RIALTO

Composer: George F. Root

Root, George F., MUS. DOC, born in Sheffield, Berkshire County, Mass., Aug. 30, 1820. He is much more widely known as a composer of popular music than as a hymn writer. Four of his hymns are in I. D. Sankey's Sacred Songs & Solos, 1878. Nos. 16, 100, 293, and 297. A sympathetic biographical sketch, with portrait, is in The Tonic Sol-Fa Reporter, Sep. 1886. He died Aug. 6, 1895. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)… Go to person page >

Tune Information

Title: RIALTO
Composer: George F. Root (1859)
Meter: 6.6.8.6
Incipit: 13455 55671 11112
Key: C Major
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

George Frederick Root (b. Sheffield, MA, 1820; d. Bailey's Island, ME, 1895), who is better known for his Civil War songs, composed RIALTO in 1859; the tune is named after an island and bridge in Venice and a theater district in New York City (where Root worked for some years). An energetic tune (with the half note as basic beat), RIALTO cries for full harmony singing and a full organ registration. Strive for two long lines.

A music educator and publisher, Root became acquainted with Lowell Mason (PHH 96) when he was Mason's aide at the Boston Academy of Music. Root moved to New York in 1844 to become a singing teacher at Abbott's School for Young Ladies and organist at Mercer Street Presbyterian Church. A well-known teacher, he taught at several schools, including Union Theological Seminary and the New York Institute for the Blind, where one of his students was Fanny Crosby (PHH 473).

Root went to Paris in 1850 to study piano and singing. Following his return to New York, he and William Bradbury (PHH 114) established the Normal Musical Institute, which was founded to instruct music teachers. He composed music for the Christy Minstrels under his German pseudonym, G. Friedrich Wurzel. In 1859 Root moved to Chicago to work with his brother at Root and Cady, Chicago's leading music publisher until the great fire of 1871. Thereafter he affiliated with the John Church Company in Cincinnati.

Deeply religious throughout his life, Root became a Swedenborgian in 1864. He composed over two hundred songs, including Civil War favorites such as "The Battle Cry of Freedom" and “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching.” He also compiled some seventy song collections and educational works about music. Nineteen of his hymn tunes were included in Gospel Hymns No. 1-6 Complete (1894).

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook

Timeline

Media

The Cyber Hymnal #3429
Text: Jehovah Sits Enthroned
  • Adobe Acrobat image (PDF)
  • Noteworthy Composer score (NWC)
  • XML score (XML)
Psalter Hymnal (Gray) #93
Text: The LORD is King, Enthroned
  • Full Score (PDF, XML)
  • Bulletin Score (PDF)
  • Bulletin Score (melody only) (PDF)
Small Church Music #5256
Text: 我為基督而生 (I was born for Christ)
  • PDF Score (PDF)

Instances

Instances (1 - 4 of 4)
Text InfoTune InfoTextScoreAudioPage Scan

Psalter Hymnal (Gray) #93

Sheng tu shi ge = Hymnary (聖徒詩歌) #368

Audio

Small Church Music #5256

TextScoreAudio

The Cyber Hymnal #3429

Include 42 pre-1979 instances
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