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He was a chorister at York Minster and studied there with Sir Edward Bairstow; and was then organist at Malton Parish Church 1933-40. After war service, he succeeded Bairstow as Master of the Music, York Minster 1946-82. He conducted the York Musical Society from 1947-82 and the York Symphony Orchestra from 1947-80, and is known nationally and internationally as a foremost organ recitalist.
His compositions include orchestral music and much church and organ music.
(See also GDM)
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He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, and became organist of St Mark's, North Audley Street London 1866-68. He then succeeded his father, who had held the post for 47 years, as organist of St Peter's Oldham 1868-1913. He published several collections of hymn tunes.
A portrait of him hangs in Oldham Art Gallery.
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He was organist and master of the song school at St Mary Magdalene Parish Church, Newark, from 1768-72. He wrote `A Favourite Lesson' for harpsichord, and in 1780 published a collection of twelve psalm tunes and eighteen chants.
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Educated at the Royal College of Music, he has taught music in several schools, and has been director of music at St George's School, Harpenden Hertfordshire since 1988. He was previously organist and choirmaster at Whitefield Memorial Church, London 1965-75 (where his father was minister); and at Union Church Mill Hill (URC) 1975-87.
He was a member of the editorial committee for New Church Praise 1975, to which he contributed two tunes.
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'Jan Struther' -- see Placzek, Joyce
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Of humble parentage, he was apprenticed to a tailor, but soon abandoned tailoring for music. He studied with Joseph Parry from 1874-78; and from 1882 until his death he was successively instructor, lecturer and Professor of Music at University College Aberystwyth and precentor of the English Presbyterian Church there.
He was prominent as a choral conductor and in Eisteddfod activities; and from 1899-1915 he edited the Journal Y Cerddor (The Musician), in collaboration (until 1913) with David Emlyn Evans.
He was a prolific composer, with an opera, operetta, oratorios, cantatas, songs and church music to his credit. His hymn tunes were collected in his Gemau Mawl 1890.
(See also DWB; GDM; OCM; OCLW)
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She was employed by the US Government at Gallander College for the Deaf in Washington DC; and from 1973 was a dental secretary in Detroit, where she was a member of Grosse Pointe Memorial (United Presbyterian) Church.
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J.M.Neale included the following biographical note in his Hymns of the Eastern Church, 1862. (The footnote correction reproduced here is probably by R.F.Littledale.)
[ J.M.Neale's notes :-- ]
S.John Damascene has the double honour of being the last but one of the Fathers of the Eastern Church, and the greatest of her poets. It is surprising, however, how little is known of his life. That he was born of a good family at Damascus, - that he made great progress in philosophy, - that he administered some charge under the Caliph, - that he retired to the monastery of S.Sabas, in Palestine, - that he was the most learned and eloquent writer with whom the Iconoclasts had to contend, - that at a comparatively late period of life he was ordained Priest of the Church at Jerusalem, and that he died after 754, and before 787, seems to comprise all that has reached us of his biography. His enemies, from an unknown reason, called him Mansur:* Whether he were the same with John Arklas, also an ecclesiastical poet, is not so certain.
As a poet, he had a principal share in the Oct . . ..
[ one or more lines corrupted in the transcription file - to be replaced when the source is again available ]
. . . and S.Thomas's Sunday, the first and third of which I shall give either wholly or in part. Probably, however, many of the Idiomela and Stichera which are scattered about the office-books under the title of John and John the Hermit, are his. His eloquent defence of Icons has deservedly procured him the title of The Doctor of Christian Art.
[ end of Neale transcription ]
(See also Julian pp.603b-604a)
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[ see HSB 208 ]
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His father was precentor at Capel Coch, Llanberis for 60 years; and at age 13 the boy was appointed as his assistant. When Ieuan Gwyllt became pastor there he recognized the boy's talents and trained him.
Griffith Jones became a pupil teacher at Dolbadarn, then assistant at the British School in Aberystwyth. He subsequently became master of Rhiwddolion Elementary School 1869-1919; there and in the surrounding district he started sol-fa classes.
He wrote both poetry and music, conducted choirs and brass bands, wrote many hymn tunes and anthems, and was an Eisteddfod adjudicator. His bardic name was Gutyn Arfon. In 1918 he was presented with a National Testimonial of £65.
(See also DWB)
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He had no formal schooling, and his father died when he was 12, leaving him, the eldest of nine children, as the family's chief supporter. Like his father, he worked as a quarryman and road-maker, meanwhile having lessons from Evan Evans (Ieuan Glan Geirionydd; 1795-1855) and becoming a lay preacher. In 1829 he was ordained as a Calvinistic Methodist minister, and became one of the most powerful preachers in Wales. He composed about fifty hymn tunes.
He was buried at Llanllyfni, Caernarfonshire, where there is a monument to him.
(See also DNB; DWB; also OCLW which adds the following footnote: )
The account of his life and times by Owen Thomas, Cofiant y Parch John Jones Talysarn (1874), is a classic of biography, perhaps the best ever written in Welsh, which remains indispensable for students of the religious history of Wales in the early nineteenth century.
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He was the son of a poor weaver who was a Wesleyan lay preacher. He had only one year at school, but he published a small collection of hymn tunes, Y Perganiedydd (The Sweet Singer) in 1848, the profits from which enabled him to take a six-months course at Borough Road Training College, London. He opened a school at Towyn, Merionethshire, and held singing classes in the district from 1848-57; he was in charge of the British School at Ruthin from 1857-66; and then until his death kept a private school.
He composed hymn tunes, songs, anthems and a cantata, and published several collections of Welsh folk-melodies and a book on singing. He was part editor of the Congregational hymnal Llyfr Tonau ac Emynau 1868; and, for the Welsh Wesleyan Church, edited a collection of hymn tunes, published two years after his death.
(See also DNB; DWB)
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He was a descendant of Colonel John Jones who signed Charles I's death warrant and was subsequently executed at the Restoration; and he always kept 30 January as a day of humiliation for the sins of his ancestor.
He was educated at Charterhouse and University College Oxford; he was ordained in 1751 and held various charges in Northamptonshire and Kent before being appointed perpetual curate of Nayland, near Colchester, 1777-98.
He wrote widely on music and science as well as theology. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1775, and he founded The British Critic in 1793. His music publications include Ten Church Pieces for the Organ with Four Anthems 1789. His works were edited in twelve volumes with a short biography by William Stevens, 1801.
(See also DNB; GDM)
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Nothing appears to be known about his birth-place, parentage or his early life. He was a musician in the service of the Prince-Bishop of Breslau, but is chiefly known as the music editor of Johann Scheffler's Heilige Seelenlust, published in Breslau in 1657 and enlarged in 1668. Most of the music settings in the two editions were (it is believed) by Joseph himself.
His music has been described as `ranging from the simple to the complex, with highly emotive melodies, frequent changes of time and rhythm, and declamation that closely follows the text'. Although this could with equal justice be said of many of Bach's choral settings, it is perhaps not surprising that most of Joseph's melodies did not survive in common use - at least in Protestant churches - for more than a few decades.
(See also GDM)
Verbatim entry in GDM (omitting list of works and bibliography):
Joseph, Georg (fl. 1657) German composer and musician.He was employed as a musician by the Prince-Bishop of Breslau. He became well-known for his settings of 184 of the 205 hymn texts in Helige Seelenlust (Breslau 1657 and 1668) by Angelus Silesius. All 205 pieces are for solo voice and continuo, which is usually unfigured. Those by Joseph range from the very simple to the complex, with highly emotive melodies, frequent changes of time and rhythm, and declamation that closely follows the text; he also used the rhetorical musical figures often found in Baroque vocal music. His sensitive matching of his music to the words creates very close ties betwween him and the poet. The preface to the first edition states that the hymns were to be furnished `with beautiful symphonies and complete instrumental parts for public performance in church', but this plan was probably never realized - certainly no such edition now exists. The use of Joseph's melodies in Protestant hymn-books soon started to dwindle; although Passionale melicum (1663) contains 17 of his settings and the Nuremberg hymn-book of 1667 contains 11, Freylinghausen used only one in his Pietistic hymn-book published at Halle in 1704. Hoffman stated, however, that some of his hymns were still current in 1830 `sung by the people, particularly in Oberlausitz' (in both Joseph's and Angelus Silesius's native Silesia) . . .
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An obituary notice appeared in the Year Book of the Congregational Union of England & Wales, 1825.
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He graduated from Queen's College Cambridge in 1806; and was rector of Silk Willoughby from 1813 until his death. He compiled Musae Solitariae (2 vol.s, 1823 and 1827) for domestic use, with melodies of his own composition; Lyra Sacra, Select Extracts from the Cathedral Music of the Church of England 1825; and A Manual of Parochial Psalmody, containing 142 Psalm and Hymn Tunes by various authors 1832. He also published a volume of verse.
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End of Biographies J. Return to Top . . .
(The Rejoice & Sing Enchiridion:edited by David Goodall; last amended 20/12/03)