Background
Zeuner was born on September 20, 1795 in Eisleben, Germany.
(The American harp : being a collection of new and origina...)
The American harp : being a collection of new and original church music 380 pages.
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(Charles Zeuner (1795-1857) was undoubtedly one of the bes...)
Charles Zeuner (1795-1857) was undoubtedly one of the best American organists in the first half of the nineteenth century. He left Germany in 1830 with a rich musical heritage, having studied both with Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Michael Gotthard Fischer, who were in turn the students of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach. Zeuner was active as an organist both in Philadelphia and in Boston, where he was also briefly the president of the Handel and Haydn Society. His known works include the first U.S.-published organ music and the first organ concerto written in the United States. Most of the twenty-seven prelude and fugue pairs and three extended fantasies found in this volume were intended for the organ, and no fewer than fourteen of them include Zeuner's distinctive double-pedal notation. However, several works do not call for specific pedal parts, and they could easily be played on the organ manuals alone or on a piano. Zeuner's prelude and fugue pairs are usually linked thematically, but sometimes this relationship is obscure. At least two works in this volume are newly composed preludes for existing fugues by his teacher, Fischer. Zeuner's command as composer is clearly evident in this music that exhibits many characteristics of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, including an expressive and often surprising chromaticism. The music for this edition comes from both holographs and manuscripts copied by William Newland now housed at the Library of Congress.
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(Excerpt from The Ancient Lyre: A Collection of Old, New, ...)
Excerpt from The Ancient Lyre: A Collection of Old, New, and Original Church Music, Under the Approbation of the Professional Musical Society The various forms of the notes determine their value, time, or duration, and the rests, bear a certain fixed relation to them. These latter direct the singer or performer to cease for a longer or shorter period. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Zeuner was born on September 20, 1795 in Eisleben, Germany.
Zeuner was educated in Germany. An unsupported contemporary tradition that makes him a pupil of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the pianist, may have basis in fact. It is also probable that as a young man he lived for some time in Erfurt and studied with Michael G. Fischer.
Several of Zeuner's early works are dedicated to residents of Erfurt, and it was there, and in Frankfurt-am-Main, that compositions and arrangements of his were first published. The date of his emigration to the United States is usually given as 1824. But as late as 1826 an advertisement in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Leipzig) invites subscriptions to an edition of one of his masses, to be published in Frankfurt, and there is no reason to believe that he left Germany much before 1830. On reaching the United States, he adopted the Christian name of Charles and settled in Boston, where, on September 24, 1830, he was elected organist to the Handel and Haydn Society. With this association began the productive and eventful part of his career. Most of his published and unpublished works date from this period. A number were heard for the first time at the society's concerts; some, indeed, were written expressly for them. Zeuner appeared as soloist at these concerts with organ concertos of his own composition in 1830 and again in 1834, and he provided orchestral accompaniments for numerous choral works in the society's repertory. At the same time he served also as a church organist and as president of the Musical Professional Society. Chosen president of the Handel and Haydn Society in 1838, he promptly became involved in a quarrel with the members of his board of trustees, resigned at their request in February of the following year, and, refusing reelection as organist, left Boston for Philadelphia. There he held various positions as organist, notably at St. Andrew's and at the Arch Street Presbyterian Church. But a growing eccentricity, variously described as peculiarity of demeanor, temporary derangement, and even as harmless lunacy, led him to retire, before long, from the musical scene. Moving to Camden, N. J. , he lived, during his last years, in relative obscurity and isolation until pronounced melancholia, coupled with a morbid interest in spiritualism, drove him to suicide. His musical library is now in the Library of Congress. Zeuner's chief publications are Church Music, Consisting of New and Original Anthems, Motets, and Chants (1831); The American Harp (1832), also a collection of church music; The Ancient Lyre (1833), a volume of hymn tunes; and Organ Voluntaries (1840). He published many popular songs and piano pieces, and contributed to Lowell Mason's Lyra Sacra (1832) and other similar collections. A large number of compositions, including a mass and three cantatas, remain in manuscript. His most ambitious composition, The Feast of Tabernacles, an oratorio in two parts, was the first American work of its kind. Written about 1832, it was presented for the first time in full at the Odeon, May 3, 1837, by the Boston Academy of Music.
(Excerpt from The Ancient Lyre: A Collection of Old, New, ...)
(Charles Zeuner (1795-1857) was undoubtedly one of the bes...)
(The American harp : being a collection of new and origina...)
Zeuner was unmarried.