John Knowles Paine (January 9, 1839 – April 25, 1906) was the firstAmerican-borncomposer to achieve fame for large-scaleorchestral music. The senior member of a group of composers collectively known as theBoston Six, Paine was one of those responsible for the first significant body of concert music by composers from theUnited States. The Boston Six's other five members wereAmy Beach,Arthur Foote,Edward MacDowell,George Chadwick, andHoratio Parker.

Paine grew up in a musical family in Maine. His grandfather, an instrument maker, built the first pipe organ in the state of Maine and his father and uncles were all music teachers. His father carried on the family musical instrument business. One uncle was an organist. Another was a composer. In the 1850s Paine took lessons in organ and composition fromHermann Kotzschmar, completing his first composition, a string quartet, in 1855 at the age of 16. After his first organ recital in 1857, he was appointed organist of Portland's Haydn Society, and gave a series of recitals with the object of funding a trip to Europe where he hoped to further his music education.

On arrival in Europe, Paine studied organ withCarl August Haupt and orchestration withWilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht in Berlin. He also toured Europe giving organ recitals for three years, establishing a reputation as an organist that preceded his return to the United States. After returning to the US and settling in Boston in 1861, he was appointed Harvard's first University organist and choirmaster.^[1] While acting in this role, Paine offered free courses in music appreciation and music theory that became the core curriculum for Harvard's newly-formed academic music department (the first such department in the United States), and he was appointed as America's first music professor. He remained a member of the faculty ofHarvard until 1905, just a year before his death.

Paine's well-received 1867 Berlin premiere of hisMass in D minor, Op. 10 gave him a reputation that helped him to shape the musical infrastructure of the United States. His pioneering courses in music appreciation and music theory made the curriculum of the Department of Music atHarvard a model for American Departments of Music. His service as a director of The New England Conservatory of Music (and the lectures he gave there) established his place at the root of an instruction chain that leads (throughEugene Thayer) fromGeorge Chadwick toHoratio Parker^[2] toCharles Ives. He was the first guest conductor of theBoston Symphony Orchestra^[3] in the final concerts of its first season, and his works were audience favorites.^[4] Paine is noted for beginning American's symphonic tradition.^[5] He also wrote the oratorio,St Peter in 1872, and the Centennial Hymn that (with orchestra) opened the 1876Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. He was a founder of theAmerican Guild of Organists. His writings include the bookThe History of Music to the Death of Schubert (pub. 1885), and he was co-editor of the bookFamous Composers and their Works (pub. 1891) to which he contributed two chapters "Beethoven as Composer" and "Music in Germany".^[6]

In 1889, Paine made one of the first musical recordings onwax cylinder withTheo Wangemann, who was experimenting with sound recording on the newly inventedphonograph.^[7]

John Knowles Paine was among the initial class of inductees into theAmerican Classical Music Hall of Fame in 1998.

TheGrove Music Encyclopedia says of him:

... Paine served the Harvard community for 43 years. By his presence and by his serious concern with music in a liberal arts college, he awakened a regard for music among many generations of Harvard men. His writings testify to his insistence upon the place of music within the liberal arts...^[8]

Paine Hall, the concert hall for Harvard's Department of Music, is named after him. A history of that building^[9] includes many references to his pioneering role in music at Harvard.

At the end of the episode "A Long Ladder" (S01E04) of the HBO television seriesThe Gilded Age, in a scene set in New York in 1882, theBoston Symphony Orchestra is shown under the composer's direction performing Paine'sSymphony No. 2. The middle two movements are seen and heard in the episode: the Scherzo and the Adagio.

Opera

• Azara

Orchestral

• Symphony No. 1, Op. 23
• As You Like It, Overture, Op. 28
• The Tempest, Symphonic Poem, Op. 31
• Symphony No. 2 in A major "In Spring", Op. 34
• Prelude fromOedipus Tyrannus, Op. 35
• Poseidon and Amphitrite: an Ocean Fantasy, Op.44

Chorus and Orchestra

• Freedom, Our Queen
• Domine salvum fac Praesidem nostrum, Op.8
• Mass in D minor, Op. 10
• St. Peter: An Oratorio, Op. 20 (1872)
• Centennial Hymn, Op. 27 (1876)
• Oedipus Tyrannus, Op. 35
• The Realm of Fancy, Op. 36
• Phoebus, Arise!, Op. 37

Organ

• Concert Variations on "The Star-Spangled Banner", [Op. 1] – 1861
• Concert Variations on theAustrian Hymn, Op. 3 #1
• Fantasy onEin feste Burg, Op. 13
• Prelude in B minor, Op. 19 #2
• Fugue in C minor (from Four Pieces)

Hymn Tune

• Harvard Hymn (tune used for a text beginning "Deus omnium creator" by James Bradstreet Greenough, customarily sung by the assembly at ceremonies conferring Harvard degrees)^[10]

• Il Pesceballo

• Free scores by John Knowles Paine at theInternational Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• Free scores by John Knowles Paine in theChoral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Works by John Knowles Paine atProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about John Knowles Paine at theInternet Archive
• Somerville, Murray Forbes (May–June 2000)."Vita: John Knowles Paine". Harvard Magazine. Retrieved2 December 2013.

• John Knowles Paine scrapbook, musical scores and photographs, 1859-1906 atIsham Memorial Library, Harvard UniversityArchived 2017-02-18 at theWayback Machine

• 1839 births
• 1906 deaths
• 19th-century American classical composers
• 19th-century American male musicians
• 20th-century American male musicians
• 20th-century American classical composers
• American expatriates in Germany
• American male classical composers
• American Romantic composers
• Harvard University faculty
• Musicians from Maine

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