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He was organist of King's College Cambridge 1745-99, and University Professor of Music from 1755, receiving his Doctorate in 1756. He composed a number of hymn tunes, several of which were included in his Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes 1794.
(See also DNB)
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He was a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral. He took the Cambridge Mus.Bac. in 1605, and was music master at Christ's Hospital from 1618-22; at least some of his eleven anthems were written for the boys there. He published three collections of rounds (e.g. `Three blind mice') and catches, and a `Brief Discourse' on the rules of music; but is best known for his Whole Booke of Psalmes 1621, containing 105 harmonizations by himself and other leading musicians of the time, and two tunes thought to be his original composition. This book became the standard music setting of the Psalter in England; it introduced many tunes to England for the first time, and established the practice of giving place-names to tunes.
(See also DNB; GDM; OCM)
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He became a chorister at Magdalen College Oxford in 1829. He was organist of Margaret Street Chapel, London (which was succeeded by the present All Saints' Margaret Street) from 1839-60, where he and the incumbent Frederick Oakeley maintained daily choral services and prepared the first Anglican Gregorian psalter, Laudes Diurnae 1843. This was one of the musical foundations of the Anglo-Catholic Revival, together with his Church Hymn Tunes ancient & modern 1853 and Ancient Hymn Melodies and other Church Tunes 1859.
For a short time he was concurrently organist of St Andrew's, Wells Street (1847); and later became organist of St Mary Magdalene's, Paddington 1865-94. His hymn collections contained tunes of his own, intermingled with older compositions; thus there have been several mis-attributions.
(See also GDM)
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(See also DNB; Julian pp.953b-954a)
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(See also DWB)
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He was the son of Joseph Reinagle (1762-1825), who was a noted instrumentalist of Austrian descent; and a nephew of Alexander Reinagle (1756-1809), a renowned pianist, composer and conductor who settled in America in 1786.
Young Alexander was organist of St Peter's-in-the-East, Oxford 1822-53. He was a notable teacher of the organ, and wrote some sacred and instrumental works, two books of hymn tunes and chants, and instruction books for the violin and 'cello.
(See also DNB; GDM)
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An obituary notice appeared in the Year Book of the Congregational Union of England & Wales, 1863.
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(See also Julian p.1587)
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See notes on William Riley's Parochial Harmony, 1762 and Parochial Music Corrected, 1762
(See also OCM, under `Parish Clerk' and `Methodism')
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[ Biographical note by James Mearns, in Julian pp.962-3 (slightly shortened and adapted) ]
His father Georg Rinkart was a cooper at Eilenburg on the Mulde, Saxony. In November 1601, after passing through the Latin School at Eilenburg, Martin became a foundation scholar and chorister at the St Thomasschule, Leipzig. This scholarship also allowed him to proceed to the University of Leipzig, where he matriculated for the summer session of 1602 as a student of theology; and after the completion of his course he remained for some time in Leipzig, not taking his M.A. until 1616.
In March 1610 he offered himself as a candidate for the post of diaconus at Eilenburg, and was presented by the Town Council; but the Superintendent refused to sanction this arrangement, nominally on the ground that Rinkart was a better musician than theologian, but really because he was unwilling to have a colleague who was a native of Eilenburg and who appeared to have a will of his own.
Rinkart, not wishing to contest the matter, applied for a vacant mastership in the Gymnasium at Eisleben, and entered on his duties there at the beginning of June 1610 as sixth master and also cantor of the St Nicholas Church. After holding this appointment for a few months, he became diaconus of St Anne's Church, in the Neustadt of Eisleben, and began his work there on May 28, 1611; and then became pastor at Erdeborn and Lyttichendorf (Lütjendorf), near Eisleben, beginning his work there on December 5, 1613. Finally he was invited by the Town Council of Eilenburg to become arch-diaconus there, and in November 1617 came into residence at Eilenburg, where he died 32 years later.
The greater part of Rinkart's professional life was passed amid the horrors of the Thirty Years' War. Eilenburg, being a walled town, became a refuge for fugitives from all around, and being so overcrowded not unnaturally suffered from pestilence and famine. During the great plague of 1637 the Superintendent went away for a change of air, and could not be persuaded to return; and on August 7 Rinkart had to officiate at the funerals of two of the town clergy and two who had had to leave their livings in the country.
Rinkart was thus for some time the only clergyman in the place, and often read the burial service over some 40 to 50 persons a day, and in all over about 4,480. At last the refugees had to buried in trenches without service, and during the whole epidemic some 8,000 persons died, including Rinkart's first wife.
The next year he had an epidemic of marriages to encounter, to which he himself fell victim for a second time. Immediately thereafter came a most severe famine, during which Rinkart's resources were strained to the uttermost to help his people. Twice also his intervention saved Eilenburg from the Swedish army, whose commanders were demanding huge sums in ransom money.
Unfortunately the services he rendered to the place seemed to have made those in authority the more ungrateful, and in his latter years he was much harrassed by them in financial and other matters; and by the time that the long-looked-for peace came (October 24, 1648) he was a worn-out and prematurely aged man.
Rinkart was a voluminous writer and a good musician, but a considerable number of his books seem to have perished. He early began to write poetry, and was crowned as a poet apparently in 1614. Although he is known to have written over 60 hymns and published three or four books in which some of them appeared, the few hymns that survive in use are derived mainly from earlier hymn-books published by Johann Crüger and others.
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(See also Julian pp.963b-964a)
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(The Rejoice & Sing Enchiridion:edited by David Goodall; last amended 20/12/03)