Harvey Bartlett Gaul (b. 12 Apr 1881,

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

; d. 1 December 1945,

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

) was an American composer, organist, choirmaster, lecturer, music critic, and writer from

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

. He is memorialized by an annual award — the Harvey Gaul Memorial Composition Contest (aka The Harvey Gaul Prize) — bestowed to composers for outstanding work. He was an organist for 35 years (1910–1945) at Calvary Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh. He is well known as a composer of church music.

Harvey Gaul Prize winners

Harvey Gaul Award of the State Federation of Music Clubs (established while he was alive) * 1942 — Catherine Latta 1947: Friends of Harvey Gaul, Inc., contest administrator and sponsor * 1947 — Joseph W. Grant,

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...

, ''Scherzo'' for organ * 1947 — Robert Elmore,

Wayne, Pennsylvania Wayne is an unincorporated community centered in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on the Main Line, a series of highly affluent Philadelphia suburbs located along the railroad tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad and one of the wealthiest areas ...

, ''The Lord Will Come,'' for mixed voice anthem * 1947 — Francis McCollin, Philadelphia, ''O Little Town of Bethlehem,'' for small choir anthem * 1951 — Sgt. Paul Nelson, staff arranger,

U.S. Military Academy The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort, since it sits on strategic high groun ...

, ''Cantata,'' for soprano solo with chorus, violin, cello, harp * 1954 —

Clifford Taylor Clifford "Cliff" Taylor (born November 9, 1942) is a former American judge who served on the Michigan Supreme Court from 1997 through 2009. He served as the Michigan Supreme Court's Chief Justice from 2005 through 2009. After his tenure as a ju ...

1960: Friends of Harvey Gaul, Inc., and the

Carnegie Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

Department of Music, contest co-administrators and cosponsors * 1961 — Richard C. Moffatt (1927–1983) * 1962 — Merrill Ellis * 1969 — Marles Nole Smith (Hon. Mention), ''Two Movements for Violin and Organ'' * 19?? — Fisher Tull * 1972 —

Jan Bach Jan Bach (December 11, 1937 – October 30, 2020) was an American composer. He taught at the University of Tampa (Florida) from 1965 to 1966 and at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois ( music theory and composition) from 1966 to ...

(tie), ''Three Sonnette on Woman'', for tenor voice and

harpsichord A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...

* 1972 — Wesley Ward (tie),

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

* 1975 —

Robert E. Jager Robert Edward Jager (born August 25, 1939) is an American composer, music theorist and a conductor. Life Jager was born in Binghamton, New York on August 25, 1939. From 1962 to 1965 he was arranger/composer for the US-Navy Armed Forces School o ...

* 1975 &mdash
Tom Wirtel
(2nd place), ''Violin and Piano Sonata'' 1980: The

Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble The Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble (PNME) is an American ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the group was established by composer David Stock in 1976. It has premiered over 20 ...

, contest administrator and sponsor * 1983 — Robert D. Morris * 1989 — C. Bryan Rulon * 1991 — David Cleary * 1997 — Derek Bermel * 1999 — Brett Dietz (Hon. Mention) * 2001 — Matthew Fields (Hon. Mention) * 2001 — Pierre D. Jalbert * 2003 — Daniel Kellogg * 2005 — David T. Little * 2007 — Stacy Garrop * 2007 — Robert Paterson (Hon. Mention) * 2007 — Wang Jie (Hon. Mention) * 2009 — Ned McGowan * 2009 —

D. J. Sparr D. J. Sparr (Donald Joseph Sparr, Jr. born October 18, 1975) is an American composer and electric guitar soloist. He is influenced by impressionism and postminimalism, and is one of the preeminent composer-performers of his generation. Sparr's nota ...

(Hon. Mention) * 2009 — Clint Needham (Hon. Mention) * 2011 — Ted Hearne * 2011 — Dan Visconti (Hon. Mention) * 2011 — Sean Friar (Hon. Mention) * 2013 — Dan Visconti * 2013 — Amy Beth Kirsten (Hon. Mention) * 2013 — Kyle Duffee (Hon. Mention) * 2013 — Viet Cuong (Hon. Mention)

Notable students

* Garth Edmundson *

Mary Wiggins Mary Wiggins (February 10, 1904 – April 17, 1974) was an American composer, educator, organist, and pianist, born in Indiana, Pennsylvania. She studied composition at Carnegie-Mellon University with Roland Leich, and privately with Gladys W. Fi ...

Family

Harvey Bartlett Gaul married Harriette Lester Avery (b. 1886,

Youngstown, Ohio Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the largest city and county seat of Mahoning County, Ohio, Mahoning County. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Youngstown had a city population of 60,068. It is a principal city of ...

) June 13, 1908, in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. They had a two children: a son and a daughter. The son, James Harvey Gaul, had been an archeologist (

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

class of 1932, PhD Harvard 1940). During World War II, as a U.S. Naval Reservist Lieutenant, he died by German firing squad in late January 1945 at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp near

Linz, Austria Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital of ...

. Having worked with the

Office of Naval Intelligence The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is the military intelligence agency of the United States Navy. Established in 1882 primarily to advance the Navy's modernization efforts, it is the oldest member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and serves ...

, in 1944, he had been transferred to the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

. He had been captured by the Germans during a combat mission in

Czecho-Slovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, a country where he had worked as an archeologist. The President of the United States presented him with the Distinguished Service Cross (Posthumously). The daughter, Ione Gaul Walker (1914–1987), a painter, had been married to Hudson Dean Walker (1907–1976), an art dealer.

Death

Harvey Gaul died December 1, 1945, of injuries from an auto accident.

Notes and references

Notes

General references

* ''

The New Grove Dictionary of American Music ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

'', four volumes, edited by

H. Wiley Hitchcock Hugh Wiley Hitchcock (September 28, 1923 in Detroit, Michigan – December 5, 2007 in New York, New York) was an American musicologist. He is best known for founding the Institute for Studies in American Music at Brooklyn College of the City Uni ...

and

Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...

Macmillan Press Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains off ...

, London (1986) * ''Obituaries on File'', two volumes, compiled by Felice Levy, Facts on File, New York (1979) * '' Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians,'' ninth edition, edited by Laura Kuhn, Schirmer Books, New York (2001) * ''Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Classical Musicians,'' by

Nicolas Slonimsky Nicolas Slonimsky ( – December 25, 1995), born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy (russian: Никола́й Леони́дович Сло́нимский), was a Russian-born American conductor, author, pianist, composer and lexicographer. B ...

, Schirmer Books, New York (1997)

Inline citations

External links

Harvey Gaul Composition (official site)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gaul, Harvey Bartlett 1881 births 1945 deaths Musicians from Pittsburgh American classical organists American male organists American male composers American composers 20th-century organists Classical musicians from Pennsylvania 20th-century American male musicians Male classical organists