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Johann Sebastian Bach

1685 - 1750 Person Name: Johann S. Bach Adapter & Harmonizer of "DAS WALT' GOTT VATER" in The Cyber Hymnal Johann Sebastian Bach was born at Eisenach into a musical family and in a town steeped in Reformation history, he received early musical training from his father and older brother, and elementary education in the classical school Luther had earlier attended. Throughout his life he made extraordinary efforts to learn from other musicians. At 15 he walked to Lüneburg to work as a chorister and study at the convent school of St. Michael. From there he walked 30 miles to Hamburg to hear Johann Reinken, and 60 miles to Celle to become familiar with French composition and performance traditions. Once he obtained a month's leave from his job to hear Buxtehude, but stayed nearly four months. He arranged compositions from Vivaldi and other Italian masters. His own compositions spanned almost every musical form then known (Opera was the notable exception). In his own time, Bach was highly regarded as organist and teacher, his compositions being circulated as models of contrapuntal technique. Four of his children achieved careers as composers; Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, and Chopin are only a few of the best known of the musicians that confessed a major debt to Bach's work in their own musical development. Mendelssohn began re-introducing Bach's music into the concert repertoire, where it has come to attract admiration and even veneration for its own sake. After 20 years of successful work in several posts, Bach became cantor of the Thomas-schule in Leipzig, and remained there for the remaining 27 years of his life, concentrating on church music for the Lutheran service: over 200 cantatas, four passion settings, a Mass, and hundreds of chorale settings, harmonizations, preludes, and arrangements. He edited the tunes for Schemelli's Musicalisches Gesangbuch, contributing 16 original tunes. His choral harmonizations remain a staple for studies of composition and harmony. Additional melodies from his works have been adapted as hymn tunes. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Samuel Webbe

1740 - 1816 Person Name: Samuel Webbe, the elder, 1740-1816 Composer of "MELCOMBE" in CPWI Hymnal Samuel Webbe (the elder; b. London, England, 1740; d. London, 1816) Webbe's father died soon after Samuel was born without providing financial security for the family. Thus Webbe received little education and was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker at the age of eleven. However, he was determined to study and taught himself Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, German, and Italian while working on his apprenticeship. He also worked as a music copyist and received musical training from Carl Barbant, organist at the Bavarian Embassy. Restricted at this time in England, Roman Catholic worship was freely permitted in the foreign embassies. Because Webbe was Roman Catholic, he became organist at the Portuguese Chapel and later at the Sardinian and Spanish chapels in their respective embassies. He wrote much music for Roman Catholic services and composed hymn tunes, motets, and madrigals. Webbe is considered an outstanding composer of glees and catches, as is evident in his nine published collections of these smaller choral works. He also published A Collection of Sacred Music (c. 1790), A Collection of Masses for Small Choirs (1792), and, with his son Samuel (the younger), Antiphons in Six Books of Anthems (1818). Bert Polman

M. Creighton

1843 - 1901 Person Name: Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1843-1901 Author of "O thou who gavest power to love" in The Hymnal Creighton, Mandell, D.D., was b. at Carlisle, July 5, 1843, consecrated Bishop of Peterborough, 1891, translated to London 1896, and d. at Fulham, London, Jan. 14, 1901. For details of his career see the most interesting Life and Letters, 1904, edition by his wife. He was the author of only one hymn, "O Thou Who gavest power to love" (Holy Matrimony). This he wrote in London, early in 1900. He gave a copy in manuscript to the Hon. Sarah Kathleen, daughter of the 4th Lord Lyttleton, who bad it printed, and it was first used on April 26, 1900, at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, on the occasion of her marriage to Mr. J. C. Bailey, of Egerton Gardens, London. It is in Bp. Creighton's Life & Letters, 1904, vol. ii., p. 515, and The English Hymnal, 1906. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.] --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)

Henry Percy Smith

1825 - 1898 Person Name: H. Percy Smith, 1825-1898 Composer of "MARYTON" in The Hymnal Henry Percy Smith (b. Malta, 1825; d. Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, 1898) was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, England, and ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1850. He served five churches, including St. Michael's York Town in Farnborough (1851-1868), Great Barton in Suffolk (1868-1882), Christ Church in Cannes, France (1882-1892), and the Cathedral in Gibraltar (1892-1898). MARYTON is his only tune found in contemporary hymnals and is thought to be the only tune he published. Bert Polman