HE LEADETH ME (Bradbury)

Composer: William B. Bradbury

William Bachelder Bradbury USA 1816-1868. Born at York, ME, he was raised on his father's farm, with rainy days spent in a shoe-shop, the custom in those days. He loved music and spent spare hours practicing any music he could find. In 1830 the family moved to Boston, where he first saw and heard an organ and piano, and other instruments. He became an organist at 15. He attended Dr. Lowell Mason's singing classes, and later sang in the Bowdoin Street church choir. Dr. Mason became a good friend. He made $100/yr playing the organ, and was still in Dr. Mason's choir. Dr. Mason gave him a chance to teach singing in Machias, ME, which he accepted. He returned to Boston the following year to marry Adra Esther Fessenden in 1838, then rel… Go to person page >

After seeing Gilmore's text in the Boston Watchman and Reflector, William B. Bradbury (PHH 114) composed AUCHTON for those words. Bradbury arranged the text into a stanza/refrain structure, added the final line of the refrain, and published the hymn in his The Golden Censor in 1864. AUCHTON (also known as HE LEADETH ME) means "unknown.”

The tune is a gospel melody in typical verse/refrain pattern; it has a simple harmonization. AUCHTON consists of two main lines formed into an AABB pattern. Sing in harmony. Fermatas, if any are observed, should come at the ends of the lines and not in the middle of line 2, as some soloists prefer.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook, 1988