- August 1. Nancy Granert began as organist.
- Scenes of The Proposition with Kenneth Branagh as priest were filmed at Emmanuel.
Tag Archives: organists
1988
- June. Organist Michael Beattie joined Emmanuel Music for rehearsals in our Music Room of Peter Sellars‘ version of Mozart’s opera Le Nozze di Figaro, which played that summer in the PepsiCo Theater in Purchase NY. Craig Smith conducted; Frank Kelley sang the part of Basilio; Jayne West, the Countess; and Susan Larson, Cherubino.
- In her “Peace Pentecost” sermon at our Cathedral Church of St. Paul, poet Denise Levertov (1923-97) emphasized the connection between contemplation and action: “If we neglect our inner lives, we destroy the sources of fruitful outer action.
Thanks to U. of California Press for this image.
But if we do not act, our inner lives become mere monuments to egotism.” At Emmanuel she founded a Peace Group to foster the links between spiritual thought and action among her fellow parishioners.
Earlier in the decade she had been attracted to Emmanuel by our social-justice activities, beautiful music and liturgy, and rector Al Kershaw, who counseled her. “He assured her that doubt was part of spiritual growth and the darkness she encountered might increase her sense of dependence and lead her to God,” says her biographer Dana Greene citing Denise’s diary entry for June 13, 1988.
Denise’s father, Paul Philip Levertoff (1878–1954), born in Belarus, an early proponent of Messianic Judaism, took holy orders in the Anglican Church and preached wearing an alb with a tallit and kippa.
The Rev. Paul Philip Levertoff
In 1922 he become director of what is now the London Diocesan Council for Work among the Jews and edited its quarterly journal, The Church and the Jews. He was a prolific writer on theological subjects in Hebrew, German, and English and translated into English the Midrash Sifre on Numbers (1926) and the Zohar (1933).
See also:
- Dana Greene. Denise Levertov: A Poet’s Life. Urbana IL: U. of Illinois Press, 2012.
- Denise Levertov. Making Peace. Breathing the Water. NY: New Directions, 1987.
- Donna Hollenberg. A Poet’s Revolution: The Life of Denise Levertov. Berkeley: U of California Press, 2013.
- Paul A. Lacey and Anne Dewey, eds. The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov. NY: New Directions, 2013.
- Paul Philip Levertoff. Love and the Messianic Age.
- Timeline: 1994
1983
December 11. The Rev. Al Kershaw officiated in Lindsey Chapel at our first same-sex wedding. Richard Bentley and Grahame Smith were joined in holy matrimony. Byrd Swift was subdeacon and Andrew Castiglione played organ.
1939
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Priscilla Rawson Young (1909-2000), benefactor of our series of Bach Cantatas
Our benefactor Priscilla Rawson (Young) studied music with Stanley Chapwell at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Craig Smith, founder of Emmanuel Music, who also had studied with Chapwell, kept this portrait of her on his desk. See also 1909, 1942, 1971, 1973, 1994 & 2000.
- January. A funeral was held at Emmanuel for our organist Albert Williams Snow, who had recently retired and died at the age of sixty. Having studied under Wallace Goodrich at New England Conservatory of Music, he had become organist at Church of the Advent, Boston, before he replaced our organist Lynnwood Farnum in 1918. During his tenure he taught at NEC and served as organist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His memorial plaque (#G4), reconstructed by Ted Southwick in 2021, can be seen behind the chancel organ.
1930
Nov. 23. Our former organist Lynnwood Farnam, who was head of the Organ Department at the Curtis Institute of Music, died and bequeathed his papers to their library. In 1932, the Theodore Presser Co. (Phila.), published his Toccata on “O Filii et Filiae“, which he had played when he tested the “full organ” sound of the many organs he visited.- See his memorial plaque in the chancel behind the organ.
- Listen to a rendition of his Toccata by Diana Bish.
- See also 1913, 1917, and History of Music at Emmanuel.
1918
Albert Williams Snow replaced Lynnwood Farnum as organist.
January 20. The Anthony Memorial Organ in the West Gallery was dedicated, honoring Silas Reed Anthony (1863-1914), who served as Parish Clerk (1887-1898), Vestryman (1898-1906), and Junior Warden (1906-1914). The organ was a gift of his widow, Harriet Weeks. who later became Mrs. Randolph Frothingham.
March 22. Bishop William Lawrence and Rector Elwood Worcester officiated at the funeral of Andrew Robeson Sargent, who at the age of 42 died in his sleep. After graduating from Harvard College in 1900, he had followed in his father Charles Sprague Sargent‘s footsteps and worked as a landscape architect with his brother-in-law Guy Lowell. His wife Maria de Acosta Sargent, daughter of the writer Mercedes de Acosta, had been painted by his third cousin John Singer Sargent. His mother Mary Robeson Sargent and sisters Henrietta, Molly, and Alice Sargent gave in his memory our hymn boards and the carved doors to leading from our sanctuary to the “Bride’s Lobby”.
See also:
- His letters to his father Charles Sprague Sargent in the archives of the Arnold Arboretum.
- “Andrew Robeson Sargent, Class of 1900.” The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, 1918.
- “Andrew Robeson Sargent Dies.” The New York Times, March 21, 1918.
- “Many Friends Mourn Andrew R. Sargent.” The Boston Daily Globe, March 23, 1918.
August 26. Col. Cranmore Nesmith Wallace, who had served on our vestry from 1896 until his death, died at the age of 74. His widow Eunice Sprague Wallace gave 2 lancets in our sanctuary (#18: Adoration of the Magi) in his memory
November 2. The Churchman (p. 518) reported that the Emmanuel Memorial House was serving as an emergency shelter for children made homeless by the influenza epidemic. Nurses and workers from the Children’s Aid Society and the (Episcopal) Church Home Society were supervising children housed in its “clubrooms” until they could be placed with families by “the usual placing-out services”.
Aimee Rotch Sargent (born 1852) died. She had married at Emmanuel in 1874 Winthrop Henry Sargent (1840-1916). In 1893 she had given funds to create our sanctuary’s reredos in memory of her parents Annie & Benjamin S. Rotch and her siblings Arthur and Edith Rotch.
1913
Lynnwood Farnam
When Weston Gale retired, Lynnwood Farnam became Emmanuel’s organist, a post he held until 1918, when he left to join the Canadian Army. According to the L. F. Society, when the Music Committee asked what he would play for his audition, “He handed them a notebook containing a list of 200 pieces which he had memorized, saying “Anything in this book.”
For more about Lynnwood Farnam, see 1917, 1930, and History of Music at Emmanuel. Listen to a recording of his playing via the the Royal Canadian College of Organists, whom we thank for this photo.
13 Mar. Bishop William Lawrence presided at the funeral of Silas Reed Anthony, which was attended by more than 400. Born in 1863, he had become a Boston banker and served as Clerk of the Vestry (1887-97) and Jr. Warden (1907-13). Assisting the bishop were the Rev. Dr. Samuel McComb and the Rev. Ralph Bray of Emmanuel and the Rev. Charles Clark of Church of the Ascension. Among the pallbearers were Sr. Warden Walter Cabot Baylies, William Endicott, Jr., Philip L. & Richard M. Saltonstall, and several Anthony and Weeks relatives.
31 May. Nora Iasigi, daughter of parishioners Amelia Gore Iasigi and the late Oscar Iasigi, married at St. Paul’s Church, Stockbridge, US Solicitor General William Marshall Bullitt, great uncle of our parishioner Julian Bullitt.
1900
24 June. A funeral service was held for our first sexton, James Haynes (30 Dec. 1836–21 June 1900). Born in Wantage, England (birthplace of Alfred the Great, he would always note), James was a mason, who immigrated to the US in 1859 and found his vocation at our newly constructed church.
1 July. Walter R. Spaulding, who had been organist & choirmaster since 1898, resigned to pursue duties as instructor at Harvard. He was succeeded in September by Arthur Sewall Hyde.
1882
Our first organist and music director, Silas Atkins Bancroft (1823-1886), retired after two decades of faithful service. He is buried in Lot 2607 on the Mistletoe Path of Mt. Auburn Cemetery.
B.S. Rotch (1817-1882) at time of our foundation. Photo courtesy of Boston Athenaeum.
Senior Warden Benjamin Smith Rotch died in office. A founding vestry member and warden since 1880, he was later memorialized with his wife Anne Bigelow Lawrence (1820-93) in our sanctuary’s reredos. They are buried in Lot 3004 on Bellwort Path in Mt. Auburn Cemetery. His epitaph from Revelation 2:10 reads: Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.