(b London, 1747; d Philadelphia, 17 Aug 1825). English organist, teacher, composer and singer active in the USA. As a choirboy at the Chapel Royal he sang at Handel’s funeral in 1759, and Parker (1822) reports that his hat dropped into the composer’s grave. Taylor studied with Samuel Arnold in London; in 1765 he was appointed organist at Chelmsford as well as musical director and composer for Sadler’s Wells and Marylebone Gardens. He emigrated to the USA in 1792, possibly at the suggestion of his pupil Alexander Reinagle. Taylor taught and gave evening extravaganzas or ‘olios’ in Baltimore and Annapolis, briefly served as organist at St Anne’s Church in Annapolis, and was organist at St Peter’s Church in Philadelphia from 1795 until 1813. He was a major figure in the musical life of Philadelphia, active in the church, the theatre, as a teacher and as a friend and colleague of Benjamin Carr, Alexander Reinagle and J.G. Schetky. He helped found the Musical Fund Society in 1820 and served as one of its directors. As a performer he was noted for his organ improvisations as well as for his renditions of comic theatre songs. Taylor’s extant instrumental works are chiefly pedagogical piano pieces. Of greater interest are his church anthems, glees and particularly the theatrical songs which show a gift for setting comic texts. His one complete extant American theatrical score, The Aethiop, has vocal and instrumental parts of great vitality.
selective list; full list in Sonneck (1905), Wolfe, Cuthbert and Yellin (1983)
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Stage: Buxom Joan (burletta, T. Willet), London, Haymarket, 1778, vs (London, 1778); The Aethiop (incid music, W. Dimond), vs (Philadelphia, 1814); incid music, songs, arr. songs, marches, dances (for plays, ops, burlettas, pantomimes, melodramas etc.), mostly perf Philadelphia, 1793–1822, some lost |
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Other vocal: 3 anthems, in Cathedral Magazine, ii–iii (London, ?1780s); 6 glees, 3 male vv, c1795–1800, US-NYp; Monody on the Death of Washington, Philadelphia, 23 Dec 1799, collab. A. Reinagle, lost; A Collection of [3] Favorite Songs (T. Moore: Lalla Rookh), 1v, pf (Philadelphia, ?1817); c33 songs, 1–2vv, pf, pubd Philadelphia, Baltimore, London (1770–1815); choruses, hymns, 3–4vv, a cappella/pf/org, some pubd; other songs, lost |
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Inst: 6 sonatas, hpd/pf, vn, op.2 (London, c1780); 6 sonatas, vc, bc, ?1780s; An Easy and Familiar Lesson, pf 4 hands (Philadelphia, ?1797); Divertimenti … [with] Ground for the Improvement of Young Practitioners, pf (Philadelphia, 1797), no.2 ed. in RRAM, i; The Martial Music of Camp Dupont, arr. pf, 2 fl/2 fifes/2 vn (Philadelphia, ?1816); c10 others, mostly marches, pf, pubd Philadelphia (c1800–1815); Variations to Adeste fideles, org, ed. A.M. Krauss and M. Hinson (Van Nuys, CA, 1991) |
J.R. Parker: ‘Musical Reminiscences’, The Euterpeiad (5 Jan 1822), 162, abridged in A Musical Biography (Boston, MA, 1825/R), 179ff
O.G.T. Sonneck: A Bibliography of Early Secular American Music (Washington DC, 1905; rev. and enlarged 2/1945 by W.T. Upton, repr 1964 with preface by I. Lowens)
O.G. Sonneck: Early Concert-Life in America (1731–1800) (Leipzig, 1907/R)
J.T. Howard: Our American Music: Three Hundred Years of It (New York, 1931, enlarged 4/1965 as Our American Music: a Comprehensive History from 1620 to the Present)
R.A. Gerson: Music in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1940/R)
Church Music and Musical Life in Pennsylvania in the 18th Century (Philadelphia, 1926–47/R), iii, 252, 254ff, 426, 436
J. Mates: The American Musical Stage before 1800 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1962), 198–9
R.J. Wolfe: Secular Music in America, 1801–1825: a Bibliography (New York, 1964)
J. Cuthbert: Raynor Taylor and Anglo-American Musical Life (diss., West Virginia U., 1980)
V.F. Yellin: ‘Raynor Taylor’, American Music, i/3 (1983), 48–71
V.F. Yellin: ‘Raynor Taylor's Music for The Aethiop’, American Music, iv/3 (1986), 249–67; v/1 (1987), 20–47
J.B. Clark: The Dawning of American Keyboard Music (New York, 1988)
ANNE DHU McLUCAS