1850–1929 · United Kingdom · 20th century
Arthur Henry Mann was an English organist, choirmaster and composer who for more than fifty years headed the music at King's College Chapel, Cambridge. He helped build the choir's reputation and began the tradition of opening the Christmas service with "Once in Royal David's City" in his own arrangement. For players today he matters mainly for his hymn tunes.
Arthur Henry Mann was born in Norwich on 16 May 1850; his parents were Henry James Mann and Ann Couzens Jubey. As a boy he sang in the choir of Norwich Cathedral and studied as an articled pupil to the cathedral organist Zechariah Buck, a well-known voice trainer. He was affectionately known as "Daddy Mann".
In January 1864, at the age of thirteen, Mann took part in a performance of Handel's Judas Maccabaeus with the Bury St Edmunds Athenaeum Choral Society. The Norfolk Chronicle noted the strength of the young Norwich Cathedral chorister's voice and said his singing surprised the audience.
Mann studied at New College in Oxford. He received the degrees of Bachelor of Music (1874) and Doctor of Music (1882). He married Sarah Ann Rainsford in 1874.
Early in his career he worked as organist at St Peter's Collegiate Church in Wolverhampton (1870–1871), St Michael's Church in Tettenhall (1871–1875) and Beverley Minster (1875–1876), before taking up a post in Cambridge.
In 1876 he took up the post of Director of Music at the chapel of King's College, Cambridge; he held it for more than fifty years, until he died in 1929. Between 1894 and 1922 he was also the music teacher and organist of The Leys School, in the same city.
Mann played a large part in building the reputation of the King's College choir, which still enjoys that standing today, and he had a name as a voice trainer whose methods helped improve singing in English cathedral choirs and similar institutions. In 1918 the college's new dean, Eric Milner-White, brought in the Nine Lessons and Carols service, and a year later Mann began the tradition of opening it with his own arrangement of "Once in Royal David's City".
In 1888 Mann put out his own edition of Thomas Tallis's forty-part motet "Spem in alium", the first time the work had been published. He also prepared a revised Psalter, with the psalms marked for Anglican chanting, which appeared in 1912.
Mann composed several hymn tunes himself, among them "Angel's Story", a tune first meant for the words "I Love to Hear the Story" and now also used with "O Jesus, I Have Promised".
Mann died in Cambridge on 19 November 1929, having spent more than half a century as Director of Music at King's College. He was buried in the churchyard at Grantchester, and the following year the Council of King's College published a memoir of him.
Mann was above all an organist, choirmaster and teacher; as a composer he wrote several hymn tunes, among them "Angel's Story". Among the scores on the site is the hymn tune "Angel's Story" for choir (SATB), at the "Beginner+" level.
Another part of his work was publishing other composers' music: in 1888 he issued the first-ever edition of Thomas Tallis's motet "Spem in alium", and in 1912 a Psalter he had revised, with the psalms marked for Anglican chanting, came out. The only composition of Mann's own on the site is the hymn tune "Angel's Story", and that is the natural place to start.