Zeuner, Charles (actually, Heinrich Christoph)

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Zeuner, Charles (actually, Heinrich Christoph)

Zeuner, Charles (actually, Heinrich Christoph), German-American organist; b. Eisleben, Saxony, Sept. 20, 1795; d. (suicide) Philadelphia, Nov. 7, 1857. He studied in Weimar with Hummel and with Michael Gottard Fischer in Erfurt. About 1830 he settled in Boston, where he became organist at the Park St. Church; was also organist of the Handel and Haydn Soc. (1830-37), and briefly its president (1838-39). He then went to Philadelphia, where he served as a church organist. He composed one of the earliest American oratorios, The Feast of Tabernacles (1832; Boston, May 3, 1837). He publ. Church Music, Consisting of New and Original Anthems, Motets and Chants(1831), The American Harp (1832), The Ancient Lyre, a book of hymn tunes (1833 and several later eds.), and Organ Voluntaries (1840), and contributed to Lowell Mason’s Lyra Sacra (1832). Some of his compositions are also included in The Psaltery, ed. by Mason and Webb (1845).

Bibliography

W. Biggers, The Choral Music of C. Z. (1795-1857), German-American Composer, with a Performance Edition of Representative Works (diss., Univ. of Iowa, 1976).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

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