April 1929
174
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
“God thundereth marvel lously with h i s voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot com prehend. “For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small rain, and to the g r e a t r a i n of his strength." - —Job 37:5, 6.
The Boston Academy of Music was founded about this time and Lowell Mason was at the head of it. He lectured on church music, promoted musical conventions, wrote hymn-tunes and anthems, did the work of a real musical missionary in both school and church. He was indefatigable in his labors, making two trips to Europe to study methods and gather material. He was essentially a pioneer, and his activities, coming in the wake of the great Wesleyan Revival in England and the Great Awak ening in America, found prepared hearts, quickened minds and willing hands to carry the work forward. His tunes gave new wings to the words of Watts and Wesley that had always been marred by inadequate expression. “Many a hymn of mediocre merit has been sung into fame and widespread use through the compelling power of the tune, and many a worthy hymn has been unable to survive inadequate musical expression.” Mason’s serious attitude toward his life work is seen in the following extract from one of his lectures; !“Music is an art, and is to be regularly cultivated . . . like painting or poetry or sculpture or architecture. We can not expect to derive benefit from it if we suffer it to be neglected. In the secular department this principle is well understood . . . It is only the music of the church that is left to take care of itself, or committed to unskilled hands.” The debt we owe to Lowell Mason is seen at a glance in looking through any hymn book. More than seventy of his tunes are found in modern collections. In Olivet, Sabbath, Boylston, Hebron and Azmon are found the simple, chaste, dignified qualities that reflect his own sin cere and devout character. Perfection as a tune writer is not claimed for him, but he served his generation in a notable way during a great transition period in church music development, and has left a lasting impression for the good. He does not show the musical skill, refinement and melodic beauty of a Dykes, a Barnby or a Stainer, but he will ever hold a high place as the composer of Hamburg, the perfect setting for Watts’ great hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” and the annals of Church Music will accord his name a high and worthy place.
audience entertained and delighted, their minds surpass ingly agitated and extremely fluctuated, sometimes declar ing for one, sometimes for another. Now the solemn bass demands their attention, next the manly tenor; now the lofty counter, now the volatile treble. Now here, now there, now here again. O ecstasy! Rush on, you sons of harmony!” Lowell Mason came to his great life work at a time when the Billings school was on the wane, and the way was open for a great forward step. He was a serious and enthusiastic student of music from an early age and at sixteen was organist and leader of the village choir. He took advantage of every opportunity in class and private to perfect himself in music, and soon began to teach singing classes himself, following the old awkward Psalm- tune system. While still in his ’teens he went to Savan nah, Georgia, to live, accepting a position as a bank clerk. Here he continued his work as choir director, and also met F. L. Abel, who gave him his first real instruction in miisic'1 (composition. It was here, too, that he wrote his first great tune, Missionary Hymn, set to the words of Bishop Heber, “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains.” Mason’s methodical, constructive mind saw the great need of improved teaching methods and better hymn-tunes and anthems, and he went about collecting manuscript, original, and arranged from many sources, for a choral book which was accepted for publication in Boston, in 1826,, sponsored by the Handel and Haydn Society, a newly organized body of which he was later to be presi dent. This transferred his activities to the north again and launched him definitely in his musical career. In Boston he came in touch with William C. Wood- bridge, who was an educator and who had visited Switzer land and Germany and there had seen with astonishment the wonderful results of the instruction in music by use of the inductive principle as applied by Pestalozzi. Mason was slow to catch the enthusiasm of Woodbridge and was not convinced without thorough experimenting and demonstration. But once convinced, he, too, became an enthusiast and the result in his work with the Bos ton Public Schools has already been noted. This was the real pioneer work that has extended to every hamlet of the nation.
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