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Samuel Sebastian Wesley

1810 - 1876 Person Name: Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876) Harmonizer of "HAYES" in The Oxford Hymn Book Samuel Sebastian Wesley (b. London, England, 1810; d. Gloucester, England, 1876) was an English organist and composer. The grandson of Charles Wesley, he was born in London, and sang in the choir of the Chapel Royal as a boy. He learned composition and organ from his father, Samuel, completed a doctorate in music at Oxford, and composed for piano, organ, and choir. He was organist at Hereford Cathedral (1832-1835), Exeter Cathedral (1835-1842), Leeds Parish Church (1842-1849), Winchester Cathedral (1849-1865), and Gloucester Cathedral (1865-1876). Wesley strove to improve the standards of church music and the status of church musicians; his observations and plans for reform were published as A Few Words on Cathedral Music and the Music System of the Church (1849). He was the musical editor of Charles Kemble's A Selection of Psalms and Hymns (1864) and of the Wellburn Appendix of Original Hymns and Tunes (1875) but is best known as the compiler of The European Psalmist (1872), in which some 130 of the 733 hymn tunes were written by him. Bert Polman

F. A. Gore Ouseley

1825 - 1889 Person Name: Frederick Athur Gore-Ouseley Composer of "BRIGHTNESS" in The Cyber Hymnal Born: August 12, 1825, London, England. Died: April 6, 1889, Hereford, England. Buried: Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Tenbury Wells, Hereford and Worcester, England. Gore-Ouseley was educated at Oxford University (BA 1846, MA 1849, DMus 1854), and was ordained in 1849. In 1855, he was appointed Oxford Professor of Music, succeeding Henry Bishop. At that time, Oxford music degrees were easy to obtain, as there were no conditions of residence. Candidates only had to submit a musical composition, (e.g., for choir or orchestra). This was then approved by the examiner, rehearsed and performed to a small, select audience at Oxford. As far as Ouseley was concerned, this only meant two or three trips to Oxford each year, usually for two or three days each time, as there was no music "taught" in the university and very little in Oxford itself at the time. Also in 1855, Ouseley was appointed Precentor of Hereford Cathedral, a post he held for the next 30 years, before becoming a Canon there. Although theoretically in charge of the cathedral choir, Ouseley only had to be in residence at the cathedral two months each year, and he arranged these to take place during the summer vacation, when he was not required to be at his College, although such was his commitment that he did make regular visits to the cathedral, which was only 18 miles from his College at St. Michael’s. His College of St. Michael’s, Tenbury, a "model" choir school, opened in 1856, mostly at his own expense. He founded the College and was its first Warden, which was the greater part of his work for the next 33 years. Ouseley’s compositions covered a wide range: operas, songs, chamber music and organ pieces. His works include the following treatises: Harmony (London: 1868) Counterpoint (London: 1869) Canon and Fugue (London: 1869) Form and General Composition (London: 1875) --www.hymntime.com/tch/

George Wither

1588 - 1667 Person Name: G. Wither, 1588-1667 Author of "Behold the sun, that seem'd but now" in Hymns and Chorales Wither, George, or Wyther—spelled in both ways by himself, the first usually, the second occasionally, e.g. in Prince Henrie's Obsequies (1612), and erroneously Withers, was born on June 11th, 1588, at Bentworth, near Alton, Hampshire. He was the only son of George Wither, of Bentworth. His early education was at the Grammar School of Colemore or Colemere, under its celebrated master; John Greaves. After thorough training and discipline here he was entered in 1604 at Magdalen College, Oxford. His tutor was John Warner, subsequently D.D. and Bishop of Rochester. He had only been three years at the University when malicious and ignorant persons persuaded his father that more learning was not required. And so, as he modestly tells us in his Abuses Stript and Whipt (1613), he was withdrawn "without taking any degree," being now destined, as he moderately puts it, "for the plough," that is, for rustic employment on the paternal estate. This proved utterly uncongenial. He is found next at one of the Inns of Chancery, afterwards at Lincoln's Inn, and intimate with William Browne, the poet, of Britannia's Pastorals. His title-pages from 1617 to 1620 self-describe him as "Gentleman,” and as "of the Societie of Lincoln's Inne" (Fidelia (1617), and 1st Psalme (1620), and Workes (1620)). But Anthony a-Wood informs us:— "still his geng after things more smooth and delightful, he did at length make himself known to the world (after he had taken several rambles therein) by certain speci¬mens of poetry, which being dispersed in several hands, he became shortly after a public author and most admired by some in that age for his quick advancement in that faculty " (Athenae. Oxon. s. n.). How uncritical was this miserable criticism, will be understood when it is recalled that amongst these "certain specimens" was the Shepherds Hunting under the first form of "A new song of a young man's opinion of the difference between good and bad women" (Pepysian, ad Percy MS.), Prince Henries Obsequies (1612), Epithalamia (1612), and his stinging and patriotically outspoken Abuses Stript and Whipt. The last drew down upon him the wrath of the monarch (James i.) and nobles, and cast him prisoner into the Marshalsea. Four large editions within a year, and numerous others up to 1622 and continuously onward (exclusive of the reproductions in his Workes) was the answer of the People to the Upper Ten. While in prison he wrote some of the most delicious of his verse. He likewise composed A Satyre to the King (1615). The wisest fool in Christendom was shrewd enough to perceive that it would be safer to make such a subject a friend than an enemy. He had deftly signed the dedication to the king "his Majesty's most loyall Subiect, and yet Prisoner in the Marshalsey." It procured him his release. From this time onward he was perpetually printing something, now in verse and now in prose, until the aggregate exceeded a hundred of books and pamphlets. There are several fairly accurate enumerations of them, e.g. British Bibliographer, i. 174-205, 305-32,417-40; ii. 17-32,378-91; Sir Egerton Brydges' Censuria and Restituta; Hazlitt's Bibliography (1867). The Spenser Society re¬printed a large portion of the Works in prose and verse; but there was really no editing and no annotation. His successive books are the main facts of Wither's life; yet was he an active member of the nation. Spite of his hard usage and imprisonments, he was loyal as any cavalier. When Charles i. proceeded to declare and carry war into his native Scotland against the Covenanters in 1639, George Wither served his Majesty as a captain of horse and quarter-master of his regiment under the Earl of Arundel. How sorrowful the wrongheadedness of the king who compelled such a true man as Wither to forsake him and prefer the kingdom to the king, as many others who with pathetic reluctance became Roundheads! In 1641-2 he sold his hereditary estates and raised a troop of horse for the Parliament, in whose army he was promoted to be major. On his colours he carried this motto, Pro Rege, Lege, Grege. Having been taken prisoner by the Royalists, a good-humoured jest of Sir John Denham it is alleged saved his life, to wit, that "his Majesty really must not hang George Wither, for so long as he lives no one will account him [Sir John] the worst poet in England." He was set free. Not long after he was constituted by the Long Parliament a Justice of Peace in quorum for Hampshire, Surrey and Essex. This he held for six years, and afterwards was made by Cromwell Major-General of all the horse and foot in the County of Surrey. On the title-page of his Boni Ominis Votu (1656) in the British Museum there is a contemporary manuscript note, "lately made Master of the Statute Office." At the Restoration he was shamefully dealt with, and by a vote of the Convention Parlia¬ment, was committed to Newgate because of his Vox Vulgi —a noble piece of fiery and idiomatic English, and manly pleading for respect to pipular rights and liberties. For his Prisoner's Plea humbly offered (1661) he was again imprisoned, this time in the Tower. He married (Aubrey informs us) Elizabeth, eldest daughter of H. Emerson of South Lanuk, who, he says, was "a great wit and could write in verse too," and was of the same English Emersons from whom the great American Ralph Waldo Emerson descended. He had issue. He was at liberty when he died on 2nd May, 1667. Aubrey states that he was buried within the east doorway of Savoy Church in the Strand, having apparently lived near it, and either died in the church or in his own house (the phrasing being ambiguous). James Montgomery, in his admirable Lectures on Poets and Poetry, thus sums up his estimate of him and them:— "There are scattered throughout his multifarious and very unequal productions, many passages of great beauty and excellence. He was avowedly a Christian poet, though he frequently lost his Christian meekness in the heat of polemics; but his zeal carried with it every evidence of honesty; and he was a sufferer almost to martyrdom, both for his loyalty and his orthodoxy, in the troublous times in which he lived. That he was a poet can never be questioned by any reader who has taste and sensibility enough to understand and enjoy the exquisitely affecting confession of his obligations to the Muse. That he was a Christian will be as little questioned by those who are most extensively acquainted with the character of his religious compositions" (s. n.). Archbishop Trench, in annotating a charming sacred song entitledVanished Blessing ("No voice which I did more esteem, Than music in her sweetest key," &c), thus annotates:— "I have detached these two stanzas from a longer poem of which they constitute the only valuable portion[?]. George Wither (‘a most profuse pourer forth of English rhyme,' Philips calls him) was indeed so intolerable a power in verse, so overlaid his good with indifferent or bad, that one may easily forget how real a gift he possessed, and sometimes showed that he possessed" (Household Book of English Poetry, 1865). Mrs. Masson says of him—"he is remembered now-a-days as pre-eminently the Puritan poet, whose irrepressible Muse made herself hsard even amid the din of civil war" (Three Centuries of English Poetr, p. 375). She quotes his delightful "Christmas" ("So now is come our joyfullest part"), and "Of Poesy" (which Milton did not disdain to utilize), and his "Shall I, wasting in despair." With reference to the "irrepressible Muse" of Wither, it is a felicitous characterisation however regarded, inasmuch as so "irrepressible " was he that he actually set up the types and printed off at least one of his bulkier books. Withers contributions to hymnology are to be found chiefly in the following:— (a) Exercises Upon the First Psalme......(1620). At the close is a metrical paraphrase of Ecclcsiastes xii. 1-8; (b) Paraphrase on the Creed and the Lord's Prayer (in Workes 1620; separately 1688 and misasserted to be now “first printed“); (c) The Songs of the Old Testament, Translated into English Measures: preserving the Naturall Phrase and genuine Sense of the Holy Text ...... To every Song is added a new and easie Tune.....(1621); (d) The Hymnes and Songs of the Church (1623). This was published Cum Privilegio Regis Begalu . It was reprinted like c.; (e) The Psalmes of David translated as Lyrick Verse, according to the scope of the Original......(1632). Gutch had an autograph manuscript of an alleged different text of the versified Psalmes which passed into the Caesar Library; (f) A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Modern, quickened with Metrical Illustrations both Morall and Divine......(1635). This was a special favourite of Elia; (g) Haldviah; or Britans Second Remembrancer, bringing to Remembrance (in praisefull and poenitentiall Hymns, Spirituall Songs, and Morall-Odes......(1641). This was reprinted like c and d; (h) Three Graines of Spiritual Frankincense infused into Three Hymnes of Praise (1651). It is discreditable to the Church of England, of whom he was a devoted son to the close of his life, and to Nonconformity alike, that many, very many more of his Hymnes and Spiritual Songs have not found their way into their hymnals. A critical yet sympathetic reader would easily find a golden sheaf of musical, and well-wrought sacred song. [Rev. A. B. Grosart, D.D., LL.D.] -- Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) ================== Wither, G., p. 1289, i. Another of his psalm versions, "The Lord is King, and weareth" (Ps. xciii.), from his The Psalmes of David, &c, 1G32, is in the Hymn Book for the Use of Wellington College, 1902. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)

William Hayes

1706 - 1777 Person Name: William Hayes (1707-1777) Composer of "HAYES" in The Oxford Hymn Book William Hayes (26 January 1708 (baptised) – 27 July 1777) was an English composer, organist, singer and conductor. Hayes was born in Gloucester. He trained at Gloucester Cathedral and spent the early part of his working life as organist of St Mary’s, Shrewsbury (1729) and Worcester Cathedral (1731). The majority of his career was spent at Oxford where he was appointed organist of Magdalen College in 1734, and established his credentials with the degrees of B.Mus in 1735 and D.Mus in 1749. (He was painted by John Cornish in his doctoral robes around 1749.) In 1741 he was unanimously elected Professor of Music and organist of the University Church. He presided over the city’s concert life for the next 30 years, and was instrumental in the building of the Holywell Music Room in Oxford in 1748, the oldest purpose-built music room in Europe. He was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society of Musicians, and in 1765 was elected a ‘privileged member’ of the Noblemen’s and Gentlemen’s Catch Club. He died in Oxford, aged 69. William Hayes was an enthusiastic Handelian, and one of the most active conductors of his oratorios and other large-scale works outside London. His wide knowledge of Handel left a strong impression on his own music, but by no means dominated it. As a composer he tended towards genres largely ignored by Handel—English chamber cantatas, organ-accompanied anthems and convivial vocal music—and his vocal works show an English preference for non-da capo aria forms. Hayes also cultivated a self-consciously ‘learned’ polyphonic style (perhaps inspired by his antiquarian interests) which can be seen in his many canons, full-anthems, and the strict fugal movements of his instrumental works. Nevertheless, several of his late trio sonatas show that he was not deaf to newly emerging Classical styles. Although he published virtually none of his instrumental music, his vocal works were extremely popular, and the printed editions were subscribed to by large numbers of amateur and professional musicians. Substantial works like his ode The Passions, the one-act oratorio The Fall of Jericho, and his Six Cantatas demonstrate that Hayes was one of the finest English composers of the eighteenth century. As a writer, his Art of Composing Music includes the first published description of aleatoric composition—music composed by chance—albeit deliberately satirical in intent. In his Remarks he reveals much about his aesthetic outlook: in particular that he valued the music of Handel and Corelli over that of Rameau, Benedetto Marcello and Geminiani. Finally, the Anecdotes offer insights into the organization of provincial music festivals in the mid-eighteenth century. Hayes bequeathed his important and wide-ranging music library to his son Philip Hayes; the manuscripts of both father and son eventually passed to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in 1801. Sacred works The Fall of Jericho, oratorio, c. 1740–50 Sixteen Psalms (London, 1773) David, oratorio, completed by Philip Hayes around 20 anthems and service music, in Cathedral Music in Score, edited by Philip Hayes (Oxford, 1795) --en.wikipedia.org/wiki