Harvey Taylor Enders (born October 13, 1892, Saint Louis, Missouri - died January 12, 1947, New York, NY) was an American composer and arranger of mostly vocal music and a bass-baritone vocalist. He studied composition with Charles Galloway in 1914 and voice with operatic baritone David Bispham in 1914.

Enders served in the United States Navy during World War I and later worked as a counselor for the Connecticut Life Insurance Company while singing as a bass-baritone soloist in New York churches. As early as 1919, Enders was also composing published musical works with his song, “Sailing on the Land.” In 1926, Enders married Ruth A. Urban, a New Jersey-born Broadway actress and singer, in New York. He joined the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in 1934, and was later elected to the ASCAP Board of Appeals in 1945.

As an arranger, Enders wrote a variety of instrumental and vocal renditions of classic music, including arrangements of George Frideric Handel’s aria “Where’er You Walk” for male chorus (1939), Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee” from the opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan for solo piano (1934), George and Ira Gershwin’s “It Ain’t Necessarily So” from Porgy and Bess for solo and male chorus (1940), and Johann Strauss’s Blue Danube Waltz for SATB chorus and two pianos (1947).

As a composer, Enders wrote a number of vocal pieces in the manner of African-American spirituals, including “Wade in de Water” for men’s voices and African drum (1934), “De Cow Need a Tail in Fly-time” for medium voice and piano, with lyrics by Thomas W. Talley (1935), and “Hangman, Hangman” for medium voice and piano (1937), which was dedicated to African-American composer Harry T. Burleigh. Enders also composed a dramatic song narrative piece for baritone and orchestra, “Death in Harlem,” based on the poem by Langston Hughes. The work premiered at Steinway Hall in Manhattan on July 8, 1942, sung by Enders himself, and attended by Hughes, according to the biography of Hughes by Arnold Rampersad. Enders composed works incorporating other types of folk music as well, such as his arrangement of “Far Down the Mother Volga” (1936), and his “Russian Picnic” for solo voice, chorus and piano (1946), (one of his most frequently performed works), which employ Russian folk melodies.

In the last three years of his life, Enders was the president of the Mendelssohn Glee Club of New York, founded in 1866. Made up of both amateur and professional singers, the all-male organization was a combination of performing group and social club, with Monday night dinner-rehearsals taking place at the Manhattan Club. Prominent members included composer Victor Herbert and baritone David Bispham, and guest soloists included soprano Lili Lehman and Ellen Arthur, wife of the 21st President of the United States, Chester A. Arthur. Enders was president of the Mendelssohn Glee Club when he died of a brief, unspecified illness in 1947 at age 54.

References

“Enders, Harvey.” OCLC WorldCat Identities. Accessed June 21, 2022. https://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-no96049397/.

“Harvey Enders, Head of Glee Club, Was 54.” New York Times, January 13,1947. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1947/01/13/93786182.html?pageNumber=20. Library of Congress Copyright Office. Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 3 Musical Compositions, 14 Part 2. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1919.

McNamara, Daniel I., ed. The ASCAP Biographical Dictionary: Composers, Authors, and Publishers, 2nd Edition. New York: Thomas T. Crowell Company, 1952: 144-145. http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/music-search/music-songs-composers%20-%200244.htm.

Moore, Ellis O. Francis Moore: A Musician’s Life. Xlibris, 2007, 203-204. https://books.google.com/books?id=7clHDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes, Volume II: 1914-1967, I Dream a World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. https://books.google.com/books?id=WyC5910u1b4C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

“Sid Kornheiser New Member of ASCAP Board of Appeals.” Billboard, June 9, 1945.

Stuart, Clarissa. “She’s Dick Berger’s Insurance Policy.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 17, 1941, 48. https://www.proquest.com/docview/1875847844/44ACA476AF02422DPQ/103?accountid=12261.

“The Final Curtain: Enders, Harvey.” Billboard, January 25, 1947, 43. https://books.google.com/books?id=choEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.