Samuel Felsted (1743-1802): Organ Voluntary No. 6 in B Flat (Fugue: Full Organ / Echo)

Описание: 1. Largo (Full Organ) 2. [Fuga:] Allegro (Full Organ -- Eccho) | Samuel Felsted, of Kingston, Jamaica, is one of the more exotic birds in the aviary of 18th-c. English organ composers -- but not by a long way the least capable. Which makes it more of a pity that the only organ works we have by him are the six voluntaries of which the last, in what would seem to be its first recording, may be heard here.

We do not know the exact date of Samuel's birth, but the year was 1743 and the place almost certainly Kingston, Jamaica. Samuel's father William, an ironmonger (hardware merchant), had moved from Jamaica to Boston, Mass. in 1736. He married Samuel's mother in Philadelphia in 1741 before moving back to Jamaica -- he is recorded at Kingston in 1742. The year of Samuel's birth is attested by a property deed of 1762 giving his age as 19 and by the record of his baptism in 1763 giving his age as 20 -- the family were anabaptists. If this indicates some degree of religious dissidence it did not prevent Samuel's father from serving as organist of St Andrew's parish church (i.e. an outlet of the established church) at Halfway Tree (so named after a conspicuous tree halfway between Kingston and the mountains in the island's interior; the church still exists though by the look of it the current building is of 19th-c. date).

In 1775 Samuel published his oratorio "Jonah" (    • Samuel Felsted (1743-1802) - Jonah (1775)   ) in London. The title page describes him as "organist of St Andrew's, Jamaica", which suggests that he had succeeded his father as organist of St Andrew's church. "Jonah" enjoyed some popularity in the newly founded United States, with performances known to have taken place in Boston and New York in the decades that followed. The engraving on the title page ( http://www.britishmuseum.org/collecti... ) is by the painter Benjamin West, a near-contemporary of Felsted and a native of Pennsylvania, though he moved to London in 1763. Samuel married in 1770 and had at least nine children (though at least three died young), several of whom also played the organ.

Kingston in Felsted's time was a fairly substantial settlement. The 1784 ALMANAC AND REGISTER FOR THE ISLAND OF JAMAICA states that "The number of white inhabitants is about 5000, of free people of colour 1200, and of slaves about 8000."

Did Samuel Felsted ever leave the island? Did he, for example, travel to London: perhaps to see to the printing of his oratorio in 1775; to the commissioning of the Samuel Green organ for Kingston parish church installed in 1783, the year he succeeded to the organistship there; or to the printing of his "Six Voluntarys" probably in the early 1790s? Did he perhaps travel to Philadelphia or New England? At this writing all that can be said is that people in Jamaica at that time were quite mobile. Contacts with the North American colonies seem to have been close. This can be seen from the biography of Samuel's father; it is also worthy of note that in 1771 Samuel was admitted to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia (founded by Benjamin Franklin, this also counted George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Paine among its members).

Samuel's sister Mary married at Kingston in 1782, but later lived in England -- having outlived her husband by many years she died at Bethnal Green (now part of London) in 1843, aged 90. One of Samuel's daughters also moved to Bethnal Green shortly after her wedding in 1815. Another of his daughters married a Bristol merchant; the wedding took place at Kingston but the couple later settled at Leghorn (Livorno), Italy, where Samuel's widow Margaret Mary came to live with them until her death in 1833. One of Samuel's sons, John Lawrence, apparently died in Jamaica but according to his will owned a house in London.

So people were not afraid of boarding ships. Incidentally, the Green organ destined for Kingston presumably arrived along with someone aboard the same vessel charged with installing it. At least that appears to have been the practice of another, earlier London builder, George England, causing the loss of a member of his staff though not to shipwreck: "The report of a Singular and Melancholy Occurrence has reached us. Whereas Mr George England, Organ builder, ... hath completed an organ for Fort St George [= Chennai, India] he sent it with his Man, John Ball to erect the Same. Mr Ball completed his work admirably and the Organ is finished to general acclaim, but before embarking again for England, Mr Ball, in the Vicinity of Madras was Attacked and Entirely Consumed by a Large Tyger. Only his Boots were recovered." ("Daily Advertiser", London, 23 Sept. 1760)

More by Felsted (and more on the fate of the 1783 organ at Kingston):    • Samuel Felsted (1743-1802): Organ Voluntar...  

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