Gilchrist, William Wallace

1846-

American organist, conductor and composer; was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, of Canadian descent on his father's side, and was a pupil of H. A. Clarke at the University of Pennsylvania. At one time he was barytone soloist in Holy Trinity Church and of St. Mark's, Philadelphia, and was successful as a soloist in oratorio. In 1872 he went to Cincinnati, taught for a year in the Conservatory, and was also choirmaster of the First New Jerusalem Society. On his return to Philadelphia he became choirmaster of St. Clement's Church, where he remained till 1877, when he took the position of organist and choirmaster of Christ Church, Germantown, Pa., and in 1882 added to this work that of an instructorship in the Philadelphia Musical Academy. He has conducted the following: The Philadelphia Festival Chorus, Amphion Society, The Arcadian, Mendelssohn Club, Germantown Choral, and the West Philadelphia Choral. He is not only an excellent conductor, as attested by the work of the Mendelssohn Club in particular, but also stands in the first rank of American composers. Although he never studied abroad he is a finished contrapuntist, in fact, somewhat formal in style. None of his music was published till he was thirty-two years old; he then took two prizes offered by the Abt Male Singing Society of Philadelphia, and soon afterward three offered by the Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, in 1880, with his Ode to the Sun, In Autumn, and The Journey of Life. The Uplifted Gates, a mixed chorus with soprano and alto solos, is another of his best works; and his settings of the Forty-sixth Psalm received the Cincinnati Festival Prize in 1882, the judges being Saint-Saens, Theodore Thomas, and Reinecke. Other choruses are The Sea Fairies, for women's voices, with four-hand piano accompaniment; and The Fountain, also for women's voices, which has been called a " surpassingly beautiful work, graceful and silvery as a cascade." Hughes, however, considers his best chorus to be The Legend of the Bended Bow, set to a warchant of Mrs. Hemans, speaking of it as one of the best things of the kind done in America, full of "intense and epic power, almost savagery."

Other compositions include A Song of Thanksgiving, for chorus and orchestra; a cantata, The Rose; trio, Spring Song; Prayer and Praise, and Easter Idyll, both cantatas; a suite for piano and orchestra; a symphony in C; a quintet; a trio; and a nonet, for piano and strings. This nonet is said to be especially original and beautiful, and the scherzo movement of the quintet to resemble Beethoven's music in his humorous moods. Gilchrist has also written two hundred or more songs ; the single songs have been said to indicate his early training in hymns. Some of the best solos are A Song of Doubt, and A Song of Faith; The Two Villagers; A Dirge for Summer; and a setting of Burns' My Heart is Sair. A group of eight songs is more of the modern type. Gilchrist has been called the Mendelssohn of America; while not an imitator of Mendelssohn, he is "a classicist touched by the revivifying finger of Romanticism." Much of his instrumental music is unpublished.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z