Erik and Maria Leidzen, c.1962

The following article was published in 'The Musician',  January 5, 1963

A composer beyond compare

Brother Erik Leidzen, distinguished Salvationist composer and song writer, was promoted to Glory from his home in New York on Thursday, December 20, 1962. The funeral service was conducted in the New York Centennial Temple on Sunday, December 2rd.

The brilliant but deeply humble musician, whose completely individualistic style brought a new dimension to Army music-making and whose creative genius enriched the worship of Salvationists all over the world, was born on March 25, 1894, four months after the death of his father, Sweden's first Territorial Young People's Secretary.

His ‘darling mother', as Erik wrote of her for Musician readers in 1960, had been born in Manchester, England, of Irish parentage, had entered the training home from Watford and had become a Captain by the age of eighteen. After travelling with Herbert Booth's Singing Brigade and being one of the Founder's favourite soloists, Elinor Kelly, as she was called, was sent by William Booth in the 1880s to Sweden as one of the pioneer officers. There she met and married Erik Leidzen, who only three years later died while travelling on Salvation Army business.

It was his dying wish that if his unborn child was a boy - they had already had two daughters, one of whom today is Mrs. Colonel Carin Lydahl (R.) - he should be called William after the Founder, and Gustaf after his paternal grandfather. The wish was fulfilled - but the name Erik was added, of course.

For this ‘only son of his mother, and she was a widow', a specially intimate bond of love developed between his mother and himself. She laid the Christian principles of his life that were to abide.

A fife [wooden flute], given to the shy little Leidzen boy with the ash-blond hair when he was six years old, became his ‘open sesame' to the treasure-house of music. By the time he was nine he was playing cornet in the Danish Staff Band, wearing a tunic specially made for his small frame; already his genius was being recognized. While in his early teens he was appointed conductor of a band hastily scratched together for some meetings led by the Founder in several Danish cities. The Founder noticed Erik and asked him gruffly: ‘Who are you?'

The name meant nothing to William Booth until Lawley added: ‘It is Kelly's boy.' A warm smile lit up the patriarchal features and his bony hand was placed on Erik's head. ‘God bless you, my lad!' said the Founder.

No prayer was more fully answered, Divine blessing was heaped upon him, and through him to thousands more. By 1915, when Erik had emigrated to the U.S.A. with an educational background that included study at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Stockholm, it was evident that Elinor Leidzen had done her work well: her son knew he had to write music, conduct it, teach it, and he knew that he dare not keep it for himself; God's gifts remain only when they are given to others.

TAUGHT PIANO

But he had to pay for the rent, the bread and the butter. So he taught piano, mostly to children, for twenty years. In 1923 the late Commissioner Wm. A. McIntyre asked Erik to go to Boston as bandmaster of the New England Provincial Staff Band. For three years the band was a huge success, then, still writing music all the time, Erik returned to New York with his attractive Swedish-born wife, Maria, and vivacious daughter, Lisa. Under the direction of the late Commissioner (then Brigadier) W. Alex Ebbs, he formed an instrumental ensemble for the Metropolitan Division and later founded the famed Temple Chorus.

London had its own chance to pay tribute to Brother Leidzen when the International Staff Band gave a festival entirely of his music at the Regent Hall during the noted composer's visit to Britain in May, 1955. Forty-five years before, as a boy in the crew of a Swedish windjammer, Erik had first set foot on British soil when his boat had docked on Thames-side. He had run away to sea to escape from music and his arrival in Britain was unheralded and unknown. This time he had travelled on the Queen Elizabeth; friends were waiting to greet him, and he was known and loved by thousands of Salvationists.

TO SERVE

In the festival, in reply to the introduction by the then Chief of the Staff (Commissioner Edgar Dibden), Brother Leidzen declared that his desire had always been ‘To serve the present age - not to flabbergast or bamboozle it - my calling to fulfil.'

The I.S.B. was conducted by Eric Leidzen in many of the items presented, which included the first composition to appear in the Band Journal from his pen, ‘Stockholm 1'. The familiar melodies of ‘The Saviour's Name', the majestic theme of the meditation, ‘Richmond', and the deeply moving music of ‘The Cross' - which was received with lump-in-the-throat stillness - provided an object lesson in interpretation for the eager crowd which watched the white-haired figure, without demonstration or exaggerated dramatics, weave a spell over the band.

In Brother Leidzen's latter years he became closely identified with the U.S.A. Eastern Territory's Music Department, writing and arranging with his prolific output unchecked. His love of young people, ever a mark of greatness in a man of his calibre, found free expression in his work at the United States Music Camps. At the Star Lake Camp he appointed himself cymbalist of the camp band whenever he was not conducting the group, a further example of the breathtaking humility of this man.

But a few weeks before his sudden passing, in the same building which was to see his funeral service, his latest contribution to Army life in the States had been introduced: a song book designed specifically for men in Salvation Army social centres and Harbour Light corps, a collection of simple but significant songs and all presented in a key that would not make heavy demands upon the unskilled.

The work was typical of the man: the concern of a genius for people far less privileged and gifted than himself.

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