Tuckerman, Samuel Parkman

1819-1890

 

American organist, prominent during the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Born in Boston, in 1819. After studying organ with Charles Zeuner he became organist and choirdirector at St. Paul's Church in Boston and held this position for several years, during which time he published the Episcopal Harp and Hymn Tunes and Anthems, which were almost entirely made up of original compositions, and the National Lyre, which he wrote with Henry K. Oliver and Silas A. Bancroft. In 1849 he went to England to make a thorough study of English  Cathedral music. After two years in London he went to Canterbury, Durham, Salisbury, Winchester and York, then spent two years at Windsor familiarizing himself with the music of St. George's Chapel. In 1852 he was given a diploma by the Academy of St. Cecilia at Rome, and in 1853 he received the degree of Doctor of Music from the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth. Returning to the United States he resumed his position at St. Paul's Church and gave lectures on Church Music in the Old World and the New, with several public concerts of examples of church music from the Fourth to the Nineteenth Centuries. In 1856 he returned to England for four years, during which time he added greatly to his fine musical library, which contains about two thousand volumes, among them being anthems, services and motets of the English and Italian Schools both ancient and modern. In 1858 he published Cathedral Chants, to be used in Episcopal Churches in the United States, and in 1864 he edited Trinity Collection of Church Music which Edward Hodges arranged, composed and selected for the choir of Trinity Church, New York. For many years he lived in Switzerland. He died in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1890. Among the many excellent church compositions written by Doctor Tuckerman are the anthems, God so LovecJ the World, Lighten Our Darkness, Come Unto Me, Their Sun Shall no More go Down, I Looked and, Behold, a Door was Opened in Heaven, and Blow Ye the Trumpet in Zion; also a burial service, a festival anthem, church services in C, F, G, and E flat.