Introduction

Introduction

Biography

Darwall at­tend­ed the Man­ches­ter Gram­mar School, and at age 14, en­tered Brase­nose College at Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, gra­du­at­ing in 1756.

He was ap­point­ed cur­ate and lat­er vi­car of St. Mat­thew’s pa­rish in Wal­sall, and lived the rest of his life there.

An ac­comp­lished ama­teur mu­si­cian, he wrote hymns and po­et­ry, some of which he con­trib­ut­ed to the Gen­tle­man’s Ma­ga­zine.

Darwall wrote ma­ny of the tunes for the New Ver­sion by Na­hum Tate and Ni­cho­las Bra­dy, but on­ly his music for Psalm 148 is in com­mon use to­day. It was com­posed and sung at the inau­gu­ra­tion of a new or­gan at Wal­sall pa­rish church, re­port­ed in an 1800 is­sue of Gen­tle­man’s Ma­ga­zine:

In Whit week, 1773, some an­thems were per­formed by the Wal­sall sing­ers in the Par­ish Church. Ad­mit­tance that day was paid for, and the or­gan was op­ened by Dr. Al­cock, of Lich­field, who then de­clared that it was a good in­stru­ment.

And on the next Sun­day af­ter­noon, it was first played by Mr. Bal­am, our then or­gan­ist (who was blind, and had been a pu­pil of the ce­le­brat­ed Stan­ley).

The first psalm was part of the 30th, New Ver­sion, Ux­bridge tune; and Mr. Dar­wall, our vi­car (who was him­self a mu­sic­al man), preached a ser­mon from Psalm cl: Praise Him with stringed in­stru­ments and or­gans.

In this dis­course the preach­er, among oth­er things, re­com­mend­ed psalm tunes in quick­er time than was com­mon; as, he said, six vers­es might be sung in the same space of time that four ge­ne­ral­ly are.

After the ser­mon the en­tire 150th Psalm, New Ver­sion, was sung, to a new tune of the vi­car’s com­pos­ing; and the whole con­clud­ed with ap­prop­ri­ate pray­er and bless­ing.

Lightwood, p. 160