• Period: Romantic (1820-1869)
• Country: USA
• Genres: Choral, Orchestral, Chamber, Symphonic

Biography

Until the appearance of composer Johns Knowles Paine during the latter half of the nineteenth century, American musical culture was a pale reflection of its European counterpart. Although it would be decades before Paine's legacy would bear real fruit -- during the explosion of U.S. compositional activity during the first two or three decades of the twentieth century -- his importance as the first professor of music at an American institution of higher learning (Harvard University), and the subsequent dissemination of his ideas by three generations of students, have earned him a special place in the history of American music.

Paine was born in Maine during February 1839. His childhood training, received through a German-born musician named Herman Kotschmar, was thorough; by the time Paine departed for Europe in 1858 he was a skilled pianist, organist and composer. Studies at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik (mainly with organist Karl-August Haupt) made a lasting impression on the composer, whose work would bear the mark of healthy German Romanticism until the end of his days. Paine returned to the United States in 1861, made a new home in Boston, and by 1863 had won, largely on the merit of his many appearances as an organist and his countless public lectures on musical form and history, a position on the faculty of Harvard University.

Paine's accomplishments as an administrator and teacher are important indeed. In addition to his work at Harvard -- where he almost single-handedly organized a department of music which would prove to be the model of every later American University -- Paine also played an important role during the formation of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His many notable students include composer Arthur Foote and musicologist/critic Olin Downes.

Paine's virtues as a composer are less unimpeachable, particularly in the later years when poor health robbed him of some of his creative faculty. At his best, as in the Mass in D from 1866-1867, and, to a somewhat lesser degree, in the First Symphony of 1875, Paine's language is clear and natural, owing much to the German classics he studied with Kotschmar and at the Hochschule in Berlin. Paine, however, did not move with great ease or fluidity into the more chromatic style of composition that emerged during the later years of the century, and when he began to stretch his tonal and expressive language -- in an effort to remain more "current" -- his music suffered noticeably (as in the programmatic Second Symphony of 1880). Within a few years of Paine's death his music had all but disappeared from the concert hall, though the general resurgence of interest in early American composers during the later years of the twentieth century provided Paine with a welcome (albeit temporary) respite from his place in musical limbo. ~ Blair Johnston, All Music Guide

(b Portland, me, 9 Jan 1839; d Cambridge, ma, 25 April 1906). American composer. He was the first American to win acceptance as a composer of large-scale concert music and one of the first to be named professor of music in an American university (Harvard). German-trained, he returned to Boston in 1861 and gave organ recitals and public lectures in musical style and history before turning to composition and teaching. He organized the music department at Harvard and made Cambridge a centre of musical America; his students included J. A. Carpenter, Arthur Foote, D. G. Mason, Richard Aldrich and A. T. Davison. Besides over 100 works for the university, notably incidental music to Oedipus tyrannus (1881), he produced important large works that were frequently performed, including the Mass in D (1867), the oratorio St Peter (1872) and the classically inspired First Symphony (1875). He was idolized by the critic J.S. Dwight and highly regarded by the American public.

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Paine, John (c.1550–82), seminary priest and martyr. Born at Peterborough, Paine was brought up as a member of the Church of England, but joined the R.C. Church at an unknown place and date. In 1574 he entered the English College at Douai and served for some time as bursar before being ordained priest in 1576. He soon returned to England with Cuthbert Mayne: while Mayne ministered in Cornwall, Paine went to Essex and made Ingatestone Hall, the home of the Petre family, his principal base. Here he ministered to the scattered recusants while apparently working as an estate steward. In 1577 he was imprisoned for a short time and then returned to Douai; in 1578 he returned to Ingatestone and worked there until he was betrayed in 1581. He was then arrested and imprisoned at Greenwich by Walsingham. He was charged with conspiracy against the Queen, was twice racked in the Tower, and was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. On the scaffold at Chelmsford on 2 April he was offered pardon if he would conform to the Church of England, but he refused, protesting that ‘his feet did never tread, his hands did never write, nor did his wit ever invent any treason against Her Majesty’. He was so well known and loved in the neighbourhood that the crowd compelled the hangman to wait until he was dead before cutting him down.

An interesting relic survives in private hands. The Bosworth Burse has a representation of Christ rising from the Sacrament during the Elevation at Mass and is based on a vision experienced at Douai by John Paine. He was canonized by Paul VI in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Feast: 25 October.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• W. Allen, A Briefe Historie of the Glorious Martyrdom of Twelve Reverend Priests (ed. J. H. Pollen, 1908); B. C. Foley, Blessed John Paine (pamphlet, 1961)

John Knowles Paine (1839-1905), American composer and music educator, was especially instrumental in organizing music courses for the college curriculum.

John Knowles Paine was born on Jan. 9, 1839, in Portland, Maine. At 18 he made his debut as an organist and shortly afterward went to Berlin to study organ, composition, and orchestration. Before leaving Europe in 1862, he toured Germany as an organist. Upon his return to America he was made organist and music director of Harvard University. He soon offered to give a series of free lectures at Harvard and, after some debate, was granted permission. Before long Paine was offering, without pay, noncredit courses in musical form, harmony, and counterpoint. His courses eventually were approved for degree credit, and in 1873 Paine was appointed assistant professor. Two years later he was promoted to full professor.

The music school at Harvard evolved largely out of Paine's work, and Harvard's example was shortly followed by other universities. Through his students Paine influenced American composition for decades. He held his chair at Harvard for 30 years, then resigned to devote himself to composition. He died on April 25, 1905, while at work on a symphonic poem dealing with Abraham Lincoln.

Paine was one of the earliest Americans to have his compositions frequently performed. By 1899 the Boston Symphony had played his works more than 18 times. For the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876, Paine was commissioned to write a "Centennial Hymn, " and in 1893 he composed "Columbus March and Hymn" for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Paine directed the first performance of his oratorio St. Peter in his hometown of Portland in 1873. His cantata Song of Promise was presented in 1888 at the Cincinnati Festival. In 1904 his music for Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus won a gold medal at an international concert in Berlin, and that same year he composed "Hymn to the West" for the St. Louis World's Fair.

Paine's First Symphony was premiered in Boston in 1876 but was not published until 1908. His Second Symphony, Spring, reflected the composer's fondness for program music. He wrote a number of symphonic poems based on Shakespeare and an overture to As You Like It. His opera Azara was never staged, although it was given twice in concert form. Paine wrote his own libretto for Azara, which did not prove particularly effective theatrically, although his ballet music from the score and the three Moorish dances have been performed occasionally on orchestral programs.

Further Reading

Authoritative accounts of Paine's life and work are contained in John Tasker Howard, Our American Music (1931; 4th ed. 1965), and in Gilbert Chase, America's Music, from the Pilgrims to the Present (1955; 2d ed. 1966). Irving L. Sablosky, American Music (1969), and H. Wiley Hitchcock, Music in the United States: A Historical Introduction (1969), discuss Paine briefly.

Additional Sources

Schmidt, John C., The life and works of John Knowles Paine, Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1980.

1839–1906, American composer, organist, and educator, b. Portland, Maine, studied in Berlin. In 1862 he began to teach music at Harvard and held (from 1875) the first chair of music in an American university. His compositions, romantic and programmatic in style, were received enthusiastically in his day, and he won fame abroad, both as organist and composer. His fame rests on his pioneering work in music education, however, and many of his pupils were among the prominent composers of the generation succeeding him.

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