♪ Music Notes ♪

GEORG PHILIPP TELEMANN (1681-1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually settled on a career in music, against his family’s wishes. He held important positions in a number of German cities before settling in Hamburg in 1721, where he became musical director of that city’s five main churches. One of the most prolific composers in history (at least in terms of surviving works), Telemann was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time, and was compared favourably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, and to George Frederic Handel, whom he also knew personally. His music incorporates French, Italian, and German national styles, and he was at times even influenced by Polish popular music. Telemann’s enormous output, perhaps the largest of any classical composer in history, includes parts of at least 31 cantata cycles, many operas, concertos, oratorios, songs, music for civic occasions and church services, passions, orchestral suites and abundant amounts of chamber music – his music stands as an important link between the late Baroque and early Classical styles.

ELIZABETH A. P. HEAD (1850-1936) was born in Belfast, the youngest daughter of a flour mill manager. Of her early life nothing is really known, but in 1894 she became secretary of the YWCA in Swansea, Wales. She then served with the South Africa General Mission, mostly in Cape Town and Johannesburg, helping to found several branches of the YWCA. Head wrote a number of hymn texts – “O Breath of Life” being the most well-known.

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) was a German composer of the Baroque period (ca. 1600-1750). He lived in Protestant north Germany in the days when music there made up an important part of the splendour of courts, of religious observance, and the daily happiness of the people. Over the course of his life, he held numerous posts: choir-boy, violinist in the orchestra of a prince, organist of town churches, and chief court musician. His last position was as music director at the St. Thomas Church and School in Leipzig, of which city his name is chiefly connected, since he remained there for almost the last thirty years of his life. He played many instruments, and as a clavichordist, harpsichordist, and organist, was supreme in his day. He was an extremely prolific composer and produced monumental instrumental compositions as the Art of the Fugue, the Brandenburg Concertos, and the Goldberg Variations, as well as cantatas, motets, sacred songs and arias, sonatas, concertos, suites, and an enormous amount of organ and other keyboard music. Two of Bach’s best known large choral works are the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B Minor, and since the 19th-century Bach revival, in no small part, thanks to Felix Mendelssohn, he is now regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. Bach was twice married, and the parent of twenty (!) children, several of whom were also musicians.

EDWARD JOHN HOPKINS (1818-1901) was an English organist and composer. In 1826 he became a chorister at the Chapel Royal, and sang at the coronation of King William IV at Westminster Abbey in 1830. At the same time, he sang in the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral, having to manage his double schedule with great dexterity. He left the Chapel Royal in 1834 and started studying organ construction at two organ factories. Hopkins received his first organist appointment at the young age of sixteen, winning first place in a blind audition against several other organists, and then went on to hold other posts in a number of churches. Closely associated with the Bach Society, he was organist in the first English performances of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and later became one of the founders of the College of Organists – known today as the Royal College of Organists. In 1882 Hopkins was given an honorary Doctorate of Music from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

JOHN ELLERTON (1826-1893) was an English minister, hymnodist, and hymnologist, and received his education at King William’s College on the Isle of Man, and Trinity College, Cambridge. Two of his most well-known hymn texts are “Saviour, Again to Thy Dear Name” and “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended”.

ELAINE HAGENBERG’S music “soars with eloquence and ingenuity” (American Choral Directors Association Choral Journal.) Her compositions have received many awards, and are performed by schools, churches, universities, honour choirs and choral festivals throughout the United States and abroad. Notable performances include the National Youth Choir at Carnegie Hall, the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in Wales, the Melbourne International Choral Festival in Australia, and other international performances in South Africa, Taiwan and throughout Europe. Elaine graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and her compositions are published by many publishing houses.