Member of Aubert family
(b Paris, Dec 15, 1732; d c1810). French writer, dramatist and abbé, son of Jacques Aubert. He may have composed some of the music to his own plays (Jephté ou le voeu, 1765; and La mort d’Abel, 1765), but he is remembered more for his essays on music, the most famous being his reply to J.-J. Rousseau’s controversial ...
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 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 Northampton, MA, May 14, 1752; d New Haven, CT, Jan 11, 1817). American poet and author of hymn texts. He graduated from Yale College in 1769, becoming a tutor there two years later. He served as a chaplain in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and wrote the texts of several patriotic songs, one of which (“Columbia, Columbia, to Glory Arise,” 1787) became widely popular. From 1783 to 1795 he was pastor of the Congregational Church in Greenfield Hill, Connecticut, where he rose to eminence as a preacher, educator, and poet. He was elected president of Yale College in 1795. In 1798, at the request of both Congregational and Presbyterian governing bodies in Connecticut, he undertook a revised edition of Isaac Watts’s Psalms and Hymns to replace one by Joel Barlow (1785) that had previously been compiled for the Congregationalists. Issued at Hartford in ...
(b Tarazona, Aragón, Spain, Oct 26, 1740; d Mission Soledad, CA, Nov 26, 1818). Spanish musician and Franciscan missionary to Alta California. He entered the Franciscan order at the Convento de Nuestra Señora de Jésus in Zaragoza in 1757, where he served as choirmaster. He traveled to New Spain in 1770, and was assigned to the Colegio de San Fernando, the Franciscan missionary college in Mexico City that established the Alta California missions. He remained there until 1774, serving in the choir. A talented artist and musician, he copied large choirbooks for use at the colegio, at least one of which was brought to Mission Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA) in 1882. After service in San Miguel el Grande (now San Miguel de Allende) in central New Spain, and missionary assignments with the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Querétaro in Northern New Spain, Ibáñez served in the Alta California missions. From ...
Member of Linley family
(b Bath, bap. Aug 22, 1765; d London, March 6, 1831). English organist and clergyman, son of Thomas Linley (i). He studied music with his father and with the astronomer and musician William Herschel. He took his degree at Oxford in 1789 and then entered the church as a minor canon at Norwich; in ...
With the reforms of Peter the Great secular music came to have a much more prominent place in Russian life. The founding of St Petersburg, to which the court moved, also had an effect on the musical culture of Moscow, which changed radically during the 18th century. At the beginning of the century Russian music was represented by its rich heritage of folksong, by ecclesiastical chants and by the simplest domestic genres; by the end of the century Russian opera was taking shape, symphonic and chamber music were being written by Russian composers, and early examples of the Russian song were beginning to appear. The musical needs of Russian society were growing, its tastes were changing and the circle of educated music lovers was expanding. In spite of the fact that St Petersburg drew great artistic forces to the court, Moscow formed its own professional musical circles. Of particular importance were the serf musicians, who performed as soloists and in the many large serf orchestras....
English family. The relationship of the musical Wesleys to the great 18th-century religious leaders of the same name is difficult to describe. Despite the statements of many writers, there is no evidence to connect this family with that of Garret Wesley Mornington.
Wesley, John (b Epworth, Lincs., June 17, 1703...
Member of Wesley family
(b Epworth, Lincs., Dec 18, 1707; d London, March 29, 1788). English clergyman and hymn writer, 18th child and youngest son of Samuel and Susanna Wesley. He was educated at Westminster and Oxford and ordained an Anglican clergyman. In 1749 he settled in Bristol, then moved to St Marylebone, London, in 1771. Although remaining more consistently Anglican, he supported and followed his brother John Wesley in all his work. His particular contribution to Methodism was in the writing of hymns. He is said to have written over 8000, and they include some of the greatest in the English language; hundreds are still in use today. They were innovative in their use of the first person, expression of intense personal feeling, and vivid depiction of the suffering of Christ.
As his hymns show, Wesley was profoundly affected by music. His son Samuel recalled that he was ‘fond of the Old Masters Palestrina, Corelli, Geminiani, Handel, and among the English chamber composers Croft, Blow, Boyce, Greene’. As an itinerant preacher he made constant use of singing in varying circumstances: Carlton Young has assembled more than 100 references to singing in Wesley’s journal (...
Member of Wesley family
(b Bristol, Dec 11, 1757; d London, May 23, 1834). English composer, elder son of Charles Wesley (i). He inherited musical ability from both parents. In infancy he displayed a talent almost without parallel: before he was three years old he could ‘play a tune on the harpsichord readily and in just time’ and ‘always put a true bass to it’. His later development hardly fulfilled this promise. During his childhood and adolescence his father discouraged him from becoming a professional musician, and would not let him take up an appointment as chorister or (later) organist at the Chapel Royal. But under Joseph Kelway he became an excellent organist, and held appointments at several London chapels, including the Lock Hospital Chapel (1797–1801) and the Royal Hospital at Chelsea (1814–17), and finally at St Marylebone parish church (1817–34). He learnt composition chiefly from William Boyce, to whom he dedicated his set of string quartets. His brother Samuel called him an ‘obstinate Handelian’ and indeed his compositions, especially those for organ and piano, tend to be conservative in style. In ...
Member of Wesley family
(b Epworth, Lincs., June 17, 1703; d London, March 2, 1791). English clergyman, one of the founders of Methodism; his views on music were of great importance in English and American musical history.
He was the 15th child of Samuel Wesley (1662–1735), an Anglican clergyman with nonconformist forebears, and Susanna née Annesley (1669–1742), a woman of remarkable learning. He was educated at home by his mother and then at Charterhouse and Oxford, and was ordained a clergyman of the Church of England. The Methodist movement began in the religious group he founded at Oxford in 1729. During his missionary voyage to Georgia in 1735–8 and subsequently in London he was much influenced by the Moravians, and his first Collection of Psalms and Hymns (Charlestown, 1737) contained five translations of German hymns. In 1739 he secured the Foundery at Moorfields, which was to remain the headquarters of the London society, and in ...
Member of Wesley family
(b Bristol, Feb 24, 1766; d London, Oct 11, 1837). English composer and organist, younger son of Charles Wesley (i). Like his elder brother he was a child prodigy. According to his father’s account, he was able to play his first tune before he was three, at four had taught himself to read from a copy of Handel’s Samson, and at five ‘had all the recitatives, and choruses of Samson and the Messiah: both words and notes by heart’. He had his first organ lessons at the age of six from David Williams, a Bristol organist, and at seven was able to play a psalm tune during the service at St James’s Church. He also became proficient on the violin. His fame rapidly spread, and in 1774 William Boyce came to visit the family, saying to Wesley’s father, ‘Sir, I hear you have got an English Mozart in your house’. Shortly afterwards Wesley presented Boyce with the score of his oratorio ...
