Lowell Mason

Lowell Mason was an American church musician, tune-book editor, conductor, and influential music educator. Born in Medfield, Massachusetts, in 1792, he led a village choir while still young. In Savannah, Georgia, he worked in banking while directing church music and studying with the German musician Frederick L. Abel. The Handel and Haydn Society published his first major collection in 1822; its success helped bring him to Boston in 1827 and established his national reputation.

Mason directed music in several Boston churches, helped found the Boston Academy of Music, and became a leading advocate for systematic music instruction in public schools. His many collections encouraged congregational singing but also promoted European-derived musical styles over older American psalmody. His enduring tunes and adaptations include BETHANY for “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” OLIVET for “My Faith Looks Up to Thee,” HAMBURG, and the melody commonly used for “Joy to the World.”

Mason’s role in EVAN was arrangement, not original composition. He drew selected phrases from William Henry Havergal’s longer 1847 song, fitted them to common meter, named the tune EVAN, and published it in Cantica Laudis in 1850. Havergal later criticized the adaptation, yet Mason’s compact form became widely used. The United Methodist Hymnal accordingly credits Havergal as composer and Mason as arranger for “Blest Be the Dear Uniting Love.”

Biography

Hymns by Lowell Mason

A Charge to Keep I Have

Blest Be the Dear Uniting Love

Go, Labor On

Hark! Ten Thousand Harps And Voices

Jesus Thine All Victorious Love

Joy To The World

Mil Voces Para Celebrar

My Faith Looks Up to Thee

Nearer, My God, to Thee

O Could I Speak the Matchless Worth

O Day of Rest and Gladness

Safely Through Another Week

There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood

This Is the Spirit's Entry Now

We Bear the Strain of Earthly Care

We Give Thee But Thine Own

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

Work, for the Night Is Coming