From Biblical Book to Musical Megahit

Many church-goers will recognize the name William Bradbury a nineteenth-century American composer of popular hymns still sung at Sunday services. Bradbury's name may also bring to mind <i>Esther the Beautiful Queen</i> his choral setting of a text based on the biblical Book of Esther. Written for amateur singers the uncomplicated score became enormously popular almost immediately after its initial publication in 1856. In <i>From Biblical Book to Musical Megahit: William B. Bradbury's Esther the Beautiful Queen</i> <i> </i>Juanita Karpf traces the work's rich performance and reception history. <p/> Bradbury emphatically stated that he intended <i>Esther</i> to be sung as an unadorned religious and educational piece. Yet many music directors exploited the potential for his score producing elaborately staged events with costumes scenery and acting. Although directors retained Bradbury's original music they nonetheless facilitated <i>Esther</i>'s rapid entrée into the realm of music theater. This stylistic transformation ignited a firestorm of controversy. Some clergy and religiously pious citizens condemned theatrical representations of biblical texts as the epitome of debauchery sacrilege and sin. In contrast more tolerant and open-minded theater enthusiasts welcomed the dramatic staging of <i>Esther </i>as wholesome entertainment and as evidence of a refreshingly enlightened approach to biblical interpretation. <p/> However heated this debate seemed at times it did little to quell the continued rise in popularity of <i>Esther.</i> In fact by the late 1860s Bradbury's score had worked its way across the continent north to Canada and eventually to Great Britain Australia Asia and Africa. With performances recorded over a century after Bradbury published his score <i>Esther </i>became by any measure an international megahit.