Mason, Lowell; Webb, George James. The Vocalist: consisting of Short and Easy Glees, or Songs, in Parts. Arranged for Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass Voices. Boston: Wilkins, Carter, & Co., 1845. [11329]
Black sheep spine, printed paper boards (hardcover); the binding is scuffed, edge-worn and soiled, with a cracked front hinge and also one along the spine; oblong 7 1/4 x 10 inches. 200 pages, foxing, foxing, a few pulled sections but none are detached. "M. Fenollosa" in black ink on the front cover. Fair. Hardcover.
The music is in four parts with round notes.
The signature on the front is probably that of Manuel Francisco Ciriaco Fenollosa (1822-1878), b. Malaga, Spain; d. Salem, Massachusetts. Fenollosa left Spain with his future brother-in-law Manuel Emilio in 1838 on the US Navy frigate United States, as members of a military band. They were escaping the draft for the first Carlist War in Spain. They both settled in Salem, MA, and were music teachers. Fenollosa, as a composer, is probably best remembered for his Emancipation Hymn (1863).
George James Webb (1803-1887), b. Salisbury, England; d. Orange, New Jersey. A trained musician, he emigrated to the United States in 1830 and became the organist at the Old South Church, Boston. He taught on the faculty of the Boston Academy of Music and was a conductor for the Handel and Haydn Society. He worked closely with Lowell Mason on many projects, and his daughter married Mason's son, William.
Lowell Mason (1792-1872), Massachusetts-born hymn composer, music publisher, one of the founders of public school music education in the United States. He is credited with composing over 1600 hymn tunes.
"To him we owe some of our best ideas in religious church music, elementary musical education, music in schools, the popularization of classical chorus singing, and the art of teaching music upon the Inductive or Pestalozzian plan. More than that, we owe him no small share of respect which the profession of music enjoys at the present time as contrasted with the contempt in which it was held a century or more ago. In fact, the entire art of music, as now understood and practiced in America, had derived advantage from the work of this great man." - Hall, Biographies of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers (1914).
