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Because it's 5th of September and in case anyone needs cheering up (after all, death can be a bit deadly!):
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/sep/02/michael-frayn-six-short-plays-pocket-playhouse
Hymns Ancient and Modern
From the Morning Post, 23 November 1893
Cable and telegraph offices were overwhelmed last night by the flood of tributes pouring in from fans all over the world to the Reverend Francis Giffard Smith, the legendary creator of some of the best loved and most groundbreaking hymns of the 19th century, who died yesterday aged 57 after a long battle with depression and incense addiction.
His 1861 hit “God’s Gas” was the first Church of England hymn to sell a million copies worldwide. Its words – “Lord, fill us with Thy heaven’ly gas, / Like street-lights in the dark, / Then like the lamp-lighter supply / The municipal spark!” – spoke to people of all classes and none.
“He changed my life,” said Her Majesty the Queen in a statement issued from the palace last night. “It was hearing Smith performing some of the numbers from his 1871 Golden Hymnal award-winning album Hymns for Monarchs Young in Heart that inspired me to reign on and give my name to an entire era.”
The prime minister, the Rt Hon William Gladstone, told the Times newspaper: “He was the voice of his generation. The influence of his music can be seen upon every corner of life in this country, from antimacassar design to parliamentary reform, from the development of new explosives to the improvement of urban sewerage.”
His grace the archbishop of Canterbury told the thousands of fans who had gathered outside Westminster Abbey: “Without Smith the Victorian age would never have become a byword for uncomplaining poverty, sanctimonious wealth, photogenic air pollution and robust sexual hypocrisy.”
Composer Johannes Brahms cabled: “He was the daddy of us all.”
Smith’s choral evensongs were famous for their spectacle. In the course of the service he would appear out of a cloud of incense in a series of eye-popping mauve, crimson and gold copes and chasubles, with the candlelight flashing around him from dozens of swinging silver thuribles. It was the unpredictability of his behaviour, though, that was perhaps most loved by the record crowds who fought for places in churches and cathedrals on his tours. He and his backing group once trashed an entire medieval rood screen. Smith, accompanying himself on the organ, would sometimes pound the keyboard to destruction, while screaming women worshippers threw their flannel drawers and whalebone corsets at him.
His early hymns were published by Grubhawk and Chimney, but, as his success grew, relations with the firm became strained, and he moved for a reported three-figure sum to Bagstraw and Strooth. The years that followed saw him produce some of his biggest hits, such as “Thy Heavenly Glory” (“That raineth down, / Like hot brown Windsor soup”) and “Steam of Heaven” (“Full steam ahead we blindly race, / We surely must go smash! / Were not God’s hands outstretched to save, / Like buffers for the crash.”)
His tempestuous on-off relationship with glamorous hymnstress Mrs Cecil Chobb produced endless column inches in Church of England fanzines
His tempestuous on-off relationship with glamorous hymnstress Mrs Cecil Chobb, who wrote some of the century’s biggest hits for younger worshippers – “Nor E’en a Wagtail Wags Its Tail Save God Hath Told It to” and “We Thank Thee, Lord, for Whooping-Cough” – produced endless column inches in Church of England fanzines. There were many other women in his life, from deaconesses to dignitaries of the Mothers’ Union – and also suggestions of more eclectic tastes. He always denied reports of a clandestine relationship with the bishop of Broadstairs, but it was often remarked that he had a habit of ending hymns with the words “Ah, men!”
In time the incense took its toll, and his growing problems came to a head at a service to mark the Queen’s golden jubilee in 1887, where he kept the congregation waiting for two hours, before appearing visibly the worse for holy smoke. The worshippers booed and catcalled, whereupon he ripped off his chasuble and showed them his naked underchasuble. It was shortly after this that he entered a priory suffering from nervous exhaustion. This was to be the first of many such retreats, and he later confessed to an ecclesiastical friend that he had very little memory of anything that had happened in those years.
In later life he became a recluse. A planned comeback tour never materialised, and he supported himself by writing suggestive songs for various lesser-known music-hall artists. Until the end, though, there always seemed to be young women prepared to wash his cassocks or swing a thurible or two with him.
He leaves an estimated 17 children by various partners, his celebrated wardrobe of albs and surplices, and a vast acreage of gushing newsprint.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/sep/02/michael-frayn-six-short-plays-pocket-playhouse
Hymns Ancient and Modern
From the Morning Post, 23 November 1893
Cable and telegraph offices were overwhelmed last night by the flood of tributes pouring in from fans all over the world to the Reverend Francis Giffard Smith, the legendary creator of some of the best loved and most groundbreaking hymns of the 19th century, who died yesterday aged 57 after a long battle with depression and incense addiction.
His 1861 hit “God’s Gas” was the first Church of England hymn to sell a million copies worldwide. Its words – “Lord, fill us with Thy heaven’ly gas, / Like street-lights in the dark, / Then like the lamp-lighter supply / The municipal spark!” – spoke to people of all classes and none.
“He changed my life,” said Her Majesty the Queen in a statement issued from the palace last night. “It was hearing Smith performing some of the numbers from his 1871 Golden Hymnal award-winning album Hymns for Monarchs Young in Heart that inspired me to reign on and give my name to an entire era.”
The prime minister, the Rt Hon William Gladstone, told the Times newspaper: “He was the voice of his generation. The influence of his music can be seen upon every corner of life in this country, from antimacassar design to parliamentary reform, from the development of new explosives to the improvement of urban sewerage.”
His grace the archbishop of Canterbury told the thousands of fans who had gathered outside Westminster Abbey: “Without Smith the Victorian age would never have become a byword for uncomplaining poverty, sanctimonious wealth, photogenic air pollution and robust sexual hypocrisy.”
Composer Johannes Brahms cabled: “He was the daddy of us all.”
Smith’s choral evensongs were famous for their spectacle. In the course of the service he would appear out of a cloud of incense in a series of eye-popping mauve, crimson and gold copes and chasubles, with the candlelight flashing around him from dozens of swinging silver thuribles. It was the unpredictability of his behaviour, though, that was perhaps most loved by the record crowds who fought for places in churches and cathedrals on his tours. He and his backing group once trashed an entire medieval rood screen. Smith, accompanying himself on the organ, would sometimes pound the keyboard to destruction, while screaming women worshippers threw their flannel drawers and whalebone corsets at him.
His early hymns were published by Grubhawk and Chimney, but, as his success grew, relations with the firm became strained, and he moved for a reported three-figure sum to Bagstraw and Strooth. The years that followed saw him produce some of his biggest hits, such as “Thy Heavenly Glory” (“That raineth down, / Like hot brown Windsor soup”) and “Steam of Heaven” (“Full steam ahead we blindly race, / We surely must go smash! / Were not God’s hands outstretched to save, / Like buffers for the crash.”)
His tempestuous on-off relationship with glamorous hymnstress Mrs Cecil Chobb produced endless column inches in Church of England fanzines
His tempestuous on-off relationship with glamorous hymnstress Mrs Cecil Chobb, who wrote some of the century’s biggest hits for younger worshippers – “Nor E’en a Wagtail Wags Its Tail Save God Hath Told It to” and “We Thank Thee, Lord, for Whooping-Cough” – produced endless column inches in Church of England fanzines. There were many other women in his life, from deaconesses to dignitaries of the Mothers’ Union – and also suggestions of more eclectic tastes. He always denied reports of a clandestine relationship with the bishop of Broadstairs, but it was often remarked that he had a habit of ending hymns with the words “Ah, men!”
In time the incense took its toll, and his growing problems came to a head at a service to mark the Queen’s golden jubilee in 1887, where he kept the congregation waiting for two hours, before appearing visibly the worse for holy smoke. The worshippers booed and catcalled, whereupon he ripped off his chasuble and showed them his naked underchasuble. It was shortly after this that he entered a priory suffering from nervous exhaustion. This was to be the first of many such retreats, and he later confessed to an ecclesiastical friend that he had very little memory of anything that had happened in those years.
In later life he became a recluse. A planned comeback tour never materialised, and he supported himself by writing suggestive songs for various lesser-known music-hall artists. Until the end, though, there always seemed to be young women prepared to wash his cassocks or swing a thurible or two with him.
He leaves an estimated 17 children by various partners, his celebrated wardrobe of albs and surplices, and a vast acreage of gushing newsprint.
