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Joseph Haydn

1732 - 1809 Person Name: Francis Joseph Haydn Composer of "AUSTRIA" in Evangelical Lutheran hymnal Franz Joseph Haydn (b. Rohrau, Austria, 1732; d. Vienna, Austria, 1809) Haydn's life was relatively uneventful, but his artistic legacy was truly astounding. He began his musical career as a choirboy in St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, spent some years in that city making a precarious living as a music teacher and composer, and then served as music director for the Esterhazy family from 1761 to 1790. Haydn became a most productive and widely respected composer of symphonies, chamber music, and piano sonatas. In his retirement years he took two extended tours to England, which resulted in his "London" symphonies and (because of G. F. Handel's influence) in oratorios. Haydn's church music includes six great Masses and a few original hymn tunes. Hymnal editors have also arranged hymn tunes from various themes in Haydn's music. Bert Polman

Ithamar Conkey

1815 - 1867 Composer of "RATHBUN" in African Methodist Episcopal hymn and tune book Ithamar D. Conkey USA 1815-1867. Born of Scottish ancestry in Shutesbury, MA, he became a wool merchant. He married Elizabeth Billings, and they had a daughter and two sons. He was organist at Central Baptist Church,Norwich, CN. After that, he went to NewYork City and served as bass soloist at Calvary Episcopal church and Grace Church. Later, he served as bass soloist and choir director of Madison Avenue Baptist Church. His famous hymn was written in 1849. Two years later, William Howard Doane was baptized in the same church. John Perry

Henry Thomas Smart

1813 - 1879 Person Name: Henry Smart Composer of "BETHANIA (English)" in The Students' Hymnal Henry Smart (b. Marylebone, London, England, 1813; d. Hampstead, London, 1879), a capable composer of church music who wrote some very fine hymn tunes (REGENT SQUARE, 354, is the best-known). Smart gave up a career in the legal profession for one in music. Although largely self taught, he became proficient in organ playing and composition, and he was a music teacher and critic. Organist in a number of London churches, including St. Luke's, Old Street (1844-1864), and St. Pancras (1864-1869), Smart was famous for his extemporizations and for his accompaniment of congregational singing. He became completely blind at the age of fifty-two, but his remarkable memory enabled him to continue playing the organ. Fascinated by organs as a youth, Smart designed organs for important places such as St. Andrew Hall in Glasgow and the Town Hall in Leeds. He composed an opera, oratorios, part-songs, some instrumental music, and many hymn tunes, as well as a large number of works for organ and choir. He edited the Choralebook (1858), the English Presbyterian Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (1867), and the Scottish Presbyterian Hymnal (1875). Some of his hymn tunes were first published in Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861). Bert Polman

Anonymous

Person Name: Unknown Author of "Holy Father, thou hast taught me" in African Methodist Episcopal hymn and tune book In some hymnals, the editors noted that a hymn's author is unknown to them, and so this artificial "person" entry is used to reflect that fact. Obviously, the hymns attributed to "Author Unknown" "Unknown" or "Anonymous" could have been written by many people over a span of many centuries.

John Zundel

1815 - 1882 Composer of "LOVE DIVINE" in Sacred Songs for School Use John Zundel; b. 1815, near Stuttgart, Germany; organist in Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1847 to 1878; d. Cannstadt, Germany, 1882 Evangelical Lutheran Hymnal, 1908

Dmitri Stepanovich Bortnianski

1751 - 1825 Person Name: Dimitri Bortniansky (1751-1815) Composer of "VESPER HYMN" in The Parish School Hymnal Dimitri Stepanovitch Bortniansky (1751-1825) Ukraine 1751-1825 Born in Glukhov, Ukraine, he joined the imperial choir at age 8 and studied with Galuppi, who later took the lad with him to Italy, where he studied for 10 years, becoming a composer, harpsichordist, and conductor. While in Italy he composed several operas and other instrumental music, composing more operas and music later in Russia. In 1779 he returned to Russia, where he was appointed Director to the Imperial Chapel Choir, the first as a native citizen. In 1796 he was appointed music director. With such a great instrument at his disposal, he produced many compositions, 100+ religious works, sacred concertos, cantatas, and hymns. He influenced Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovshy, the latter editing Bortniansky's sacred work, amassing 10 volumnes. He died in St. Petersburg. He was so popular in Russia that a bronze statue was erected in his honor in the Novgorod Kremlin. He composed in different musical styles, including choral works in French, Italian, Latin, German, and Church Slavonic. John Perry

John H. Spielman

Adapter of "MANT" in American Lutheran Hymnal John Henry Spielman, b. 1840, Lancaster, Ohio. Professor at Capital University, 1864-72. Editor of "Sunday-School Hymnal," "Psalterlust," and "Cantica Sacra." Public School Librarian, Columbus, Ohio; d. Columbus, Ohio, 1896

Homer N. Bartlett

1845 - 1920 Composer of "PROMISED LAND" in Church Hymns and Tunes Homer Newton Bartlett, a pianist, organist and prolific composer, was considered during his lifetime to be in the front rank of American musicians. He was born on December 1845 in Olive, New York, the descendant of a long line of illustrious New Englanders. A musical prodigy from childhood, he studied piano and composition with a number of well-known teachers, including Emil Guyon and S.B. Mills, and took up his first position as a church organist at the age of fourteen. In August 1864, the summer after he turned eighteen, Bartlett enlisted as an infantryman in the 64th New York Regiment. He was mustered out the following year at the end of the war. Bartlett spent his adult life in New York City, where he was organist and musical director at two prestigious Protestant churches. For twelve years he served at the Marble Collegiate Church, the Dutch Reformed church founded by Peter Minuit, which is the oldest Protestant congregation in North America; he then moved to the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, where he remained for the next thirty-one years. At the same time, he was composing and publishing musical works in a variety of genres, from voice-and-piano pieces intended for middle-class drawing rooms to grand symphonic works such as Apollo, a “symphonic poem” based on the Iliad. He was a founding member of the American Guild of Organists, served as president of the National Association of Organists, and won a number of musical competitions, including a 1905 composition contest sponsored by the piano manufacturers Kranich & Bach. He died in April 1920. Nancy Naber, from the New York State Library/Manuscripts and Special Collections http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/msscfa/pr/sc23062.pdf