Religious or Ritual Musician

(b c1749; d after 1794). English composer, organist and cellist. According to his recommendation by Francis Hackwood to the Society of Musicians, on 1 February 1784 he was 35 years old, married with two children, organist of Brompton Chapel and a competent violinist, viola player and cellist. He performed as a cellist in the Handel commemoration concerts in 1784 and played in the band for the Academy of Ancient Music during the 1787–8 season. He probably also took part as a cellist in the concerts (held annually) at St Paul’s Cathedral for the relief of the clergy in 1785, 1789, 1790, 1793 and 1795.

From his extant published works it can be seen that Adams was a competent purveyor of small-scale vocal and instrumental works in the manner of Haigh, Osmond or Reeve. His music shows an awareness of changing styles: the early songs and canzonets accompanied either by harpsichord or orchestra with obbligato instrument are in the manner of Arne, giving way to a symphonic style like that of J.C. Bach or Hook in the three sonatas of op.4 (for piano or harpsichord with violin or flute accompaniment); his late sonata for piano duet shows some grasp of larger forms, and ...

(b Niederachen, nr Inzell, Upper Bavaria, Oct 1, 1729; d Salzburg, Dec 22, 1777). German composer and organist. His father, Ulrich Adlgasser (1704–56), was a teacher and organist. On 4 December 1744 he registered in the ‘Grammatistae’ class at Salzburg University, and in the same year he became a chorister at the Salzburg court chapel. His brothers Joseph (b 1732), later organist at Laufen, and Georg (b 1736) were also choirboys in Salzburg. While a student he sang and acted in several Schuldramen, including seven by J.E. Eberlin. He studied the organ and violin, and probably also received instruction in composition from Eberlin.

Adlgasser became court and cathedral organist in 1750, shortly after Eberlin’s promotion to the post of Hofkapellmeister. According to Leopold Mozart’s account of the Salzburg musical establishment (in Marpurg’s Historisch-kritische Beyträge, iii, 1757) Adlgasser’s duties also included the accompaniment of court chamber music on the harpsichord and composing for both the court and the cathedral. After ...

(b London, April 11, 1715; d Lichfield, Feb 23, 1806). English organist and composer, father of John Alcock (ii). He was a chorister of St Paul’s Cathedral when, in his own words ( GB-Lcm 1189), he and Boyce were ‘Schoolfellows and Bedfellows’ under Charles King. Afterwards he was apprenticed to John Stanley. In the early years of the 18th century, growth in the number of organs in large provincial parish churches afforded new professional opportunities, and Alcock is an early example of an organist who reached a cathedral position through posts in parish churches – in his case St Andrew’s, Plymouth (1737), and St Laurence’s, Reading (1742). He was admitted vicar-choral and organist of Lichfield Cathedral in January 1750. He took the BMus degree at Oxford in 1755 and the DMus there in 1766. The cathedral documents fail to make clear exactly when he ceased to be organist, but this was certainly by ...

(b Plymouth, bap. Jan 28, 1740; d Walsall, bur. March 27, 1791). English organist and composer, eldest son of John Alcock (i). As a chorister under his father at Lichfield Cathedral, he deputized for him from the age of 12, and from 1758 to 1768 he was organist and master of the song school at Newark. In 1766 father and son both went to Oxford, the former to take the DMus degree and the latter the BMus degree which he gained with a setting of Pope’s Messiah (in GB-Ob ). His final appointment, at St Matthew’s, Walsall, followed in 1773, not long after his father had opened a new organ there. His published compositions include church music, songs and cantatas, together with convivial and instrumental music (including a duet for two bassoons or cellos). A volume of anecdotes, The Instructive and Entertaining Companion (Wolverhampton, 1779; ?unique copy in ...

Member of Bach family

(46) (b Weimar, March 8, 1714; d Hamburg, Dec 14, 1788). Composer and church musician, the second surviving son of (7) Johann Sebastian Bach (24) and his first wife, Maria Barbara. He was the most important composer in Protestant Germany during the second half of the 18th century, and enjoyed unqualified admiration and recognition particularly as a teacher and keyboard composer.

He was baptized on 10 March 1714, with Telemann as one of his godfathers. In 1717 he moved with the family to Cöthen, where his father had been appointed Kapellmeister. His mother died in 1720, and in spring 1723 the family moved to Leipzig, where Emanuel began attending the Thomasschule as a day-boy on 14 June 1723. J.S. Bach said later that one of his reasons for accepting the post of Kantor at the Thomasschule was that his sons’ intellectual development suggested that they would benefit from a university education. Emanuel Bach received his musical training from his father, who gave him keyboard and organ lessons. There may once have been some kind of ...

(b Haigerloch, June 23, 1749; d Ottobeuren, April 10, 1810). South German monastic composer. After studying in Zwiefalten and Ehingen an der Donau, he entered the Benedictine monastery of Ottobeuren in 1771. He was taught music by Ernestus Weinrauch in Zwiefalten and by Franz Schnitzer and Christoph Neubauer in Ottobeuren. He served the monastery as choir leader, music teacher and master of novices. After the suspension of the state endowment to Ottobeuren in 1802, he continued to live there as a pensioner. Back enriched the active musical life of the abbey primarily through his liturgical compositions, of which two masses, dated 1793, survive in the Munich Staatsbibliothek and several smaller works in Ottobeuren. He also wrote at least one cantata for the abbey (Der Tod Jesu, manuscript copies in Munich and Salzburg), and some stage works, including a drama musicum, Authore parente servata religio (1794, autograph in Munich), and ...

(b c1719; d Nov 1794). English clergyman and writer. He matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, on 4 November 1740; and on 22 and 29 January 1741 he was appointed lay vicar of Westminster Abbey and a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. He resigned the latter post on 13 March 1744, when he was admitted a priest of the chapel. On 12 June 1749 he took the degree of BCL and on 10 July 1764 the degree of DCL from Christ Church, Oxford. In the latter year he was appointed sub-dean of the Chapel Royal; he was also a minor canon of St Paul’s Cathedral. Like many clergymen of his day, he studied medicine and on 20 July 1787 patented an elastic girdle, bandage or roller to relieve ruptures, fractures and swellings.

Bayly wrote on religion, the study of language and the study of music. He supervised the compilation of, and wrote the preface to, ...

(bap. Almondbury, Yorks. June 8, 1688; bur. Skipton, June 26, 1746). English psalmodist. Almondbury parish records show two baptisms of John Chetham, son of James Chetham: one on 26 December 1687, the other on 8 June 1688; presumably the first infant died soon after he was baptized. Axon printed a letter of 1752 by William Chetham giving details of the writer’s father, John Chetham; it is not certain, however, that this is John Chetham the psalmodist. The only certain facts about Chetham are his appointments as Master of the Clerk’s School, Skipton, on 7 July 1723 and curate of Skipton on 4 February 1741 at £30 a year, and his burial.

Chetham’s importance in English parish church music is considerable, although resting on a single work: A Book of Psalmody, published in Sheffield in 1718, but advertised in the Nottingham Weekly Courant as early as 27 February 1717...

( b Canterbury, bap. Feb 5, 1775; d Canterbury, May 30, 1859). English psalmodist and cordwainer . He was one of the most prolific nonconformist composers of the Gallery period, and was particularly influential as the compiler of early Sunday School collections. His music is full of vitality with strong rhythms and melodies, though rather conservative in harmonization. Repeating and fuging passages are common, and settings for country choirs include instrumental symphonies. Although he produced over 25 volumes of psalmody, he is remembered for one tune, ‘Cranbrook’, originally set to ‘Grace 'tis a charming sound’ in his first book of 1805, and now sung to the Yorkshire words ‘On Ilkla Moor baht 'at’. A full account of his career is given in W. Harvey: Thomas Clark of Canterbury (Whitstable, 1983).

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all published in London

(b Naples, 1717 (?); d Naples, after July 28, 1778). Italian harpsichordist, composer, and maestro di cappella, son of Giuseppe D’Alessandro. He studied with Leonardo Leo, according to the tenor Anton Raaff. Fétis’ statement that D’Alessandro was born in 1717 is unsourced. On August 21, 1739 he was hired as maestro di coro at Venice’s Ospedale della Pietà, a position he retained until May 13, 1740. He was the first in a distinguished cohort of Neapolitan choirmasters who served at the Pietà during the 18th century, following a local trend started in 1726 by Nicola Porpora at the Ospedale degli Incurabili.

Of the sacred music D’Alessandro composed for the Pietà only incomplete vocal partbooks of a Miserere and a Missa brevis survive in the Fondo Correr of the Conservatorio ‘Benedetto Marcello’ in Venice, bearing the names of the soprano (Michielina) and the alto (Placida) among the figlie di coro...

(b La Flèche, Aug 27, 1739; d Chartres, Dec 23, 1812). French cathedral musician and composer. He was maître de musique of Soissons Cathedral until 1761, then of Chartres until his retirement in 1785, after which he continued to deputize, and to sing haute-contre in the choir, until 1792. Of his large output of sacred works, including 61 psalms and canticle settings, 16 masses, a Requiem and 58 miscellaneous compositions, only the MS Exaudiat te Dominus is extant (in F-Pn ). This work, dating from Delalande’s years at Chartres, was formerly attributed to Michel-Richard de Lalande, to whom he may have been related (see Clerval). It exhibits many of the usual features of the grands motets of the Versailles school while strongly reflecting the influence of the galant style, notably in its harmonic and formal structure and florid instrumental writing. An inventory of Delalande’s music is in the Archives Départementales at Chartres (Q103, dated ...

(b Cheshire, CT, Aug 29, 1772; d Argyle, NY, April 1850). American psalmodist and singing master, brother to the engraver Amos Doolittle. Eliakim moved to Hampton, New York, around 1800. There he married Hasadiah Fuller in 1811, and the couple had six children. He also lived in Poultney and Pawlet, Vermont, where he taught singing schools. A Congregationalist, Doolittle is remembered primarily for his 45 sacred vocal works. He composed in every genre common during the period, with the exception of the set piece. His most frequently reprinted pieces were his fuging tunes, and his “Exhortation” appeared in print over 40 times by 1820. Doolittle was talented at musically depicting the meaning and mood of the texts he set. Most of his music was published in his own tunebook, The Psalm Singer’s Companion (New Haven, CT, 1806). He also composed a secular tune, “The Hornet Stung the Peacock,” about a naval battle during the War of ...

(b Castellón de Ampurias [now Empúries], Catalonia, Spain, Dec 16, 1776; d Santa Barbara, CA, June 1, 1846). Spanish musician and Franciscan missionary to Alta California. He entered the Franciscan order in Girona in 1792 and was ordained a priest in Barcelona in 1800. He traveled to New Spain in 1803 and was assigned to the College of San Fernando, the Franciscan missionary college in Mexico City that established and served the Alta California missions. He left Mexico City in February 1806, arriving at Mission San José (near present-day Fremont, California) a few months later. For the dedication in 1809 of the new Mission San José church, he rehearsed daily and directed an ensemble of 30 musicians from the local missions. He served at Mission San José until 1833, when all the northern Alta California missions were transferred to the Franciscan friars of the Colegio de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Zacatecas. He served thereafter at Mission Santa Bárbara until his death in ...

(b Woburn, Beds., Sept 24, 1766; d London, Jan 6, 1826). English geologist and writer on music. He was a tenor in the Surrey Chapel Society which met weekly in Southwark to practise sacred music. In 1791, when that society became part of the Choral Fund, Farey served as secretary and librarian and became acquainted ‘with numbers of the most eminent’ practitioners of music. The next year he returned to Woburn as the Duke of Bedford’s land steward and warden of Woburn parish church; from 1802 he lived in London.

Farey found the study of systems of musical temperament ‘a favourite source of amusement, while relaxing from … professional studies and practice’. His thoughts on music appeared mainly in numerous articles in the Philosophical Magazine and reappeared in contributions to David Brewster’s Edinburgh Encyclopaedia and to Abraham Rees’s Cyclopaedia: indeed Rees named only Charles Burney and Farey as ‘co-adjutors’ of the musical articles in the ...

( b Bentley, nr Doncaster, 1752; d High Green, nr Sheffield, Oct 4, 1822). English psalmodist . An amateur musician, he was by profession a coroner. He lived in High Green and (according to A. Gatty: A Life at One Living, 1884) was responsible for the suppression of dog- and cock-fighting. In the preface to his first book, Sacred Music, Consisting of Anthems, Psalms & Hymns (Sheffield, c1820), he described how he ‘devoted a few leisure hours to Musical Composition’ in order to encourage local choirs, and how in west Yorkshire, and the borders of adjacent counties, nearly every village had a choir, accompanied by instruments, some of which, in size and skill, approached ‘the dignity of an Oratorio’. A second book was also published (c1820). Foster's music needs competent performers; it is well written in a Classical style, and unusual in that it is fully scored with elaborate symphonies. His most ambitious setting, of Psalm xlvii (Old Version), requires an orchestra of strings, flute, oboes, bassoon, horns, trumpet and drums, and survives in mutated versions as part of the Sheffield pub-carolling tradition, where it is known as ‘Old Foster’ and sung to ...

(b Dirsdorf [now Przerzeczyn Zdrój], Silesia, Jan 1, 1723; d Berthelsdorf, Saxony, Nov 6, 1801). German organist, composer and hymn writer. His father died two weeks before Gregor’s birth and his mother died when he was nine. The Pietist Count Pfeil took the orphan into his own home, rearing him as a son. As a youth Gregor learnt to play the organ from the village organist. Under the influence of a Protestant church in predominantly Roman Catholic Silesia, he was attracted to the Moravians and joined them at Herrnhut in 1742. His versatile gifts soon brought him assignments as a group spiritual leader, teacher, financial secretary and organist in Herrnhut and other settlements. He was ordained to the ministry in 1756 and consecrated bishop in 1789. As an administrator he travelled much, even making a two-year visit to American congregations (1771–2). At times he was organist at Herrnhut, Herrnhaag (near Frankfurt), and at Zeist, Holland....

(b Zwickau, bap. Feb 5, 1732; d Gera, Aug 2, 1792). German composer and Kantor. He probably received his musical education from his father, Johann Gottfried Gruner (d 1763), a Kantor in Zwickau and Gera. In 1764 he succeeded his father as Kantor at the Landesschule and Johanniskirche in Gera and held these positions until his death. His compositions include keyboard concertos, chamber works, a secular cantata and sacred pieces; most are easy and pleasant pieces for musical dilettantes revealing little originality, although he was highly esteemed by his contemporaries. When his house was destroyed by the large Gera fire in 1780, 1102 people (among them J.F. Reichardt and C.P.E. Bach) subscribed to 1368 copies of his first set of six keyboard sonatas (1781), and his works were still popular in 1800, when a volume of his choral works was published posthumously.

(d Glaucha, nr Halle, 1744). German organist and writer on music. His only known position was as Kantor at St Georg, Glaucha, from 1732 (he should not be confused with the organist of the same name at the Johanniskirche in Leipzig, 1747–66). Hille was acquainted with J.S. Bach, whom he visited in Leipzig some time about 1739; Bach returned the visit to Hille in Glaucha early in 1740. Both trips are confirmed by a letter to Hille from Bach’s cousin Johann Elias (see David and Mendel, eds.), who asked Hille to sell him as a gift for Anna Magdalena Bach a linnet which had been trained to sing beautifully and which Bach had admired during his stay with Hille. As a composer Hille has been credited with the chorales in Einige neue und zur Zeit noch nicht durchgängig bekante Melodeyen zu dem neuen Cöthenischen Gesangbüchlein, dieselbe mit und ohne Generalbass gebrauchen zu können...

(b Rosenthal, Saxony, Feb 2, 1714; d Dresden, June 2, 1785). German composer, organist and Kantor.

The son of a Lutheran pastor, he spent his childhood from 1714 in Porschendorf (Pirna district). After his father’s death in 1722 he attended the Annenschule in Dresden, where in 1734 he composed his earliest extant work, the cantata Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild. He sometimes stood in for the organist at the Annenkirche, J.G. Stübner, who was probably his organ teacher. On 14 May 1735 he matriculated at Leipzig University in law; a class report from the professor A. Kästner (16 September 1741) reads: ‘For three years the candidatus juris has availed himself of my praelectionum iudicarum and striven to master the fundamenta iuris. He has, however, always allowed music to be his main task’. At this time he also took lessons from Bach in composition and keyboard playing, as mentioned by J.A. Hiller (...

[Ferdinand]

(b Grattersdorf, Bavaria, July 6, 1747; d Ingolstadt, March 25, 1823). German priest and composer. The son of a church musician, he received his first musical training at home, and his basic academic and musical education in the Benedictine monastery at Niederaltaich, Bavaria. Later he studied philosophy and theology at Freising and Salzburg. In 1769 he entered the Benedictine order at Niederaltaich and in 1772 was ordained priest. He taught poetry in the Gymnasium at Straubing (from 1781) and Amberg (1784), was the parish priest of Dettingen, near Metzingen (1785), and Grossmehring, near Ingolstadt (1788), and priest of the Liebfrauenmünster, Ingolstadt (1817). Jungbauer composed sacred and secular vocal works, mainly during the period 1785–1800. His religious works, modelled on those of Michael Haydn, reflect the endeavours of the Enlightenment in their sentimental parallel 3rds and 6ths and in their German texts....