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Remembering E.A. Jones
By Roger Hall
Edward Everett Hale, author of The Man Without a Country, called him "one modest man who knows the power of music." This modest man, from a rural Massachusetts town south of Boston, composed some very significant works. These include a masterful cantata and a large oratorio in three parts, modeled after Handel's Messiah. Who is this forgotten 19th century American composer and violinist?
His full name was Edwin Arthur Jones, and he was born at 9 Pearl Street in Stoughton on June 28, 1853. After studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in violin, organ and harmony, Jones entered Dartmouth College in 1872.
That same year, he was one of the violinists who played at the World's Peace Jubilee and International Music Festival in Boston - see below under heading: "E.A. Jones Meets Johann Stauss."
E.A. Jones went to Baltimore after graduating from Dartmouth College in 1876, where he was Class President and Director of the Dartmouth Glee Club.
His first major composition was a delightful set of waltzes for solo piano, The Farewell Waltzes, published in Baltimore in 1874. One of these piano waltzes is included in Ten Town Tunes: Music from Stoughton, 1770-1990.
Six years later, in 1880, his First String Quartet was performed at the Peabody Concervatory in Baltimore, where it was well received. He then returned to his home town in Massachusetts.
After returning to Stoughton, Jones formed his own orchestra of 20 musicians. A photo of his orchestra from 1885 is found in E.A. Jones: His Life and Music.
In 1881, he composed his masterpiece - a large cantata for soloists, chorus, organ and orchestra, Song of Our Saviour. This cantata received its world premiere over one hundred years later on May 3, 1992 (both audio and video tapes were made of this first performance). The cantata was based on an earlier version, The Nativity Hymn, one of only four to receive an honorable mention in 1879 in the Cincinnati College of Music competition, judged by the distinguished American conductor, Theodore Thomas.
The other major choral work by Jones was his oratorio, Easter Concert, published in 1890 in a piano-vocal score by White-Smith Music Publishing in Boston. The orchestral parts are unfortunately lost.
Besides his two large choral works, Jones also composed other choral pieces, songs and chamber works, but only a few orchestral works and no symphonies.
Jones was a member of the two choral societies in town: The Old Stoughton Musical Society (founded in 1786 and now the oldest choral society in America) and The Musical Society in Stoughton (founded in 1802, disbanded in 1982).
He is also remembered for his civic leadership as school committee member and Superintendent of Schools, trustee of the public library, President of the Fortnightly Club, and Secretary of the Chicataubut Club.
He designed the Stoughton Town Seal in 1892 (perhaps the only one in the US with a music symbol in it - designating the oldest choral society in the United States).
Today, there is a school in Stoughton named after him, just across the street from where he lived until his death on January 9, 1911, at the age of 57.
The above information was compiled from these publications:
E..A. Jones: His Life and Music (1984)
"Jones, Edwin Arthur" in The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, Vol. Two (MacmillanPress,1986)
Music in Stoughton: A Brief Survey (1989)
There are now two CDRs available:
Sacred Music of E.A. Jones - music for organ, chorus and soloists
A Tribute to Edwin Arthur Jones - glee club choruses, Trio for Strings, String Quartet No. 2, and excerpts from an oratorio (Easter Concert, 1890)
To order either of these CDRs or to schedule a lecture about E.A. Jones, write to:
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© 2006 PineTree Productions