Joseph Gould (28 January 1833 in
Penn Yan, New York
Penn Yan is an incorporated village and the county seat of Yates County, New York, United States. The population was 5,159 at the 2010 census. It lies at the north end of the east branch of Keuka Lake, one of the Finger Lakes. Penn Yan, New York ...
– 27 March 1913 in
Montreal,
Quebec) was an American-born Canadian businessman, choir director, editor and composer.
Life and work
Gould moved with his family to Montreal as a teenager in 1848. About 1864, in association with Freedom Hill, he took over a former piano and music business to create the firm of Gould & Hill, and afterwards maintained an organ and piano warehouse under his own name until 1881. He also played a leading part in the city's musical life, having founded the Mendelssohn Choir of Montreal in 1864. He managed this for the next thirty years and conducted there a repertoire largely of
part songs and miscellaneous pieces. For several years he was also the vice-president of the Montreal Philharmonic Society and in 1892 he declined an invitation by some of Montreal's leading musicians to head a new conservatory.
In addition Gould founded the semi-monthly ''Arcadia, a Journal devoted exclusively to Music, Art, and Literature'', between May 1892 – March 1893, which was notable at this period for its cosmopolitan coverage. And in a personal capacity he helped bring the first operas of
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
to Montreal.
As a composer Gould wrote several vocal pieces under the pseudonym Sydney Percival. Three choral works, "Out of the Depths", "Ave Verum" and "Panis Angelicus", have been reprinted by the
Canadian Museum of History
The Canadian Museum of History (french: Musée canadien de l’histoire) is a national museum on anthropology, Canadian history, cultural studies, and ethnology in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. The purpose of the museum is to promote the heritage of C ...
; other manuscripts are held at the
National Library of Canada
Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is t ...
and at
McGill University. His setting of the words of "Laus Deo" by
Mary Baker Eddy was sung at the dedication of
The First Church of Christ, Scientist
The First Church of Christ, Scientist is the administrative headquarters and mother church of the Church of Christ, Scientist, also known as the Christian Science church. Christian Science was founded in the 19th century in Lynn, Massachuset ...
in 1895. Some of his part-songs were based on nursery rhymes, of which the score for "
Little Tommy Tucker
"Little Tommy Tucker" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19618.
Lyrics
Common modern versions include:
:Little Tommy Tucker
::Sings for his supper.
:What shall we give him?
::White bread and butter.
: ...
" is held at the
Library of Congress and two others, "
Jack and Jill" and "
Georgie Porgie
"Georgie Porgie" is a popular English language nursery rhyme. It has the Roud Folk Song Index number 19532.
Origins and variations
Originally the lyrics were:
:Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie,
:Kissed the girls and made them cry,
:When the gi ...
", were recorded with other Victorian material in 2012.
[Performances on ''Good Night, Good Night, Beloved! and other Victorian part songs'']
Atma Classique 2012
/ref>
References
Bibliography
"Joseph Gould" i
The Canadian Encyclopedia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gould, Joseph
1833 births
1913 deaths
Businesspeople from Montreal
Businesspeople from New York (state)
Canadian editors
Musicians from Montreal
Musicians from New York (state)
People from Yates County, New York
19th-century American businesspeople