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(See also DAB; Julian pp.1638b-1639a)
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He inherited his father's business as a stocking manufacturer, but was also an enthusiastic and knowledgable amateur musician. In his early years he wrote songs and duets under the pseudonym `W.G.Leicester'. On business trips to the continent he met Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. Seeking to improve the music of hymnody he published Sacred Melodies (1812, 1815) containing tunes adapted from the works of the great composers. These books were very popular and extensively quarried by hymnal compilers; they influenced Lowell Mason who not only used some of Gardiner's tunes but applied his methods of adaptation. (See further note)
Gardiner also compiled a pastiche oratorio, Judah (1821), fitting English words to fragments from Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, pieced together with linking passages of his own.
He claimed to be the first to introduce Beethoven's music to England, and at the dedication of the Beethoven statue in Bonn in 1845 was invited to sign his name next to those of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on the parchment placed in the base of the statue. [ Note: the date of the statue - 1845 - has sometimes erroneously been stated as 1848. ]
He wrote a book on acoustics, The Music of Nature 1832, and published three entertaining volumes of autobiography and reminiscence, Music and Friends; or Pleasant Recollections of a Dilettante.
(See also DNB; GDM)
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He studied at Downing College Cambridge, and with C.V.Stanford at the Royal College of Music. He held a number of organist's posts in London and was then music critic of The Pall Mall Gazette 1907-14, before devoting himself to composition, chiefly of orchestral and theatre music. He also wrote some church music, and assisted in the editing of two editions of Grove's Dictionary of Music.
(See also OCM)
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He was organist at the age of 9 (and also choirmaster from 1819-25) of Olney Church, Buckinghamshire, where his father was vicar. At his father's wish he studied law and practised as a solicitor in London from 1831-46, but concurrently was organist of St Olave's, Southwark, and the evening organist at Christ Church, Newgate Street, 1836. From 1846 he devoted his whole time to music.
His abilities won high praise from Mendelssohn, who chose him as organist for the first performance of Elijah at Birmingham in 1846. In 1852 he was appointed organist of Union Chapel Islington, where the minister, Dr Henry Allon, began a famous psalmody class; and together Allon and Gauntlett compiled The Congregational Psalmist (1858, 1861). He was organist of All Saints' Notting Hill 1861-63, and St Bartholomew-the-Less, Smithfield, 1872-76.
He was an enthusiast for plainsong and wrote much on church music. Apart from organ music, anthems and songs, he is said to have written about 10,000 hymn tunes. He helped to edit many hymnals, but his work on the 1876/7 edition of Wesley's Hymns was ended by his sudden death.
(See also DNB; GDM; ODM)
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The daughter of a Presbyterian minister, she married a Congregational minister, William Gay, who served several churches in Ohio.
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At secondary school in Angers he began studying harmony, composition and several musical instruments. He became a Jesuit novice in 1941 at Laval; and then studied literature and philosophy followed by advanced music studies at l'École César Franck in Paris, 1946-49, and advanced theological studies 1949-53.
He collaborated in the preparation of La Bible de Jérusalem (completed 1956) from which his psalm settings were taken, the Psalms portion of the work having been first published in 1950. He has done much teaching and lecturing, and in 1966 founded Universa Laus international study group for research on liturgical music.
He has published a study of French folk-songs, much liturgical music and several books, and co-founded the reviews Musique et Liturgie and Église qui chante.
See also `The Grail' Psalmody (texts and source books) and a separate note on the singing method developed by Fr Gelineau and others for these psalms.
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(See also Julian pp.406b-408a)
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[ Biographical note by James Mearns, in Julian pp.409-10 (slightly shortened and adapted) ]
His father, Christian Gerhardt, was burgomaster of Gräfenhainichen when Paul was born. Paul attended the University of Wittenberg, matriculating on January 2, 1628, and seems to have remained in or near Wittenberg at least until the end of April 1642. In 1642 or 1643 he went to Berlin, and for some time (certainly after 1648) he was a tutor in the house of the advocate Andreas Barthold, whose daughter Anna Maria became Gerhard's wife in 1655; and during this period he seems to have preached frequently in Berlin.
In 1651, at the recommendation of the Berlin clergy, he was appointed as the Lutheran Probst (chief pastor) at Mittenwalde, near Berlin, and ordained to the post on November 18. In July 1657 he returned to Berlin as third diaconus of St Nicholas's Church; but becoming involved in the contest between the Elector Friedrich Wilhelm (who was of the Reformed Church) and the Lutheran clergy of Berlin, he was deposed from office in February 1666, though he still remained in Berlin.
In November 1668 he accepted the post of archdiaconus at Lübben-am- Spree, was installed in June 1669, and remained there until his death.
The outward circumstances of Gerhardt's life were for the most part gloomy. His earlier years were spent amid the horrors of the Thirty Years' War. He did not obtain a settled position in life until he was 44 years of age. He was unable to marry until four years later; and his wife, after a long illness, died during the time that he was without office in Berlin, while of the five children of the marriage only one survived to adulthood.
The sunniest period of his life was during the early years of his Berlin ministry (1657-63), when he enjoyed universal love and esteem; but his latter years at Lbben as a widower with one surviving child were passed among a rough and unsympathising people. The motto on his portrait at Lübben not unjustly styles him `Theologus in cribro Satanae versatus' [`cribrum': `a sieve'].
Gerhardt ranks next to Luther himself as the most gifted and popular hymn-writer of the Lutheran Church. A German literary historian (Gervinus, 1842) wrote of him:
He went back to Luther's most genuine type of hymn in such a manner as no-one else had done, only so far modified as the requirements of his time demanded. In Luther's time the belief in Free Grace and the work of the Atonement, in Redemption and the bursting of the gates of Hell, was the inspiration of his joyful confidence; with Gerhardt it is the belief in the Love of God. With Luther the old wrathful God of the Romanists assumed the heavenly aspect of grace and mercy; with Gerhardt the merciful righteous one is a gentle loving Man.Like the old poets of the people he is sincerely and unconstrainedly pious, na‹ve, and hearty; the blissfulness of his faith makes him benign and amiable; in his way of writing he is as attractive, simple, and pleasing as in his way of thinking.
With a firm grasp of the objective realities of the Christian faith, and a loyal adherence to the doctrinal standpoint of the Lutheran Church, Gerhardt is yet genuinely human; he takes a fresh, healthful view both of nature and of humankind. In his hymns we see the transition to the modern subjective tone of religious poetry. Sixteen of his hymns begin with `I'. Yet with Gerhardt it is not so much the individual soul that lays bare its sometimes morbid moods, as it is the representative member of the Church speaking out the thoughts and feelings he shares with his fellow-members; while in style Gerhardt is simple and graceful, with a considerable variety of verse-form at his command, and often of bell-like purity in tone.
Gerhardt's hymns appeared principally in Johann Crüger's Praxis Pietatis Melica (1640/44 &c.), in the `Crüger-Runge' Gesangbuch 1653, and in J.G.Ebeling's collection of Gerhardt's hymns, Geistliche Andacht-Lieder (1666-7).
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He was a chorister in Milan Cathedral, but achieved fame as a violinist, playing in opera orchestras in Rome and Naples. After an extended concert tour in Italy, Germany, France and London, he settled in London in 1752 where he was a great success as leader, and later impressario, at the Italian Opera. He was friendly with the nobility, including the Countess of Huntingdon who commissioned four hymn tunes from him for Martin Madan's `Lock Hospital' collection 1769
From 1770 to 1776 he led the orchestra for the Three Choirs Festival. He spent 1784-90 in Naples with the household of the British Ambassador to the Sardinian Court; but on his return to England failed to regain his former popularity. He travelled to Moscow, but met a disappointing reception; and, an inveterate spendthrift, died in poverty there within three months.
He composed many operas, twelve violin concertos and much chamber music.
(See also GDM; OCM)
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He was the second son of Orlando Gibbons, who died before the boy was 10 years old. Christopher was adopted by his uncle Edward Gibbons, organist of Exeter Cathedral, and was a chorister at Exeter and in the Chapel Royal. He was organist of Winchester Cathedral 1638-44; and at the Restoration of the Monarchy he became household musician to Charles II, organist of Westminster Abbey 1660-66 (where he is buried in the cloisters), and organist of the Chapel Royal 1660-76.
He wrote a good deal of music for strings and some church and theatre music, but he has been overshadowed by his father.
(See also DNB; GDM; OCM)
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His family moved to Cambridge in 1587, and Orlando entered the King's College choir in 1596. He was organist of the Chapel Royal from c.1605 until his (early) death. In 1623 he was given the additional post of organist at Westminster Abbey. With the entire Chapel Royal he went ot Canterbury for the reception of Henrietta Maria, Charles I's new bride, but he died suddenly just before she arrived. He is buried in the north aisle of Canterbury Cathedral.
He composed church music and much polyphonic vocal and keyboard music, and was one of the greatest English musicians of his time. Many of his well-known hymn tunes were included in George Wither's Hymnes and Songs of the Church, for which Orlando Gibbons provided a specially commissioned Appendix of 16 tunes.
(See also DNB; GDM; OCM)
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(See also Julian pp.421-3)
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End of Biographies G1. Return to Top . . .
(The Rejoice & Sing Enchiridion:edited by David Goodall; last amended 17/5/03)