Dudley Buck

Dudley Buck

Dudley Buck (born March 10, 1839 in Hartford (Connecticut) , † October 6, 1909 ) was an American composer and organist .

One of his most famous organ works are the concert variations on The Star-Spangled Banner , Opus 28. This was later published in an orchestral version.

He published several books. His most important works include the Dictionary of Musical Terms and Influence of the Organ in History , which were published in New York in 1882 .

life and career

Buck was the son of an American businessman. He had no previous musical training when he started learning the piano. After graduating from Trinity College (1858–1860), he studied for 18 months in Leipzig at the famous Leipzig Conservatory with Louis Plaidy (1810–1874) and Ignaz Moschee, piano and with Moritz Hauptmann and Ernst Friedrich Richter, music theory and composition. He also took orchestration lessons from Julius Rietz . Further studies took him to Dresden and Leipzig. There he received organ lessons from Johann Gottlob Schneider . Schneider was a student of Johann Christian Kittel , who in turn is one of the last students of Johann Sebastian Bach . In 1861 Buck visited France. Here he not only completed organ studies, but also spent a lot of time with organ builders and brought a lot of knowledge about organ building with him to America.

With John Knowles Paine, Bucks was one of the first thoroughly trained organists to produce the United States. A little later he went back to America. In America the organ landscape had grown considerably and the trend towards big, loud and bombastic playing quickly established itself. For example, orchestral transcriptions were increasingly interpreted on the organ. Despite this tendency, Buck took at least one composition by Bach or another classical work such as B. on a Mendelssohn sonata.

Buck received a position as organist at the North Congregational Church in Hartford. Three years later he married Mary Elizabeth von Wagner. Their marriage had two sons and a daughter. In 1865 he composed a major organ sonata, his Opus 22. He was the first American composer to write an extensive sonata for organ.

After his father's death, Buck left his job and went to Chicago . There he was appointed organist of the Saint Episcopal Church in 1869. He gave regular concerts in an adjacent concert hall with a large Johnson organ. Over the next three years he trained the best counter-organists in the country there. He has therefore done more for the American organ landscape than any other personality.

In 1871 the great fire of Chicago struck . This destroyed his home, his church, the concert hall and all his belongings. So he moved to Boston, where he was organist at Saint Pauls Church (now Episcopal Cathedral) and at the same time teacher at the New England Conservatory of Music . There he taught organ, piano and harmony.

In 1872 he was appointed to the Boston Music Hall Association and from then on gave three organ concerts each week, each lasting one hour.

In 1875 Buck was called to New York and received the assistant position of Theodore Thomas as orchestra conductor. From 1877 to 1902 he was the organist of Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn . During this time he has built a considerable reputation as a composer. His compositions include church music, several cantatas (including Columbus (1876), Golden Legend (1880), The Light of Asia (1886)), a previously unperformed opera entitled Serapis , a symphonic overture and a symphony in E flat major and other orchestral and vocal works.

Buck was a co-founder of the American Guild of Organists , whose first president he was (1896-1899). The AGO is the largest association of organists and offshoots (so-called chapters) in the whole world. In 1898 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Buck trained many musicians who later held well-known positions. His students included u. a. Paul Ambrose , William Howland , Daniel Protheroe , Harry Rowe Shelley , James Francis Cooke , and Charles Sanford Skilton .

literature

• N. Lee Orr: Dudley Buck. University of Illinois Press, Urbana / Chicago 2008.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wayne Leupold: Dudley Buck Complete Organ Works . Ed .: Wayne Leupold Editions. Vol. 4, pp. 103 .
2. ^ Dudley Buck: American Victorian Choral Music . In: AR Editions (Ed.): Music of the United States of America (MUSA) . Vol 14, 2005 ( google.com ).
3. ^ Michael Johnston and John Apple: Founders of the American Guild of Organists (AGO). In: michaelsmusicservice.com. Retrieved September 28, 2016 . 
4. ^ Members: Dudley Buck. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed February 18, 2019 .