Phoebe Knapp ( Palmer; March 9, 1839 – July 10, 1908) was an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

for

hymn A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn'' ...

s and an organist.

Biography

Knapp was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Her parents were Walter C. Palmer and Phoebe (Worrall) Palmer. She married Joseph Fairchild Knapp, one of the founders and the second president of the

Metropolitan Life Insurance Company MetLife, Inc. is the holding corporation for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC), better known as MetLife, and its affiliates. MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs, wi ...

. He had a pipe organ installed in their apartment. She and her husband were members of the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City. The hymn writer

Fanny Crosby Frances Jane van Alstyne (née Crosby; March 24, 1820 – February 12, 1915), more commonly known as Fanny J. Crosby, was an American mission worker, poet, lyricist, and composer. She was a prolific hymnist, writing more than 8,000 hymns ...

was also a member of that church and a friend of Palmer. She wrote over 500

hymn tune A hymn tune is the melody of a musical composition to which a hymn text is sung. Musically speaking, a hymn is generally understood to have four-part (or more) harmony, a fast harmonic rhythm (chords change frequently), with or without refrain ...

s, the most familiar being the tune now called "Assurance" for Fanny Crosby's lyrics ''

Blessed Assurance "Blessed Assurance" is a well-known Christian hymn. The lyrics were written in 1873 by blind hymn writer Fanny Crosby to the music written in 1873 by Phoebe Knapp. History Crosby was visiting her friend Phoebe Knapp as the Knapp home was having a ...

''. Another hymn by Fanny Crosby for which Knapp wrote the music is "Nearer the Cross". Other hymn tunes by Knapp include "Albertson", the tune for "Jesus Christ is Passing By" by J. Denham Smith, and for "When My Love to Christ Grows Weak" by John R. Wreford. Her tune "Consecration" has been matched to "My Spirit Soul and Body" by

Mary Dagworthy James Mary Dagworthy Yard James (August 7, 1810 – October 4, 1883) was an American hymnwriter. Mary Dagworthy Yard was born in Trenton, New Jersey, to a Quaker father and Baptist mother. She converted to Methodism as a child and began teaching Sund ...

. Phoebe Palmer Knapp also wrote sacred choral and solo works, perhaps the best known of which is the Palm Sunday aria "Open the Gates of the Temple". Knapp died in Poland, Maine.

External links

*
The Knapps Lived Here

Free MP3 file of Blessed Assurance at HymnsWithoutWords
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Knapp, Phoebe 1839 births 1908 deaths Methodists from New York (state) American Methodist hymnwriters Writers from New York (state) Composers of Christian music 19th-century American writers 19th-century American women writers American women hymnwriters Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century 19th-century American women musicians