William Andrew Leonard (1848 - 1930)
  • VocesCapituli
    Posts: 146
    I just found a mass by bishop William Andrew Leonard (1848 - 1930) Does anyone have more music of him?
    Thanks, Dirk
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 879
    The information I have is from the "American Masses and Requiems" by David DeVenney. There is no biographical data on the composer. The Mass in F was Unison with an option for ATB. There is no date given for the publication and it would seem he only composed this one mass setting.

    Is there a copyright date or date of publication on the copy you have?
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,176
    I have three Masses by him in my library: Mass in F, Mass in E-flat, and Mass in B-flat (aka "The Third Mass").

    My choir has sung the Mass in F on several occasions: it's actually a good setting that isn't too long, so it works well in a Novus Ordo context. It's on the same scale as Willan's "St. Teresa" (in the New St. Basil Hymnal), which we also sing, and Terry's "Short Mass in C".

    I have mixed feelings about the Mass in B-flat: my choir used to sing it regularly a million years ago, and even made a recording of it, except the Agnus Dei, in the 1960s. The Agnus Dei is good, but the Dona nobis pacem sounds like a Sousa March.

    I'm not very familiar with the E-flat Mass, but it seems ok.
  • oldhymnsoldhymns
    Posts: 282
    I have extra copies of the three Leonard Masses Salieri mentions. I don't think he did any others. If you want a copy, PM me.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,289
    http://jeffreyquick.com/catholicromantic/index.php/Leonard,_William_Andrew,_1848-1930

    No. 3 is there. A Polish translation/arrangement of #1 exists (but a Msza Polska would have been something to sing at Low Mass, not a translation of the Ordinary)

    It would seem that W.A./=William A. /= William Andrew.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,289
    I'm getting ready to scan Leonard in F (the 1918 edition with added optional ATB). And I feel increasingly skeptical of the equation of W. A. with William Andrew. The only interest in music I've noted from the Bishop is his early work, Music in the Western Church: A Lecture on the History of Psalmody, Illustrated With Examples of the Music of the Various Periods (1872) And he was an Evangelical, not a Tractarian, at the time when that was very much a hot-button issue, so it seems unlikely that he'd be writing Catholic liturgical music as a hobby. The Bishop had no children...so who was the Thomas F. Leonard who took out a copyright on Leonard's third Mass in 1916, 14 years before the Bishop's death? Find a Grave lists no Thomas F. who connects to William Andrew.

    The problem is that I've not been able to find any alternative.
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