Introduction

Biography

Whitney’s ear­ly edu­ca­tion was in pub­lic schools. He lat­er at­tend­ed the Ver­mont Epis­co­pal In­sti­tute in Bur­ling­ton.

He stu­died mu­sic first with lo­cal teach­ers, and lat­er with Carl Wels in New York. He then re­turned to Mont­pel­ier, where he was or­gan­ist and mu­sic di­rect­or at Christ Church for four years, then at St. Pe­ter’s, Al­ba­ny, New York, then at St. Paul’s, Bur­ling­ton, Ver­mont.

In 1870 Whit­ney re­sumed his stu­dies un­der Pro­fess­or John K. Paine of Harvard Uni­ver­si­ty, tak­ing les­sons on the or­gan, and pi­ano­for­te in com­po­si­tion and in­stru­men­ta­tion, and as­sist­ing Paine as or­gan­ist in Ap­ple­ton Cha­pel.

In 1871, he be­came or­gan­ist at the Church of the Ad­vent in Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts, stay­ing there un­til 1908.

Whitney was fre­quent­ly en­gaged as con­duct­or of choir fes­tiv­al as­so­ci­ations in Mas­sa­chu­setts and Ver­mont. He al­so con­duct­ed ma­ny cho­ral so­cie­ties in and around Bo­ston, and had a re­pu­ta­tion as be­ing ve­ry suc­cess­ful in train­ing and de­vel­op­ing boys’ voic­es. In that po­si­tion, he was iden­ti­fied with li­tur­gi­cal music, vest­ed choirs, and church mu­sic.

For a time, Whit­ney taught at the New Eng­land Con­ser­va­to­ry of Mu­sic. He es­tab­lished there for the first time a church mu­sic class, in which pupils learned how to pro­per­ly in­ter­pret sac­red mu­sic, but al­so how to man­age the or­gan in church mu­sic.

Whitney wrote church music quite ex­tens­ive­ly, and al­so pi­ano and mis­cel­la­ne­ous mu­sic. Among his com­po­si­tions were a trio for pi­ano­for­te and strings, ma­ny so­los, and ar­range­ments for both pi­ano­for­te and or­gan, as well as sev­er­al church ser­vic­es, te deums, mis­cel­la­ne­ous an­thems, and songs both sac­red and se­cu­lar.

Whitney was the first vice-pre­si­dent and one of the or­gan ex­am­in­ers of the Am­eri­can Col­lege of Mu­si­cians, a found­er of the Am­eri­can Guild of Or­gan­ists, and served on the ex­ec­utive board of the guild’s New Eng­land chap­ter.