Benjamin Carr

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Benjamin Carr (work by John Sartain based on a model by John Clarendon Darley, around 1840)

Benjamin Carr (born September 12, 1768 in London , † May 24, 1831 in Philadelphia ) was an English-American composer , opera singer , organist and music publisher .

Life

The son of the music publisher Joseph Carr studied in London with Samuel Arnold and the brothers Charles and Samuel Wesley . His opera Philander and Silvia was written in London in 1792 . In 1793 he emigrated to America, his father and brother Thomas followed him a year later. While his father and brother founded a music retailer and publisher in Baltimore, Benjamin Carr opened the same company in Philadelphia, which in the 1790s became the most important music publisher in the United States. In 1797 he sold a New York branch of the publishing house to James Hewitt .

Publishing activity

The first two volumes of The Musical Journal for the Piano Forte were published by Carr in 1800 and 1801 by his father's publishing house in Baltimore. In 1803 he took on George Schetky as a partner in his publishing house, so that the other editions of the journal were published by Carr & Schetky. Carr later retired from publishing, only in the early 1820s he was temporarily active again as a publisher when he completed the series Carr's Musical Miscellany in Occasional Numbers , which his father had started in 1812.

Musician and composer

From 1794–95, Carr appeared as a singer and actor with the Old American Company in New York. From 1801 to 1831 he was organist at St. Augustine's Catholic Church and St. Peter's Episcopal Church . He composed 85 church music works, including hymns , psalm settings , anthems and songs, as well as 275 secular works. The best-known of these was the Federal Overture , published in 1794 , in which he used popular formats such as the Yankee Doodle , the President's March and Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be? recorded. This was the first print version of the Yankee Doodle to appear in the United States.

Operatic work

In 1796, Carr's opera The Archers, or The Mountaineers of Switzerland based on a libretto by William Dunlap based on the legend of William Tell was premiered at the John Street Theater in New York . The work is considered to be the earliest professionally performed opera written in the United States. Only two fragments of the opera have survived: an aria and a rondo from the overture. Three more operas followed: The Patriot: or, Liberty Obtained (1796), Bouville Castle: or, The Gallic Orphan (1797) and The American in London (1798). The pantomime Poor Jack: or, The Sailors' Return was created as early as 1795 . In 1799 he composed the funeral march March for Washington , in 1810 the song cycle Lady of the Lake based on poems by Walter Scott .

Educational publications

Carr emerged as a music pedagogue with three works: The Analytic al Instructor (1826), the Lessons and Exercises in Vocal Music (1811) and the Short Methods of Modulating from One Key to Another (undated). In 1820 he was one of the founders of the Musical Fund Society . After his death, she donated a tomb designed by the architect William Strickland in the cemetery of St. Peter's Episcopal Church.

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Carr, Benjamin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English-American composer, opera singer, organist and music publisher
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1768
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 1831
Place of death Philadelphia