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Arthur Sullivan
1842 - 1900 Person Name: Arthur S. Sullivan Arranger of "NOEL" in The Beacon Song and Service book Arthur Seymour Sullivan (b Lambeth, London. England. 1842; d. Westminster, London, 1900) was born of an Italian mother and an Irish father who was an army bandmaster and a professor of music. Sullivan entered the Chapel Royal as a chorister in 1854. He was elected as the first Mendelssohn scholar in 1856, when he began his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He also studied at the Leipzig Conservatory (1858-1861) and in 1866 was appointed professor of composition at the Royal Academy of Music. Early in his career Sullivan composed oratorios and music for some Shakespeare plays. However, he is best known for writing the music for lyrics by William S. Gilbert, which produced popular operettas such as H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1879), The Mikado (1884), and Yeomen of the Guard (1888). These operettas satirized the court and everyday life in Victorian times. Although he composed some anthems, in the area of church music Sullivan is best remembered for his hymn tunes, written between 1867 and 1874 and published in The Hymnary (1872) and Church Hymns (1874), both of which he edited. He contributed hymns to A Hymnal Chiefly from The Book of Praise (1867) and to the Presbyterian collection Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (1867). A complete collection of his hymns and arrangements was published posthumously as Hymn Tunes by Arthur Sullivan (1902). Sullivan steadfastly refused to grant permission to those who wished to make hymn tunes from the popular melodies in his operettas.
Bert Polman
Arthur Sullivan
Calvin Weiss Laufer
1874 - 1938 Person Name: Calvin W. Laufer Author of "The world, dear Lord, is very large" in The Beacon Song and Service book Presbyterian minister and hymnographer Calvin Weiss Laufer was born today in Brodheadsville, Pennsylvania in 1874. Following his graduation from Union Seminary in 1900 he was ordained into the Presbyterian ministry and led congregations in New York and New Jersey for several years.
Laufer had a generally cheerful outlook on his Christian life, and his first two books, Key-Notes of Optimism (1911) and The Incomparable Christ (1914) expressed that viewpoint. A review of the first book spoke of the "crisp and stirring note in these sermonettes which is well calculated to rouse the mind of readers and banish dejection." His books were popular in their time but today are seen as somewhat superficial.
He later began to work with the Presbyterian Board of Christian Education and became its editor of musical publications, producing books such as The Junior Church School Hymnal (1927), The Church School Hymnal for Youth (1928) and When the Little Child Wants to Sing (1935). He was also the associate editor of the Presbyterian Hymnal of 1933, a very popular book which was used in many churches for more than fifty years.
In 1932, his book Hymn Lore was published, which contained the stories of fifty hymns from The Church School Hymnal for Youth, with information about their writers and composers (much like this blog). He chose a broad range of hymns, some quite modern and others well-known and loved for centuries. Several of them were by his mentor and friend Louis F. Benson, who had edited the Presbyterian Hymnal of 1895 and its 1911 revision (and also wrote The Best Church Hymns). In the preface to Hymn Lore, Laufer wrote:
To live with hymns and to make them one's own is the only sure way of appreciating their literary beauty and spiritual power. (...) That the reading and singing of hymns may become less mechanical, more thoughtful and intelligent, and emotionally more effective, this volume is released to the public.
Laufer wrote both hymn texts and tunes himself, most of which first appeared in the books he edited but also had some life outside Presbyterian circles. This tune was written while Laufer was attending a conference in Kansas, though with no particular text in mind. Not long after, he hummed it to a friend, William H. Foulkes, who then wrote the text "Take thou our minds, dear Lord."
Laufer's tune was originally called STONY BROOK, but he changed it to honor a friend, William Ralph Hall. Little is known about the writer May Pierpont Hoyt. Her text is generally sung to the tune BREAD OF LIFE by William F. Sherwin, but since that tune is more known with "Break thou the Bread of life," this text could use a different one.
--conjubilant.blogspot.com/2010/04/
Calvin Weiss Laufer
