The music of Everett Titcomb (1884-1968) occupies a unique niche in the catalogue of sacred organ and choral works by 20th-century Anglican composers in the United States. His compositional voice was clearly influenced by the Bostonian giants of his youth (Eugene Thayer, Dudley Buck, George Chadwick, Horatio Parker--who's mother once had Titcomb as a border) as well as his affinity for French music; yet at the same time his work is informed by his vast knowledge and understanding of plainchant and the polyphonic style of the 15th and 16th century Italians. An Anglo-Catholic who spent fifty years nearly to the day (1910-1960) as organist and choirmaster at Boston's Church of St. John the Evangelist in Bowdoin Street, his best organ works are based on plainchant tunes making them of more value to the Roman Catholic organist of the time than to the majority of Episcopalian ones and some of his best polyphony is in the form of Latin motets which while used at St. John's and other Anglo-Catholic parishes were perfectly at home sung at a Roman Mass despite their distinctly Anglican musical sensibility. His Schola Cantorum at St. John's was singing plainchant and Renaissance polyphony while the majority of church choirs (and even Cathedral choirs in this country) were still mired in the kind of late-Victorian preciousness which Titcomb so disdained in choral music. Thus Titcomb tends to be known for a handful of works--some of which are decidedly mediocre--which seem perennially popular with volunteer church choirs while his better work goes largely unplayed, unsung, and unheard mostly due to the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council and the resulting reforms which trickled over into the Episcopal Church in the United States rendering Latin choral music and plainchant-based organ works less relevant to musicians and worshipers alike. In fact, in looking for some examples for this diary, none of his very best works are available as online performances.
If you're still with me so far, let's jump over the orange clef and take a closer look at who Titcomb was, what he composed, and why his legacy is important today.