B. C. Unseld › Texts

Benjamin Carl Unseld, 1843-1923

Born: Oc­to­ber 18, 1843, Shep­herd­stown, West Vir­gin­ia.
Died: No­vem­ber 19, 1923.
Buried: Elm­wood Ceme­te­ry, Shep­herd­stown, West Vir­gin­ia.

After leav­ing school at age 14, Un­seld worked as a clerk in a coun­try store. He re­ceived his first mu­sic­al in­struct­ion around age 15, from a com­pan­ion who had at­tend­ed a sing­ing school. He was shown the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the scale in the old Car­mi­na Sac­ra, and had it sung for him. At the friend’s sug­gest­ion, he got per­mis­sion from his pas­tor to prac­tice on the church or­gan. Since both boys worked, their on­ly chance to prac­tice was af­ter the store closed at 9:00 p.m., and oc­casion­al­ly at noon­time. They went to the church to­ge­ther and took turns, one at the key­board and the other at the bel­lows.

Shortly af­ter the Bat­tle of An­tie­tam in Sep­tem­ber 1862, some of which Un­seld wit­nessed, he left home and be­came a book­keep­er in the gen­er­al of­fic­es of a rail­road in Co­lum­bia, Penn­syl­van­ia. He sang in a choir, and gained fur­ther prac­tice read­ing mu­sic. He rent­ed a mel­o­de­on and spent much time in his room im­pro­vis­ing on it. He bought a co­py of Wood­bur­y’s Har­mo­ny and Mu­sic­al Com­po­si­tion, and stu­died it as well as he could with­out a teach­er. He ac­cept­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to play the or­gan in the lo­cal Meth­od­ist church, on the con­di­tion that he re­ceived the tunes ear­ly in the week so he could learn them. This was his first po­si­tion as an or­ga­nist.

In the spring of 1866, he en­tered the Mu­sic­al In­sti­tute in Pro­vi­dence, Rhode Is­land, con­duct­ed by Eben Tour­jée (found­er of the New Eng­land Con­serv­a­to­ry in Bos­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts, and fa­ther of Liz­zie Tour­jée). There he stu­died voice, pi­a­no, or­gan, and har­mo­ny. Af­ter learn­ing of Un­seld’s bus­i­ness ex­per­i­ence, Dr. Tour­jée made him sec­re­ta­ry of the school; in 1867, Un­seld be­came the first sec­re­ta­ry of the New Eng­land Con­ser­va­to­ry.

Starting in 1870, Un­seld at­tend­ed schools led by The­o­dore F. Sew­ard. There he met George Webb, Low­ell Mason, James Mc­Gran­a­han, Charles Case, and other not­a­bles in the mu­sic com­mun­i­ty. In 1874, Uns­eld taught at Fisk Un­i­ver­si­ty in Nash­ville, Ten­nes­see, and helped train Fisk’s Ju­bi­lee Sing­ers for their Eur­o­pe­an trip. In 1877 and 1878, he was or­gan­ist and choir mas­ter at St. James’ Epis­co­pal Church, Lan­cas­ter, Penn­syl­van­ia.

In 1879, Un­seld moved to New York Ci­ty, and for 15 years taught, led choirs, com­posed and pub­lished. In New York, his mu­sic­al head­quar­ters was the pub­lish­ing house of Big­low & Main Com­pa­ny, where he was in al­most dai­ly con­tact with the pop­u­lar com­pos­ers and teach­ers of the day: Ira San­key, Ho­ra­tio Palm­er, Hu­bert Main, Ro­bert Low­ry, et al. In 1894, Un­seld moved to Cin­cin­na­ti, Ohio, and worked as an ed­it­or for the Fill­more Mu­sic House. In 1898, he moved to Day­ton, Ohio, and worked in a sim­i­lar ca­pa­ci­ty for the Lo­renz Pub­lishing Com­pa­ny. He moved back to New York Ci­ty in 1901, then to Ha­gers­town, Ma­ry­land in 1905. He and his wife Sal­lie were ap­par­ent­ly liv­ing in Ten­nes­see as of 1920. Un­seld’s works in­clude:
The Chor­al Stan­dard (New York: Fill­more Bro­thers, 1895)
Progress in Song, with E. T. Hil­de­brand (Cin­cin­na­ti, Ohio: The Fill­more Bro­thers Com­pa­ny)

Unseld was in­duct­ed in­to the South­ern Gos­pel Mu­sic As­so­ci­a­tion Hall of Fame in 2004.

Sources--
Hall, pp. 239-44

Music--
Ancyra
Euphemia
He Is Ris­en
Hordville
Make Haste!
Meschach
Twilight Is Fall­ing
Unseld
Wonderful Mess­age

--www.hymntime.com/tch