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Lowell Mason

1792 - 1872 Person Name: Lowell Mason, 1792-1872 Adapter of "Work, for the Night Is Coming" in Worship and Service Hymnal 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 19G9. 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). Biographies of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company.

Mrs. Harry Coghill

1836 - 1907 Person Name: Annie L. Coghill Author of "Work, for the Night is Coming" in Hymnal of the Church of God Coghill, Annie Louisa, née Walker, daughter of Robert Walker, was born at Kiddermore, Staffordshire, in 1836, and married Harry Coghill in 1884. During a residence for some time in Canada several of her poetical pieces were printed in the Canadian newspapers. These were gathered together and published c. 1859 in her Leaves from the Backwoods. In addition to novels, plays for children, and magazine work, she edited the Autobiography and Letters of her cousin, Mrs. Oliphant, in 1898. Her popular hymn,"Work, for the night is coming," p. 317, ii., was written in Canada in 1854, and published in a Canadian newspaper, from which it passed, without any acknowledgement of the authorship, into Ira D. Sankey's Sacred Songs and Solos. Authorized text in her Oak and Maple, 1890, p. 17. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907) ====================== [See also: http://biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=7126]

Anonymous

Person Name: Anon. Author of "Work, for the night is coming" in The Canadian Baptist Hymn 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.

Helen C. A. Dixon

1877 - 1969 Person Name: Mrs. C. M. Alexander Author of "Work, for the Night is Coming" in Alexander's Hymns No. 4 Dixon, Helen Cadbury Alexander (b. 1877, Birmingham, Eng.; d. Mar. 1, 1969, Birmingham, Eng.) was the daughter of Richard Cadbury, a prominent British industrialist and philanthropist who was a member of the Quaker fellowship and keenly interested in evangelical mission work; attended the university and spent some time in Germany, studying music and language; in 1904 married Charles M. Alexander, songleader with evangelist R. A. Torrey; traveled with her husband and assisted him in his worldwide ministry with both Torrey and J. Wilbur Chapman (q.v.) until his death in 1920; assisted J. Kennedy Maclean in writing the biography, Charles M. Alexander: A Romance of Song and Soul-Winning, 1921; in 1924 married Amsji C. Dixon. Don Hustad, DNAH Archives

Melvin West

1930 - 2019 Person Name: Melvin West, (1930-2019) Arranger of "WORK SONG" in Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal

Samuel Dyer

1785 - 1835 Person Name: S. Dyer Author of "Work, for the night is coming" in Praise and Thanks Rv Samuel Dyer United Kingdom 1785-1835. Born in White Chapel, Hampshire, the family moved to Wellshire, England, where he was ordained and served as a Baptist minister. In 1806 the family moved to Coventry, and Samuel emigrated to the U.S. in 1811. He married Renee Novak. He taught music and directed choirs in New York City and Philadelphia, PA. He later moved to Baltimore, MD, and wrote, conducted singing schools in the south and east, and conducted the New York Sacred Music Society. He published “New selection of sacred music” (1817), “Anthems” (1822 & 1834), and “The Philadelphia collection of sacred music” (1828). He died in Hoboken, NJ. John Perry

Sidney Dyer

1814 - 1898 Author of "Gweithiwn, mae'r Nos yn Dyfod (Work, for the Night is Coming)" in Cân a Mawl Dyer, Sidney, who served in the U. S. Army from 1831 to c. 1840, is a native of White Creek, Washington County, New York, where he was born in 1814. On leaving the army he was ordained a Baptist Minister in 1842, and acted first as a Missionary to the Choctaws, then as Pastor in Indianapolis, Indiana (1852), and as Secretary to the Baptist Publication Society, Phila. (1859). He has published sundry works, and in the Southwestern Psalmist, 1851, 16 of his hymns are found. The following are later and undated:— 1. Go, preach the blest salvation. Missions. In the Baptist Praise Book, 1871, and The Baptist Hymn & Tune Book, 1871. 2. Great Framer [Maker] of unnumbered worlds. National Humiliation. In the Boston Unitarian Hymn [and Tune] Book, 1868, and others. 3. When faint and weary toiling. Work whilst it is day. In the Baptist Praise Book, 1871. 4. Work, for the night is coming. Duty. This hymn is in wider use than the foregoing, but though often ascribed to Dyer, is really by Miss Anna L. Walker, of Canada, who published a volume of Poems, 1868. S. Dyer, in 1854, wrote a hymn on the same subject for a Sunday-school in Indianapolis, and hence the confusion between the two. In 1882 a cento beginning with the same stanza was given in Whiting's (English) Hymns for the Church Catholic, No. 366. Of this cento, stanzas i., ii. are by Miss Walker; and stanzas iii., iv. by Miss Whiting, daughter of the editor of that collection. [Rev.F. M. Bird, M.A.] -- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) ================== Dyer, S., p. 317, ii. Additional hymns by Dr. Dyer are given in the Baptist Sursum Corda, Phila., 1898, with the following dates :— 1. Enter, Jesus bids thee welcome. Invitation. 1883. 2. No more with horrors veil the tomb. Burial. 1897. Dr. Dyer d. in 1898. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907) ================= Dyer, Sidney. (White Creek, New York, February 11, 1814--December 22, 1898, Philadelphia). Baptist. Indiana State University, honorary A.M. ; Bucknell University, honorary Ph.D. Missionary to the Choctaws early in his career. Pastorates at Brownsville, New York, 1842; Indianapolis, 1852-1859. District secretary of the American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1859-1885. Author of eight religious books designed for children, two volumes of verse: Voices of Nature (Louisville, 1849), and Songs and Ballads (Indianapolis, 1857). Wrote a large number of hymns in Sunday School as well as church collections. In 1851, he published The South Western Psalmist (Louisville), which became known as Dyer's Psalmist. Of 467 hymns, 16 are by Dyer. Also wrote a prize-winning hymn "O wondrous land! thy onward march sublime" for the Jubilee of the American Baptist Home Mission Society which was help in New York in 1882. This 66-stanza hymn may be found in Baptist Home Missions in North America: Including a Full Report of the Proceedings and Address of the Jubilee Meeting . . . (New York: Baptist Home Mission Rooms, 1883). "Work, for the night is coming," written by Annie L. (Walker) Coghill, was sometimes ascribed to Dyer. The confusion arose when, in 1854, Dyer wrote a text on the same subject for a Sunday School in Indianapolis. --Deborah Carlton Loftis, DNAH Archives