Benjamin Johnson Lang

Background

Benjamin Johnson Lang was the son of Benjamin and Hannah (Learoch) Lang, the former of Scottish origin, a successful organist and pianoforte teacher at Salem, Massachussets, where Benjamin Johnson was born.

Education

He was educated in the public schools. In 1855 he continued his studies in Germany as a pupil of Alfred Jaell and a personal protege of Franz Liszt, who gave him valuable advice.

Career

In 1850 Lang played a church organ at Danvers. A year later he was the regular organist at Crombie Street Church, Salem. By 18 he was the organist of the largest instrument in Boston, the First Baptist Church on Somerset Street. In 1852, he took over his father’s organ teaching business.

He made his premier concert appearance in 1858 with the Mendelssohn Quintet Club in the first Boston performance of Beethoven's C minor trio, opus 1, number 3. He then began to acquire a reputation, which he sustained, for introducing previously unheard music. The list of his "firsts in Boston" grew to be prodigious. Having become organist of the Old South Church in May 1862, Lang made his debut as a conductor at a concert for the first Boston presentation of Mendelssohn's First Walpurgisnight with chorus, soli, and full orchestra. He thereafter found himself rapidly advancing as conductor and concert pianist, in spite of personal handicaps, notably his shyness and somewhat brusque and dictatorial platform manner.

One of his triumphs was the Jubilee concert of January 1, 1863, in the Music Hall, celebrating President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. On this occasion he shared the musical honors with Carl Zerrahn. When the Apollo Club, of male singers, was formed in 1871, Lang was engaged as its first conductor. Its programs, deposited in the Boston Public Library, attest the enterprise with which "B. J. ," as he was familiarly known in Boston, sought out new musical works and trained his amateur vocalists to present.

In 1874 Lang took on also the conductorship of the Cecilia Society, a mixed chorus. These societies, under his baton, gave New England many remarkable concerts. When Hans von Bülow visited Boston in 1875 he quarreled with the conductor whom he had engaged. Lang was called in at short notice and conducted the first performance of the Tschaikovsky B flat minor concerto.

In June 1877, upon the request of the governor of Massachusetts, he organized and directed a concert in honor of President Hayes, presented by the Apollo Club. Such honors entitled him, so many of his friends thought, to be considered for the conductorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra when it was founded, but this honor never came to him.

In 1891 he made one of his most spectacular successes in bringing to Boston the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera Company, with famous singers, for a concert performance of Wagner's Parsifal. In 1895 he became conductor of the Hendel and Haydn Society. He died of pneumonia in the spring of 1909 and was buried from King's Chapel, where he had been organist since 1885.

Achievements

• Lang was the foremost New England musician of American birth. He introduced a large amount of music to American audiences and he was best remembered for being the conductor of the world premiere of the original version of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, with Hans von Bülow as soloist, on October 25, 1875. He also composed various musical works, including the oratorio David, several symphonies and overtures, and many church pieces and songs.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Youthful Voices: A Collection of Hymns and Tunes for the Use of Sunday Schools

    ( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

Connections

Lang was married, in 1861, to Frances Morse Burrage, by whom he had three children.

Father:

Benjamin Lang

Mother:

Hannah (Learoch) Lang

Spouse:

Frances Morse Burrage