Henry Thomas Smart

Henry Thomas Smart (London, 26 October 1813 – London, 6 July 1879) was one of the most distinguished British organists and composers of his generation, and the son of another Henry Smart. His importance lies both in his work as a performer and organ builder and in a body of vocal and keyboard music that enjoyed great esteem during his lifetime, although it is valued with much more restraint today.

From boyhood he frequented the organ workshop of Flight & Robson, where he gained a thorough knowledge of the mechanics and construction of the instrument. As an apprentice at the celebrated engineering firm Maudsley's, he refined his technical drawing. Although he had turned down a post in the Indian Army and had begun training as an articled clerk to a solicitor, he abandoned the law for music. He received lessons in orchestration from W. H. Kearns, but was essentially self-taught. Between 1831 and 1836 he held the organ of the parish church at Blackburn, where his first Anglican hymn tune was premiered in October 1835. In 1836 he settled in London, where he worked as organist of St Philip's, Regent Street, critic for The Atlas and music teacher. In March 1844 he moved to St Luke's, Old Street, where he remained until 1864, the year he was elected organist of St Pancras New Church, in Woburn Place.

He was regarded as an excellent accompanist in the liturgy, a notable improviser and the leading concert organist in the country. He designed important instruments, among them those of City Hall and St Andrew's Hall in Glasgow and that of Leeds Town Hall, and he was a pioneer in adopting the English symphonic organ on French models. In 1878 he travelled to Dublin to examine the organ of Christ Church Cathedral. He suffered from poor eyesight throughout his life and, shortly after 1864, became so blind that he could no longer write; his last compositions were dictated. In June 1879 the government granted him an annual pension of one hundred pounds in recognition of his services to music, but he died before he could enjoy it.

His output includes operas, cantatas, anthems, services, songs and, above all, partsongs, which were very popular. His contemporaries praised him excessively: Spark went so far as to rank him immediately behind Bach as a composer for the organ. Later criticism describes him as a competent but lukewarm musician. His greatest success was his facility for creating effective, singable melodies, such as those of the hymn tunes 'Heathlands' and 'Regent Square', which are today his best-known music and which suited the vogue for trochaic metres in the religious revival. That same style, with its very pronounced rhythms, is less suitable in other contexts. His Service in F, which Bumpus considered remarkable, is hardly heard in cathedrals today.