Cummings, W(illiam) H(ayman)
Cummings, W(illiam) H(ayman)
Cummings, W(illiam) H(ayman) , English tenor and music antiquarian; b. Sidbury, Devonshire, Aug. 22, 1831; d. London, June 6, 1915. He was a chorister in London at St. Paul’s and at the Temple Church, organist of Waltham Abbey (1847), tenor in the Temple, Westminster Abbey, and Chapel Royal, and a prof. of singing at the Royal Academy of Music (1879–96). From 1882 to 1888 he was conductor of the Sacred Harmonic Soc., then precentor of St. Anne’s, Soho (1886–98) and principal of the Guildhall School of Music (1896–1910). He received an honorary degree of Mus.D. from Trinity Coll. in Dublin (1900). He was a cultivated singer and a learned antiquarian, and also instrumental in founding the Purcell Soc. He edited its first publications. He was the author of a biography of Purcell (London, 1882; 2nd ed., 1911); also publ. Primer of the Rudiments of Music (1877) and Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1892). His library of 4,500 vols. contained many rare autographs. He composed a cantata, The Fairy Ring (1873), sacred music, glees, part-songs, et al., and adapted the tune of the second number of Mendelssohn’s Festgesang to the hymn Hark the Herald Angels Sing, publishing in 1856 his version, which became universally popular.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire