From the Archives: Frank G. Dossert

Frank G. Dossert (Buffalo, NY, 20 May 1861 – Manhattan, NY, 6 April 1924)

The posthumous publication of the full score of Dossert’s Mass in B minor. 

According to the introduction the autograph manuscript is held in the Vatican archives; a vocal score, with amendments to the Kyrie, is in New York Public Library.

Donated to the RSM by Mrs Dossert, 2nd August, 1925; the Minutes of the Monthly Meeting read “Mrs F.G. Dossert of New York asking the Society to accept a copy bound in leather of a limited edition of the Mass in “B minor” composed by her late husband … The Secretary was directed to convey to Mrs. Dossert the grateful thanks of the Society for her gift and to have a suitable inscription engrossed [sic] in the volume”.  It seems that the inscription never made it but the volume shows an excellent binding, with lovely marbled endpapers, a frontispiece portrait of the composer, and also includes an introductory note about the composer and his life’s works, both performing life and his compositions.

“This work was written to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of His Holiness Leo the Thirteenth and at the invitation of His Holiness was performed in St. Peters, Rome, April 23, 1893 under the leadership of the composer Frank G. Dossert”.

The composer’s father Jean Baptiste Dossert (1821?-1887), originally from Nancy in France, was the first conductor of the Buffalo Liedertafel, organist at Buffalo Cathedral, and, according to the biographical introduction, one of the first to produce Handel’s Messiah in America.  Jean and his wife had five children, of whom one other, Christine (b.1855), also became a musician and was a noted soprano.  At an early age Frank succeeded his father as organist of Buffalo Cathedral, becoming organist at St Stephen’s Church in New York three years later.  He later studied with Salomon Jadassohn (1831-1902) in Leipzig.