his Psalms & Hymns. 1851, st. iii. being omitted. Thence, unaltered, in the New Zealand Hymnal, 1872. 5. Wake, awake, for night is flying. A very good translation by Miss Winkworth, in her Lyra Germanica, 2nd Ser., 1858, p. 225, repeated in her Chorale Book for England, 1863, No. 200, with st. ii., 11. 7, 8, rewritten. Included in the English Presbyterian Psalms & Hymns, 1867; Scottish Presbyterian Hymnal, 1876, &c.; and in America, in Laudes Domini, 1884, and others. In the Cantate Domino, Boston, U. S., 1859, it begins "Awake, awake, for night is flying." 6. Wake! the startling watch-cry pealeth. By Miss Cox, in Lyra Messianica, 1864, p. 4, and her Hymns from the German, 1864, p. 27; repeated in W. F. Stevenson's Hymns for Church and Home, 1873. The version in J. L. Porter's Collection, 1876, takes st. i., 11. 1-4 from Miss Cox. The rest is mainly from R. C. Singleton's translation in the Anglican Hymn Book, but borrows lines also from Miss Winkworth, and from the Hymnary text. 7. Wake! the watchman's voice is sounding. By R. C.Singleton. This is No. 259 in the Anglican Hymn Book, 1868, where it is marked as a "versification by R. C. Singleton, 1867." 8. Wake, awake, for night is flying. This is by Canon W. Cooke, in the Hymnary, 1871, and signed A. C. C. In the edition of 1872, 11. 7, 8 of st. ii. are recast, and the whole is marked as " based on E. A. Dayman." It is really a cento, four lines of the 1872 text (i., 1. 5; ii., 11. 7, 8; iii., 1. 9) being by Canon Cooke; and the rest being adapted from the versions of P. Pusey as altered in the Sarum Hymnal, of Miss Winkworth, of Miss Cox, and of R. C. Singleton. It may be regarded as a success, and as passed into the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Church Hymns, 1871; the 1874 Appendix to the New Congregational Hymn Book; Horder's Congregational Hymns, 1884, and others. 9. Wake, arise! the voice is calling. This is an anonymous translation in the Ohio Lutheran Hymnal, 1880. 10. Slumberers, wake, the Bridegroom cometh. A spirited version, based on Miss Winkworth (and with an original st. as iv.), by J. H. Hopkins in his Carols, Hymns & Songs, 3rd ed., 1882. p. 88, and dated 1866. Repeated in the Hymnal Companion (Reformed Episcopal) Philadelphia, U.S., 1885. Other translations are:— (1) “Awake, the voice is crying." In Lyra Davidica, 1108, p. 73. (2) "Awake! awake! the watchman calls." By Miss Fry, 1845, p. 33. (3) "Hark! the trump of God is sounding." By Dr. H. Mills, 1845 (1856, p. 269. This is from the altered form by F. G. Klopstock, in his Geistliche Lieder, 1758, p. 246, as further altered in Zollikofer's Gesang-Buch, 1766, No. 303, where it begins "Wachet auf! so ruft." (4) "Awake, arise, the voice gives warning." In the United Presbyterian Juvenile Missionary Magazine, 1857, p. 193; repeated in 1859, p. 171, beginning, “Awake, arise, it is the warning." (5) “Waken! From the tower it soundeth." By Mrs. Bevan, 1858, p. 1. (6) Up! awake! his summons hurried." By J. D.Burns, in the Family Treasury, 1860, p. 84, and his Memoir & Remains, 1869, p. 234. 11. Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, Voll Gnad und Wahrheit von dem Herrn. Love to Christ. First published in theAppendix to his Frewden-Spiegel, 1599, in 7 stanzas of 10 lines entitled "A spiritual bridal song of the believing soul concerning Jesus Christ, her heavenly Bridegroom, founded on the 45th Psalm of the prophet David." Lauxmann, in Koch, viii. 271, thus gives an account of it as written during the Pestilence of 1597. He says Nicola was "One morning in great distress and tribulation in his quiet study. He rose in spirit from the distress and death which surrounded him to his Redeemer and Saviour, and while he clasped Him in ardent love there welled forth from the inmost depths of his heart this precious hymn of the Saviour's love and of the joys of Heaven. He was so entirely absorbed in this holy exaltation that he forgot all around him, even his midday meal, and allowed nothing to disturb him in his poetical labours till the hymn was completed "—-three hours after midday. As Nicolai was closely connected with Waldeck he formed with the initial letters of his stanzas the acrostic W. E. G. U. H. Z. W., viz. Wilhelm Ernst Graf Und Herr Zn Waldeck— his former pupil. The hymn has reminiscences of Eph. v., of Canticles, and of the Mediaeval Hymns to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It became at once a favourite in Germany, was reckoned indispensable at weddings, was often sung around death beds, &c. The original form is in Wackernagel v. p. 258, and the Unverfälschter Liedersegen, 1851, No. 437; but this (as will be seen by comparing Miss Winkworth's version of 1869) is hardly suited for present day congregational use. In Bunsen's Versuch, 1833, No. 554, it is slightly altered. The form in Knapp's Evangelischer Lieder-Schatz, 1837, No. 2074 (1865, No. 1810) is a recast by Knapp made on Jan. 14, 1832, and published in his Christoterpe, 1833, p. 285, preceded by a recast of "Wachet auf!"; both being marked as “rewritten according to the requirements of our times." The popularity of the hymn was greatly aided by its beautiful chorale (named by Mr. Mercer, Frankfort), which has been called "The Queen of Chorales," and to which many city chimes in Germany were soon set. It was published with the hymn, and is probably an original tune by Nicolai, though portions may have been suggested by earlier melodies, especially by the "Resonet in laudibus," which is probably of the 14th cent. (Bäumker i., No. 48, cites it from the Obsequiale, Ingolstadt, 1570. In Alton's Congregational Psalmist named Arimathea). Translations in common use:— 1. How bright appears the Morning Star! This is a full and fairly close version by J. C. Jacobi, in his Psalter Germanica, 1722, p. 90 (1732, p. 162); repeated, with alterations, in the Moravian Hymn Book, 1754, pt. i., No. 317 (1886, No. 360). The versions of st. v., vii. beginning, "The Father from eternity," are included in Aids to the Service of Song, Edinburgh N.D., but since 1860. In 1855 Mercer gave in his The Church Psalter & Hymn Book., as No. 15, a hymn in 4 stanzas of 10 lines, of which five lines are exactly from Jacobi. St. i., l1. 1-3; ii., .11. 8, 9 ; iii., 11. 2, 3, 6 ; iv., 1. 10, are exactly; and i., 1. 9; ii., 11. 2, 3, 6, 10; iii., II. 1, 4, 5; iv., 11. 7, 9 are nearly from the Moravian Hymn Book, 1801. The interjected lines are by Mercer, but bear very slight resemblance either to Nicolai's original text, or to any version of the German that we have seen. In his 1859 edition he further recast it, leaving only the first line unaltered from Jacobi; and this form is in his Oxford edition, 1864, No. 121, in the Irish Church Hymnal, 1869 and 1873, and in the Hymnal Companion 1870 and 1876. In Kennedy, 1863, the text of 1859 is given with alterations, and begins "How brightly dawns the Morning Star;" and this form is in the People's Hymnal, 1867; Dale's English Hymn Book 1874, &c. 2. How graciously doth shine afar. By A. T. Russell, as No. 8 in the Dalston Hospital Hymn Book, 1848, and repeated in the Cheltenham College Hymn Book, No. 37. It is a free translation of st. i., vi., v. 3. How lovely shines the Morning Star! A good and full translation by Dr. H. Harbaugh (from the text in Dr. Schaff’s Deutsches Gesang-Buch, 1860), in the German Reformed Guardian, May, 1860, p. 157. Repeated in full in Schaff's Christ in Song, 1869, and abridged in Adams's Church Pastorals, Boston, U.S.A., 1864. 4. 0 Morning Star! how fair and bright. A somewhat free translation of st. i., iii., iv., vii., by Miss Winkworth, as No.149 in her Chorale Book for England, 1863. Repeated in the Pennsylvania Lutheran Church Book, 1868; Ohio Lutheran Hymnal,1880, &c. 5. How brightly shines the Morning Star, In truth and mercy from afar. A translation of st. i., iii., iv., vii., by Miss Borthwick, as No. 239 in Dr. Pagenstecher's Collection, 1864. 6. How brightly glows the Morning Star. In full, from Knapp's German recast, by M. W. Stryker, in his Hymns & Verses, 1883, p. 52; repeated, omitting st. ii., iv., in his Christian Chorals, 1885, No. 145. Other translations are:— (1) "How fairly shines the Morning Star." In Lyra Davidica, 1708, p. 40. (2) "As bright the star of morning gleams" (st. i.) By W. Bartholomew, in his book of words to Mendelssohn's oratorio of Christus, 1852, p. 11. (3) "How lovely now the Morning Star." By Miss Cox, 1864, p. 229. (4) "How beauteous shines the Morning Star." By Miss Burlingham, in the British Herald, Oct. 1865, p. 152, and Reid's Praise Book, 1872. (5) "0 Morning Star, how fair and bright." By MissWinkworth, 1869, p. 160. (6) "How bright appears our Morning Star." By J. H. Hopkins, in his Carols, Hymns and Songs, 3rd ed., 1882, p. 168, and dated 1866. There are also three hymns in common use, which have generally been regarded as translations from Nicolai. They are noted as follows:—i. "Behold how glorious is yon sky" (see p. 127, ii.). ii. "How beautiful the Morning Star". iii. "How brightly shines the Morning Star! What eye descries it from afar". [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.] --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Charles Wesley

1707 - 1788 Person Name: C. Wesley (1707-1788) Topics: God's World Work and Leisure, Art and Science Author of "Forth in your name, O Lord, I go" in Hymns for Today's Church (2nd ed.) Charles Wesley, M.A. was the great hymn-writer of the Wesley family, perhaps, taking quantity and quality into consideration, the great hymn-writer of all ages. Charles Wesley was the youngest son and 18th child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, and was born at Epworth Rectory, Dec. 18, 1707. In 1716 he went to Westminster School, being provided with a home and board by his elder brother Samuel, then usher at the school, until 1721, when he was elected King's Scholar, and as such received his board and education free. In 1726 Charles Wesley was elected to a Westminster studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1729, and became a college tutor. In the early part of the same year his religious impressions were much deepened, and he became one of the first band of "Oxford Methodists." In 1735 he went with his brother John to Georgia, as secretary to General Oglethorpe, having before he set out received Deacon's and Priest's Orders on two successive Sundays. His stay in Georgia was very short; he returned to England in 1736, and in 1737 came under the influence of Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians, especially of that remarkable man who had so large a share in moulding John Wesley's career, Peter Bonier, and also of a Mr. Bray, a brazier in Little Britain. On Whitsunday, 1737, [sic. 1738] he "found rest to his soul," and in 1738 he became curate to his friend, Mr. Stonehouse, Vicar of Islington, but the opposition of the churchwardens was so great that the Vicar consented that he "should preach in his church no more." Henceforth his work was identified with that of his brother John, and he became an indefatigable itinerant and field preacher. On April 8, 1749, he married Miss Sarah Gwynne. His marriage, unlike that of his brother John, was a most happy one; his wife was accustomed to accompany him on his evangelistic journeys, which were as frequent as ever until the year 1756," when he ceased to itinerate, and mainly devoted himself to the care of the Societies in London and Bristol. Bristol was his headquarters until 1771, when he removed with his family to London, and, besides attending to the Societies, devoted himself much, as he had done in his youth, to the spiritual care of prisoners in Newgate. He had long been troubled about the relations of Methodism to the Church of England, and strongly disapproved of his brother John's "ordinations." Wesley-like, he expressed his disapproval in the most outspoken fashion, but, as in the case of Samuel at an earlier period, the differences between the brothers never led to a breach of friendship. He died in London, March 29, 1788, and was buried in Marylebone churchyard. His brother John was deeply grieved because he would not consent to be interred in the burial-ground of the City Road Chapel, where he had prepared a grave for himself, but Charles said, "I have lived, and I die, in the Communion of the Church of England, and I will be buried in the yard of my parish church." Eight clergymen of the Church of England bore his pall. He had a large family, four of whom survived him; three sons, who all became distinguished in the musical world, and one daughter, who inherited some of her father's poetical genius. The widow and orphans were treated with the greatest kindness and generosity by John Wesley. As a hymn-writer Charles Wesley was unique. He is said to have written no less than 6500 hymns, and though, of course, in so vast a number some are of unequal merit, it is perfectly marvellous how many there are which rise to the highest degree of excellence. His feelings on every occasion of importance, whether private or public, found their best expression in a hymn. His own conversion, his own marriage, the earthquake panic, the rumours of an invasion from France, the defeat of Prince Charles Edward at Culloden, the Gordon riots, every Festival of the Christian Church, every doctrine of the Christian Faith, striking scenes in Scripture history, striking scenes which came within his own view, the deaths of friends as they passed away, one by one, before him, all furnished occasions for the exercise of his divine gift. Nor must we forget his hymns for little children, a branch of sacred poetry in which the mantle of Dr. Watts seems to have fallen upon him. It would be simply impossible within our space to enumerate even those of the hymns which have become really classical. The saying that a really good hymn is as rare an appearance as that of a comet is falsified by the work of Charles Wesley; for hymns, which are really good in every respect, flowed from his pen in quick succession, and death alone stopped the course of the perennial stream. It has been the common practice, however for a hundred years or more to ascribe all translations from the German to John Wesley, as he only of the two brothers knew that language; and to assign to Charles Wesley all the original hymns except such as are traceable to John Wesley through his Journals and other works. The list of 482 original hymns by John and Charles Wesley listed in this Dictionary of Hymnology have formed an important part of Methodist hymnody and show the enormous influence of the Wesleys on the English hymnody of the nineteenth century. -- Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) ================== Charles Wesley, the son of Samuel Wesley, was born at Epworth, Dec. 18, 1707. He was educated at Westminster School and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated M.A. In 1735, he took Orders and immediately proceeded with his brother John to Georgia, both being employed as missionaries of the S.P.G. He returned to England in 1736. For many years he engaged with his brother in preaching the Gospel. He died March 29, 1788. To Charles Wesley has been justly assigned the appellation of the "Bard of Methodism." His prominence in hymn writing may be judged from the fact that in the "Wesleyan Hymn Book," 623 of the 770 hymns were written by him; and he published more than thirty poetical works, written either by himself alone, or in conjunction with his brother. The number of his separate hymns is at least five thousand. --Annotations of the Hymnal, Charles Hutchins, M.A., 1872.

John Ellerton

1826 - 1893 Topics: Arts and Music; God Presence of; Prayer; Science and Technology; Work and Vocation Author of "O Grant Us, God, a Little Space" in The New Century Hymnal John Ellerton (b. London, England, 1826; d. Torquay, Devonshire, England, 1893) Educated at King William's College on the Isle of Man and at Trinity College, Cambridge, England, he was ordained in the Church of England in 1851. He served six parishes, spending the longest time in Crewe Green (1860-1872), a church of steelworkers and farmers. Ellerton wrote and translated about eighty hymns, many of which are still sung today. He helped to compile Church Hymns and wrote its handbook, Notes and Illustrations to Church Hymns (1882). Some of his other hymn texts were published in The London Mission Hymn Book (1884). Bert Polman ========================= Ellerton, John, M.A., son of George Ellerton, was born in London, Dec. 16, 1826, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A. 1849; M.A. 1854). Taking Holy Orders he was successively Curate of Easebourne, Sussex, 1850; Brighton, and Lecturer of St. Peter's, Brighton, 1852; Vicar of Crewe Green, and Chaplain to Lord Crewe, 1860; Rector of Hinstock, 1872; of Barnes, 1876; and of White Roding, 1886. Mr. Ellerton's prose writings include The Holiest Manhood, 1882; Our Infirmities, 1883, &c. It is, however, as a hymnologist, editor, hymnwriter, and translator, that he is most widely known. As editor he published: Hymns for Schools and Bible Classes, Brighton, 1859. He was also co-editor with Bishop How and others of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Church Hymns, 1871. His Notes and Illustrations of Church Hymns, their authors and translators, were published in the folio edition of 1881. The notes on the hymns which are special to the collection, and many of which were contributed thereto, are full, accurate, and of special value. Those on the older hymns are too general for accuracy. They are written in a popular form, which necessarily precludes extended research, fulness, and exactness of detail. The result is acceptable to the general public, but disappointing to the hymnological expert. Mr. Ellerton's original hymns number about fifty, and his translations from the Latin ten or more. Nearly every one of these are in common use and include:— 1. Before the day draws near its ending. Afternoon. Written April 22, 1880, for a Festival of Choirs at Nantwich, and first published in the Nantwich Festival Book, 1880. In 1883 it passed into the Westminster Abbey Hymn Book. 2. Behold us, Lord, a little space. General for Weekdays. Written in 1870 for a mid-day service in a City Church, and published in Church Hymns in 1871. It has passed into several collections. 3. Come forth, 0 Christian brothers. Processional for Choral Festival. Written for a Festival of Parochial Choirs held at Chester, May, 1870, and 1st printed in the Service-book of the same. In 1871 it passed into Church Hymns. 4. Father, Name of love and fear. Confirmation. Written in 1871 for a Confirmation in the North of England, and published in Church Hymns, 1871, and other collections. 5. God, Creator and Preserver. In Time of Scarcity. Written for and first published in The Hymnary, 1870; and again in the revised edition, 1872, and other hymnbooks. 6. Hail to the Lord Who comes. Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Written Oct. 6, 1880, for Mrs. Brock's Children's Hymn Book, and published therein, 1881. 7. In the Name which earth and heaven. Foundation of a Church. Written for and first published in Church Hymns, 1871, and repeated in several collections. The hymn sung at the re-opening of the Nave of Chester Cathedral, January 25, 1872, was compiled by Mr. Ellerton from this hymn, and his "Lift the strain of high thanksgiving.” 8 King Messiah, long expected. The Circumcision. Written Jan. 14, 1871, and first published in Church Hymns, 1871. It has passed into other collections. 9. King of Saints, to Whom the number. St. Bartholomew. Written for and first published in Church Hymns., 1871. It is very popular, and has been repeated in many hymnals. 10. Mary at the Master's feet. Catechizing. Written for and first published in Church Hymns, 1871. 11. O Father, all-creating. Holy Matrimony. Written Jan. 29, 1876, at the request of the Duke of Westminster, for the marriage of his daughter to the Marquess of Ormonde. It was published in Thring's Collection, 1880 and 1882. 12 O! how fair the morning broke. Septuagesima. Written March 13, 1880, for Mrs. Brock's Children's Hymn Book, and included therein, 1881. 13. O Lord of life and death, welcome. In Time of Pestilence. Written for and first published in Church Hymns, 1871. 14. O shining city of our God. Concerning the Hereafter. First published in the Rev. R. Brown-Borthwick's Sixteen Hymns with Tunes, &c, 1870; and again in Church Hymns, 1871. 15. O Son of God, our Captain of Salvation. St. Barnabas. Written April 5, 1871, and first published in Church Hymns, 1871; and again in Hymns Ancient & Modern, 1875, Thring's Collection, 1882, and others. 16. O Thou in Whom Thy saints repose. Consecration of a Burial Ground. Written for the consecration of an addition to the Parish Churchyard of Tarporley, Cheshire, 1870, and published in Church Hymns, 1871. 17. O Thou Whose bounty fills the earth. Flower Services. Written for a Flower Service at St. Luke's Church, Chelsea, June 6, 1880, and published in Mrs. Brock's Children's Hymn Book, 1881. 18. Praise to our God, Whose bounteous hand. National Thanksgiving. Written in 1870 for Church Hymns, but first published in the Rev. R. Brown-Borthwick's Select Hymns, &c., 1871, and then in Church Hymns later the same year. 19. The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended. The darkness, &c. Evening. Written in 1870 for A Liturgy for Missionary Meetings (Frome, Hodges), and revised for Church Hymns, 1871. The revised form has passed into other collections. 20. The Lord be with us when we bend. Close of Afternoon Service. Written [in 1870] at the request of a friend for use at the close of Service on Sunday afternoons when (as in summer) strictly Evening hymns would be unsuitable. It was published in Church Hymns, 1871, Thring's Collection, 1882, and others. 21. This day the Lord's disciples met. Whitsuntide. "Originally written in 1855 for a class of children, as a hymn of 8 verses of 5 lines each, beginning, 'The Fiftieth day was come at last.’ It was abridged, revised, and compressed into C.M. for Mrs. Brock's Children's Hymn Book, 1880," and published therein, 1881. 22. Thou in Whose Name the two or three. Wednesday. Appeared in the Parish Magazine, May, 1871, as a hymn for Wednesday. After revision it was included in Church Hymns, 1871, and repeated in other collections. 23. Thou Who sentest Thine Apostles. SS. Simon and Jude. Written in June, 1874, for the revised edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern, and published in the same in 1875. 24. We sing the glorious conquest. Conversion of St. Paul. Written Feb. 28, 1871, for and published later the same year in Church Hymns. It was repeated in Hymns Ancient & Modern, 1875. 25. When the day of toil is done. Eternal Best. Written in Jan., 1870, and first published in the Rev. R. Brown-Borthwick's Sixteen Hymns with Tunes, &c. 1870, Church Hymns, 1871, and subsequently in several Scottish hymn-books. The tune "Preston," in Church Hymns was written for this hymn. To these hymns must be added those which are annotated under their respective first lines, and the translations from the Latin. The grandest of his original compositions is, "Throned upon the awful tree," and the most beautiful and tender, "Saviour, again to Thy dear Name we raise"; and of his translations, "Sing Alleluia forth in duteous praise," and "Welcome, happy morning, age to age shall say," are the most successful and popular. The subjects of Mr. Ellerton's hymns, and the circumstances under which they were written, had much to do with the concentration of thought and terseness of expression by which they are characterized. The words which he uses are usually short and simple; the thought is clear and well stated; the rhythm is good and stately. Ordinary facts in sacred history and in daily life are lifted above the commonplace rhymes with which they are usually associated, thereby rendering the hymns bearable to the cultured, and instructive to the devout. His antitheses are frequent and terse, almost too much so for devotional verse, and are in danger of interrupting the tranquil flow of devotion. His sympathy with nature, especially in her sadder moods, is great; he loves the fading light and the peace of eve, and lingers in the shadows. Unlike many writers who set forth their illustrations in detail, and then tie to them the moral which they are to teach, he weaves his moral into his metaphor, and pleases the imagination and refreshes the spirit together. Now and again he falls into the weakness of ringing changes on words; but taken as a whole his verse is elevated in tone, devotional in spirit, and elegant in diction. -- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) ===================== Ellerton, John, p. 326, i. Other hymns are:— 1. O Father, bless the children. Holy Baptism. Written in 1886, and published in his Hymns, &c, 1888, in 4 stanzas of 8 lines. Also in the 1889 Suppl. Hymns to Hymns Ancient & Modern. 2. O Thou Who givest food to all. Temperance. Written Aug. 30, 1882, and printed in the Church of England Temperance Chronicle, Sept. 1882. Also in his Hymns, &c, 1888. 3. Praise our God for all the wonders. St. Nicholas's Day. Dated in his Hymns, 1888, "December 1882." It was written for the Dedication Festival of St. Nicholas's Church, Brighton, and first printed as a leaflet in 1882. 4. Praise our God, Whose open hand. Bad Harvest. Written as a hymn for the bad harvest of 1881, and printed in the Guardian in August of that year. Also in his Hymns, &c, 1888. 5. Praise to the Heavenly Wisdom. St. Matthias's Day. Dated in his Hymns, &c, 1888, "January, 1888." Also in the 1889 Suppl. Hymns to Hymns Ancient & Modern. 6. Shine Thou upon us, Lord. For a Teachers' Meeting. Contributed to the 1889 Suppl. Hymns to Hymns Ancient & Modern. 7. Thou Who wearied by the well. Temperance. Written for the Opening of a Workmen's Coffee Tavern, and dated in his Hymns, &c, 1888, "September 23, 1882." It was printed in the Church of England Temperance Chronicle the same year. 8. Throned upon the awful Tree. Good Friday. Written in 1875, and published in the 1875 ed. of Hymns Ancient & Modern. It has passed into many collections, and is one of the finest of Mr. Ellerton's productions. Mr. Ellerton's original and translated hymns to the number of 76 were collected, and published by Skeffington & Son in 1888, as Hymns, Original and Translated. By John Ellerton, Rector of White Roding. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907) =================== Ellerton, J., pp. 326, ii.; 1561, ii. He was appointed Hon. Canon of St. Albans in 1892. and died June 15, 1893. His Life and Works, by H. Housman, was published in 1896. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)

Ralph Vaughan Williams

1872 - 1958 Person Name: R. Vaughan Williams Topics: Art and Literature; Brotherhood; God Eternity and Power; God Kingdom; Missions; Peace on Earth; Schools; Science; World Friendship and Peace; Kingdom of God on Earth, The World Friendship and Peace Arranger of "FOREST GREEN" in The Hymnbook Through his composing, conducting, collecting, editing, and teaching, Ralph Vaughan Williams (b. Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, England, October 12, 1872; d. Westminster, London, England, August 26, 1958) became the chief figure in the realm of English music and church music in the first half of the twentieth century. His education included instruction at the Royal College of Music in London and Trinity College, Cambridge, as well as additional studies in Berlin and Paris. During World War I he served in the army medical corps in France. Vaughan Williams taught music at the Royal College of Music (1920-1940), conducted the Bach Choir in London (1920-1927), and directed the Leith Hill Music Festival in Dorking (1905-1953). A major influence in his life was the English folk song. A knowledgeable collector of folk songs, he was also a member of the Folksong Society and a supporter of the English Folk Dance Society. Vaughan Williams wrote various articles and books, including National Music (1935), and composed numerous arrangements of folk songs; many of his compositions show the impact of folk rhythms and melodic modes. His original compositions cover nearly all musical genres, from orchestral symphonies and concertos to choral works, from songs to operas, and from chamber music to music for films. Vaughan Williams's church music includes anthems; choral-orchestral works, such as Magnificat (1932), Dona Nobis Pacem (1936), and Hodie (1953); and hymn tune settings for organ. But most important to the history of hymnody, he was music editor of the most influential British hymnal at the beginning of the twentieth century, The English Hymnal (1906), and coeditor (with Martin Shaw) of Songs of Praise (1925, 1931) and the Oxford Book of Carols (1928). Bert Polman

Johann Sebastian Bach

1685 - 1750 Person Name: Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750 Topics: Art and Science Arranger of "SALZBURG" in The Covenant Hymnal Johann Sebastian Bach was born at Eisenach into a musical family and in a town steeped in Reformation history, he received early musical training from his father and older brother, and elementary education in the classical school Luther had earlier attended. Throughout his life he made extraordinary efforts to learn from other musicians. At 15 he walked to Lüneburg to work as a chorister and study at the convent school of St. Michael. From there he walked 30 miles to Hamburg to hear Johann Reinken, and 60 miles to Celle to become familiar with French composition and performance traditions. Once he obtained a month's leave from his job to hear Buxtehude, but stayed nearly four months. He arranged compositions from Vivaldi and other Italian masters. His own compositions spanned almost every musical form then known (Opera was the notable exception). In his own time, Bach was highly regarded as organist and teacher, his compositions being circulated as models of contrapuntal technique. Four of his children achieved careers as composers; Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, and Chopin are only a few of the best known of the musicians that confessed a major debt to Bach's work in their own musical development. Mendelssohn began re-introducing Bach's music into the concert repertoire, where it has come to attract admiration and even veneration for its own sake. After 20 years of successful work in several posts, Bach became cantor of the Thomas-schule in Leipzig, and remained there for the remaining 27 years of his life, concentrating on church music for the Lutheran service: over 200 cantatas, four passion settings, a Mass, and hundreds of chorale settings, harmonizations, preludes, and arrangements. He edited the tunes for Schemelli's Musicalisches Gesangbuch, contributing 16 original tunes. His choral harmonizations remain a staple for studies of composition and harmony. Additional melodies from his works have been adapted as hymn tunes. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Norman E. Johnson

1928 - 1983 Person Name: Norman E. Johnson, 1928-1983 Topics: Art and Science Arranger of "HOLY MANNA" in The Covenant Hymnal

Orlando Gibbons

1583 - 1625 Person Name: Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) Topics: God's World Work and Leisure, Art and Science Composer of "ANGEL'S SONG" in Hymns for Today's Church (2nd ed.) Orlando Gibbons (baptised 25 December 1583 – 5 June 1625) was an English composer, virginalist and organist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods. He was a leading composer in the England of his day. Gibbons was born in Cambridge and christened at Oxford the same year – thus appearing in Oxford church records. Between 1596 and 1598 he sang in the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, where his brother Edward Gibbons (1568–1650), eldest of the four sons of William Gibbons, was master of the choristers. The second brother Ellis Gibbons (1573–1603) was also a promising composer, but died young. Orlando entered the university in 1598 and achieved the degree of Bachelor of Music in 1606. James I appointed him a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, where he served as an organist from at least 1615 until his death. In 1623 he became senior organist at the Chapel Royal, with Thomas Tomkins as junior organist. He also held positions as keyboard player in the privy chamber of the court of Prince Charles (later King Charles I), and organist at Westminster Abbey. He died at age 41 in Canterbury of apoplexy, and a monument to him was built in Canterbury Cathedral. A suspicion immediately arose that Gibbons had died of the plague, which was rife in England that year. Two physicians who had been present at his death were ordered to make a report, and performed an autopsy, the account of which survives in The National Archives: We whose names are here underwritten: having been called to give our counsels to Mr. Orlando Gibbons; in the time of his late and sudden sickness, which we found in the beginning lethargical, or a profound sleep; out of which, we could never recover him, neither by inward nor outward medicines, & then instantly he fell in most strong, & sharp convulsions; which did wring his mouth up to his ears, & his eyes were distorted, as though they would have been thrust out of his head & then suddenly he lost both speech, sight and hearing, & so grew apoplectical & lost the whole motion of every part of his body, & so died. Then here upon (his death being so sudden) rumours were cast out that he did die of the plague, whereupon we . . . caused his body to be searched by certain women that were sworn to deliver the truth, who did affirm that they never saw a fairer corpse. Yet notwithstanding we to give full satisfaction to all did cause the skull to be opened in our presence & we carefully viewed the body, which we found also to be very clean without any show or spot of any contagious matter. In the brain we found the whole & sole cause of his sickness namely a great admirable blackness & syderation in the outside of the brain. Within the brain (being opened) there did issue out abundance of water intermixed with blood & this we affirm to be the only cause of his sudden death. His death was a shock to peers and the suddenness of his passing drew comment more for the haste of his burial – and of its location at Canterbury rather than the body being returned to London. His wife, Elizabeth, died a little over a year later, aged in her mid-30s, leaving Orlando's eldest brother, Edward, to care for the children left orphans by this event. Of these children only the eldest son, Christopher Gibbons, went on to become a musician. One of the most versatile English composers of his time, Gibbons wrote a quantity of keyboard works, around thirty fantasias for viols, a number of madrigals (the best-known being "The Silver Swan"), and many popular verse anthems. His choral music is distinguished by his complete mastery of counterpoint, combined with his wonderful gift for melody. Perhaps his most well known verse anthem is This is the record of John, which sets an Advent text for solo countertenor or tenor, alternating with full chorus. The soloist is required to demonstrate considerable technical facility at points, and the work at once expresses the rhetorical force of the text, whilst never being demonstrative or bombastic. He also produced two major settings of Evensong, the Short Service and the Second Service. The former includes a beautifully expressive Nunc dimittis, while the latter is an extended composition, combining verse and full sections. Gibbons's full anthems include the expressive O Lord, in thy wrath, and the Ascension Day anthem O clap your hands together for eight voices. He contributed six pieces to the first printed collection of keyboard music in England, Parthenia (to which he was by far the youngest of the three contributors), published in about 1611. Gibbons's surviving keyboard output comprises some 45 pieces. The polyphonic fantasia and dance forms are the best represented genres. Gibbons's writing exhibits full mastery of three- and four-part counterpoint. Most of the fantasias are complex, multisectional pieces, treating multiple subjects imitatively. Gibbons's approach to melody in both fantasias and dances features a capability for almost limitless development of simple musical ideas, on display in works such as Pavane in D minor and Lord Salisbury's Pavan and Galliard. In the 20th century, the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould championed Gibbons's music, and named him as his favorite composer. Gould wrote of Gibbons's hymns and anthems: "ever since my teen-age years this music ... has moved me more deeply than any other sound experience I can think of." In one interview, Gould compared Gibbons to Beethoven and Webern: ...despite the requisite quota of scales and shakes in such half-hearted virtuoso vehicles as the Salisbury Galliard, one is never quite able to counter the impression of music of supreme beauty that lacks its ideal means of reproduction. Like Beethoven in his last quartets, or Webern at almost any time, Gibbons is an artist of such intractable commitment that, in the keyboard field, at least, his works work better in one's memory, or on paper, than they ever can through the intercession of a sounding-board. To this day, Gibbons's obit service is commemorated every year in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. --wikipedia.org