Brigham Bicknell Young, Musical Christian Scientist

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 50, 1982, No. 2

Brigham Bicknell Young, Musical Christian Scientist

BY KENNETH L. CANNON II

ORIGHAM BICKNELL YOUNG, A MEMBER OF A PROMINENT Utah Mormon family, attained great renown as a singer, music teacher, and one of the leading authorities and teachers of Christian Science. Many of the details of his life are missing from the historical record, but what is there reveals a talented and fascinating man.

The fifth son and eleventh child of Joseph Young and Jane Adeline Bicknell, Brigham Bicknell Young was born in April 1856 in Salt Lake City. His father was a brother of Brigham Young and an important leader in his own right. Joseph Young had joined the Mormon church shortly after its organization, participated in Zion's Camp, and witnessed the Haun's Mill Massacre in Missouri. In February 1835 he was called by Joseph Smith to be the first president of the Seventies; he later served as a member of the Council of Fifty. Brigham Bicknell's older brothers Seymour B. Young and LeGrand Young both played important roles in Utah history. Seymour, one of the first professionally trained physicians in Utah, was his uncle Brigham's doctor for a number of years, and he operated an early mental asylum in Salt Lake City. Called to the First Council of Seventy in 1882 to replace his father who had recently died, Seymour, like his father, eventually served as senior president of that body. LeGrand achieved prominence as a lawyer and judge in early Utah and as a legal advocate for the Mormon church.

It came as no surprise that young "Brigy" (as Brigham Bicknell was called by his family) took an early interest in music. According to one account, his father, Joseph, had been "known far and wide for his sweet singing of Wesleyan hymns." Another story relates that Joseph was "passionately fond of music." Most of Brigham Bicknell's sisters were also very interested in music and worked to develop their talents. Young Brigy received lessons from George Careless, a musician and important teacher in early Utah who had been trained at the Royal College of Music in London. Young also studied piano under Orson Pratt, Jr., and received instruction from David O. Calder, another well-known music teacher. Young pursued other cultural interests as well, joining with young Mormons in the Wasatch Literary Association.

By the late 1870s Brigham Bicknell had exhausted all channels of musical education in Salt Lake City. He had appeared in local productions, and most patrons of music in Salt Lake held high hopes for him. His name began to appear as "B. Bicknell Young" in printed matter, and he apparently preferred to be called "Bicknell" by this time, undoubtedly to distinguish himself from his famous uncle and cousin. Like his brothers, Bicknell decided to leave Utah for educational training not available locally. In late April 1879 the local Philharmonic Society gave a benefit concert for Bicknell to aid the young singer financially. On May 13, 1879, he set out for London in hopes of obtaining the finest musical instruction available, armed with letters from David O. Calder and others and with promises of financial support from his brothers.

Young had not been in London long before he was granted admission to the National Training School of Music which was under the patronage of the Duke of Edinburgh. The principal professor of singing at the school was impressed by Bicknell's fine baritone voice and expressed optimism for his future musical career. Young was admitted as a paying student the first year, but during the second and subsequent years he won competitive scholarships. The National Training School closed in 1882, at which time Young entered the Royal College of Music whose patron was the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII). Among Bicknell's teachers at the Royal College was Sir Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame.

Eliza Mazzucato Young, a talented musician and teacher, composed an opera. Photograph courtesy of author.

While at the National Training School, Bicknell met an Italian woman who taught at the school. When that school closed Eliza Mazzucato accepted a position at the Royal College of Music. Young was impressed with this talented and cultured woman whose grandfather was an Italian count and whose father was a celebrated teacher of music at the Milan Conservatory where many notable nineteenth-century musicians received their training. After completing his training at the Royal College, Bicknell Young married Eliza Mazzucato, who was ten years his senior.

Young then took an appointment as professor of music at the Watford School of Music in London and began appearing regularly in concerts and operas. He performed before the Prince of Wales several times and also at concerts held in the Crystal Palace. The London correspondent of the New York Musical Critic and Trade Review wrote in July 1883:

... we are bound to speak of Mr. Bicknell Young, an American baritone, who, almost unknown at the beginning of the season, is now ranked

. . . among the few singers that find themselves at home in both oratorios and dramatic singing. The powerful tone of his voice and its large compass qualify him for the interpretation of the sacred music of Handel, Bach, and Mendelssohn, while the exquisite art and the consummate skill, by means of which he can control his vocal organ and make it subservient to any nuance suggested by the nicest delicacy of feeling, render the young baritone the pet singer of all amateurs of Schumann's Gounod's and Schubert's lieder. We are informed that, when the season is over, Mr. Young intends to accept an engagement in Italy for the Italian opera; if he does it, he—in a true American spirit—shall have gone through the most difficult trials that an artist can be put to, in less than two years.

However, Bicknell Young never went to Italy. He remained in England for two more years and then moved to Salt Lake City to open a music school.

Salt Lake music aficionados were delighted to have their favorite son return with his talented wife. They had seen and heard Young only once during the previous six years when he had returned for his father's death and funeral in 1881. A reception feting the couple in February 1885 was attended by most of the important patrons of music in Salt Lake City. The Youngs opened their school shortly thereafter. In June 1885 they held their first concert at the Salt Lake Theatre. Most of their students performed, but the highlight of the evening was the singing of B. B. Young (as the Salt Lake papers called him), accompanied by his wife on the piano. The newspapers raved about the concert the next day, ndting that expectations had been high and all had been fulfilled. 14 The Salt Lake Tribune reported of Bicknell Young's part in the program:

The house was awed to silence by his masterly rendition of this glorious piece of vocalization. His rich, resonant rounded notes came forth with a purity and sweetness and cadence that always bespeaks at once the greatness of the artist. He sings with such a total lack of mannerism and with such a fervor and energy, that one sees at a glance that his object is not so much to attract the attention to the complete mastery he has made of his art, but rather to appeal to the loftier passions and charm the soul with his melody.

The Youngs remained in Salt Lake City for much of the next two years and continued to hold classes, concerts, and sacred concerts, all of which received very good reviews locally. Patrons of music agreed that both Youngs brought unusual style and grace to Salt Lake City. Despite such adulation, Bicknell apparently felt that his professional career was hampered in Salt Lake, and in April 1886 he traveled to New York to perform. The American Art Journal reported:

Mr. B. B. Young, whose splendid baritone astonished and delighted us upon his return from London a year or more ago, is in town. Mr. Young, with his talented wife, took up their residence in Salt Lake City, where they have been exceedingly successful in establishing a school of singing. Mr. Young is making a brief visit to the east, and is greatly sought after in social circles. He sang at a musical a few evenings since, and the power and brilliance of his voice apeared to be even greater than when last heard, and his fire and passion won the enthusiastic admiration of all who had the pleasure of listening to him, and the conclusion was quickly arrived at that such an acquisition to our list of artists should not be allowed to spend his energies in the far west.

The final words of the reviewer proved to be prophetic. Young spent much of 1886 in New York and sang at many concerts there. His performance brought excellent reviews from the American Art Journal which the Salt Lake Herald enthusiastically copied into its own columns. 18 Although Bicknell returned to Salt Lake City in March 1887 with a "number of new operas" he anticipated producing in the city, he and his wife were to remain in Utah for only a few more months. They undoubtedly felt that greater opportunities existed further east. They may also have felt religiously and culturally isolated in Salt Lake. The Salt Lake Herald expressed disappointment at the departure of the Youngs: ". . . Salt Lake people are determined that if they must lose Mr. Young and his wife, they will give them a testimonial that shall ever keep their old home green in their memory."

Bicknell and Eliza Young spent the next two years in Omaha, Nebraska. During September 1888 they returned to Salt Lake City briefly to produce Mrs. Young's comic opera, Mr. Sampson of Omaha, which had had a successful run in Omaha. The opera was received warmly, and shortly afterward the New York Mirror devoted a half-page to it.

Little is known about Bicknell Young's religious activity before he and his wife moved from Omaha to Chicago in 1890. Genealogical records reveal that he was baptized into the Mormon faith in 1867 at the age of eleven and that he received temple endowments six years later in the Endowment House. Presumably his early religious activity was that of a normal young Mormon. His father was an important leader in the LDS church, most of his siblings were active Mormons, and his teachers in Salt Lake were practicing Mormons. (His affiliation with the Wasatch Literary Association indicates much more about Bicknell's cultural interest than his religious interests.) Possibly, Bicknell first experienced a questioning of his faith when, far from family and home, he became deeply immersed in the culture of London. This view is reinforced by the fact that Joseph Young apparently worried about the spiritual welfare of his son while he was in London. Eliza Mazzucato was not of the Mormon faith, and perhaps Bicknell's relationship with her hastened his removal from the religion of his family. One of Bicknell's sons, Hilgard, has written that his father separated himself from the LDS church at a comparatively young age and was an agnostic until his conversion to Christian Science.

Despite his apparent break with the religion of his youth, Bicknell returned to Salt Lake City with his new wife after completing his musical training in London. Young had maintained a close relationship with his family and perhaps wanted to be near them. Additionally, his mother, brothers, and sisters probably wanted to meet Eliza Mazzucato. His brothers had given Bicknell financial support, and the debt he owed them might have provided further inducement to return to Salt Lake. While in Utah, Bicknell and his wife often dined at the home of Seymour Young (already a Mormon general authority) and attended the annual celebration of Brigham Young's birth with other family members.

Shortly after arriving in Chicago in 1890, Bicknell Young became gravely ill. Doctors were unable to help him. Someone, probably Kitty Heywood Kimball, a fellow member of the Wasatch Literary Association and a new convert to Christian Science in Salt Lake City, referred Bicknell to a Christian Science practitioner in Chicago. Bicknell was miraculously healed through the practitioner's efforts. As a result of this experience Bicknell and Eliza Young devoted themselves to the study of Christian Science. After a lengthy conversation with the foremost Christian Scientist in Chicago, Edward A. Kimball, both Youngs became members of the First Church of Christ, Scientist. After his conversion to Christian Science, Bicknell practiced his new religion with enthusiasm. Because of his musical abilities, he was soon named the soloist of his new church congregation.

Bicknell and Eliza Young continued their musical careers in Chicago. In 1895 they both held professional chairs at the Auditorium Conservatory there and toured the country giving concerts. A brochure dating from the late 1890s briefly discusses the educational backgrounds of the Youngs and calls Bicknell a "broad, scholarly musician." It describes a series of their recitals as "among the most artistic musical events in Chicago" and states that both Youngs were very successful as performers and as teachers of music.

In January 1897 the Youngs reappeared in Salt Lake as performers. The Salt Lake Herald lauded their concert: "Nothing more delightful in the concert line has ever been heard here than the charming recital they gave on Friday night, and we trust the time is not far distant when they will be able to favor us with their presence again." The reviewer went on to state, "Mr. Young's many friends will be pleased to learn that fortune is smiling on him nowadays, as he and his wife have good positions and are besides in active demand at many important musical affairs in Chicago."

An interesting sidelight to Bicknell Young's conversion to Christian Science is that his mother and all his sisters converted to that religion in the 1890s. According to Seymour Young, they had all been introduced to Christian Science by a woman described as one of Mary Baker Eddy's "leading disciples." They might have been converted to Christian Science before Bicknell was healed, or his miraculous recovery may have deepened their interest and caused them to accept Christian Science. After 1895 the only members of Joseph and Jane Bicknell Young's family who remained in the LDS church were Seymour and LeGrand. Such a mass conversion of a leading Mormon family to another religion is puzzling and possibly without precedent in Mormon history. The most curious conversion was that of Jane Adeline Bicknell Young, who was the first wife of a ranking LDS general authority for forty-seven years and the mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother of other general authorities. The attitude of Seymour Young's family is that she was an old woman dependent on her daughters when she became a Christian Scientist.

Christian Science, an indigenous American religion, was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879. She defined it as "the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony." Sidney Ahlstrom classifies Christian Science as a "harmonial religion" displaying "those forms of piety and belief in which spiritual composure, physical health, and even economic well-being are understood to flow from a person's rapport with the cosmos." Christian Science is essentially nonmaterial in philosophy. To the Scientist, the material world is illusory. Disease, pain, death, and sin are all illusions; only the spiritual mind is real. Because disease and other physical maladies are unreal and represent a lack of "rapport with the cosmos," practitioners of Christian Science attempt to heal those suffering from physical illness or pain by bringing them into harmony with the spiritual reality. Scientists claim "that the healing which they are able to mediate results as a direct corollary of the fact of the nonmaterial nature of the universe." Because healings testify to the correctness of this nonmaterial philosophy, many Christian Science periodicals include testimonials of healing. This no doubt acounts for some of the popular images of Christian Science. Personal healing often plays an important part in the conversion of new Christian Scientists as it did in the case of Bicknell and Eliza Young.

Bicknell (as he was always known in Christian Science, with no reference to the first name that associated him with another religion) and Eliza Young increasingly assumed greater responsibilities in their new religion after their conversion. In 1898 he was made first reader of the Second Church of Christ, Scientist, in Chicago, a position he held until 1901. He was then given a position on the committee on publication for Illinois. In 1901 he also attended the normal class of the board of education which qualified him as a teacher of Christian Science. Attendance in this class proved to be a turning point in Bicknell's career. Because of its importance in his life, a brief history of the class is in order.

Shortly after Mary Baker Eddy formally established her church in 1879 she received a state charter to establish the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. This school conferred degrees to graduates until 1889. Classes continued after the closure of the college, but no degrees were conferred. 39 In 1898 Eddy chose three of her best students to set up a board of education. The board started holding classes in 1899 with Edward A. Kimball as the teacher. The normal class, as it came to be called, was patterned after the Massachusetts Metaphysical College and degrees (CSB—bachelor of Christian Science) were once again conferred on graduates. The number of students in these classes has always been limited to a select few. Graduation from the normal class is the only way one may become an authorized teacher of Christian Science. Graduates are qualified to teach primary classes where Christian Scientists are taught healing methods and Christian Science philosophy. 40 Bicknell Young and Edward Kimball had developed a close relationship in Chicago, and it is likely that this friendship helped Young gain admission to the class. Once there, he obviously impressed his teacher and others, because in 1903 he was named a member of the board of lectureship, a calling that forced him to abandon his music career.

The Christian Science Board of Lectureship consists of a small number of lecturers who promote Christian Science, reply to public condemnation, and " 'bear testimony to the facts pertaining to the life of the Pastor Emeritus,' Mary Baker Eddy." The lecturers travel constantly, speaking wherever necessary. Bicknell soon became one of the most soughtafter and popular lecturers, undoubtedly assisted by his powerful voice and assured stage presence. He completed the first world tour by a Christian Scientist lecturer, lecturing to nearly 8,000 people in the Royal Albert Hall in London on April 23, 1907, where, it was reported, "thousands were not able to enter the hall." A survey of the Christian Science Sentinel for 1908 reveals that Young gave at least 131 lectures in twentyseven states, Mexico, Canada, and Australia. The trip to Australia took several months and cut down on the number of lectures he was able to give that year. He served continuously on the board from 1903 to 1938 with the exception of 1917-20 when he served as first reader of the Mother Church in Boston (the world headquarters for Christian Science) and 1927-32 when he took a few years off for study and practice. According to a historian of Christian Science, Bicknell Young was second only to Edward Kimball in popularity as a teacher and lecturer. The Christian Science Sentinel often reported that Young's lectures were attended by three or four thousand people; the number that heard him speak during his nearly thirty years of lecturing and teaching must be staggering. Only five of his lectures were published, however, because of a reluctance by Christian Scientists to publish lectures. The surviving lectures reveal an articulate and literate man who deeply believed in the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy.

When Edward A. Kimball died in 1909, Bicknell Young was chosen to replace him as a teacher of the normal class for 1910. The highest teaching assignment in Christian Science and therefore extremely prestigious, 50 this position reflected Young's rising reputation and popularity among Christian Scientists, including Eddy who still was alive when Young taught the class.

Mrs. Eddy's death in December 1910 precipitated a potentially disastrous conflict. She had been the sole leader of the church and had established two autonomous boards that vied for control of the church after her death. In addition, some followers believed that the formal church was to be dissolved at her death because almost all policy and organizational changes had required her approval and because she had initially had qualms about establishing a formal church structure. Despite Bicknell's adherence to the group that eventually lost the fight for control of the church, he was elected first reader of the Mother Church in Boston in 1917. As such he was one of the general officers of the religion. Readers can serve a maximum of three years and Young remained first reader until 1920. The "Great Litigation" (as the dispute between the two opposing groups has come to be known because it was eventually resolved in the courts) came to a head during Young's three-year term. That he was able to remain in the good graces of the group that came to control the religion attests to his popularity.

Young's ability to maintain his important position is even more surprising for another reason. The views of his mentor, Edward A. Kimball, became controversial after his death because he had advocated what one historian of Christian Science has called a rational approach to the religion. Kimball's views conflicted with an intuitional school of Christian Science thought centered in Boston that numbered among its adherents the controlling group and the board of directors. Greatly simplified, Kimball's views seem to have been that matter, while nonexistent, reflected spiritual ideas; it was the corresponding "lie" to the spiritual truth. Students of the intuitional school believed that there was no correspondence between nonexistent matter and spiritual truth. A bastardized distinction between the two views can be drawn by what some Christian Scientists have called the "perfect liver" analogy. Kimball would have believed that a material liver, while nonexistent, reflects a perfect, spiritual liver (though not an individual spiritual liver; rather an idea of a perfect liver), while intuitional Scientists would argue that there is no liver, spiritual or material. Both perceptions are nonmaterial, but Kimball's more easily accommodates things material. Bicknell Young, his most outstanding student and follower, adhered to Kimball's views.

When Kimball died in 1909, he still enjoyed the official approval of Mary Baker Eddy in all his teaching. After she died in 1910, leaders of the intuitional school began attacking some of Kimball's ideas (although it was not made explicit that they were the teachings of the popular Kimball). According to one observer, Young went even further than Kimball in his rational approach. Young taught that the material universe "is the spiritual creation dimly seen and incorrectly interpreted." Intuitional Christian Scientists would, of course, never accept such a premise. The ideas of Kimball, and by implication those of Young, have been unofficially in disrepute for most of the time since 1910, and in the last four decades some who have advocated these ideas have been disciplined by their church.

With this in mind, it is indeed surprising that Young was elected first reader of the Mother Church in 1917 and even more surprising that he was once again named teacher of the normal class in 1937. According to historian Charles Braden:

Several members of the 1937 Normal Class report that there was quite a stir among them when, at the opening session, it was discovered that Young was to be the teacher. One of them told me that two men, seated directly in front of her, voiced great disapproval of the appointment of a teacher bearing the Kimball stigma, and even some horror that Kimball's daughter, Edna, w r as present as a fellow-student. Others have confirmed this report, and they add that in the field generally there was an adverse reaction.

That Young felt the sensitive position he was in is reflected by a remark he purportedly made to the class: " 'You don't want to get your teacher into trouble, do you? Then don't pass notes around of what I have said.'' Braden suggests that Young was not disciplined because his popularity in the church was such that it would have created bad feelings among Christian Scientists. Perhaps his many years of service prompted church leaders to reward him by appointing him as the normal class teacher in 1.937 despite his views.

Young's personality may have enabled him to teach heterodox ideas inoffensively and without fear of church discipline. The scanty record of his life reveals a warm, amiable man. His service to his religion, his popularity, and his contributions to the furtherance of Christian Science undoubtedly made officers of the religion reluctant to indicate disapproval. That Young's relationships with his family and friends in Utah remained excellent even after he became a leader in Christian Science supports a view of him as a personable man of considerable tact and diplomacy.

By the time of his death in 1938, Bicknell had gained the respect and admiration of thousands of students, listeners, and patients. He had moved a long way from his religious and geographical roots, but his talents had certainly not been wasted. This nephew of Brigham Young should rightfully take his place as an important product of Mormon and Utah culture.

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