Official (and Unofficial) Music for the 32° in the Early 20th Century
January 21, 2025
In September 1916, at its Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Supreme Council, 33°, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction’s Committee on Rituals approved a major revision to the 32°. Chiefly written by John Lloyd Thomas, 33°, of New York, the new ritual introduced the character of Constans into the degree. Just a few months later, in January 1917, the Philadelphia Consistory enacted the revised degree for the first time.
The musical director for the Philadelphia Consistory, Gilbert Raynolds Combs, 33°, observed that “The Supreme Council having provided no music for the Ritual, it became the duty as well as the pleasure of the Musical Director [i.e., Combs] to prepare appropriate music.” Combs was well-suited for the task, having been born into a musical family – his father was a well-known musician and his mother a singer – and founding his own music school, Combs Broad Street Conservatory of Music, in Philadelphia in 1885. Because Combs’s pieces appealed to the Philadelphia Consistory, it officially adopted his compositions as the music it would use for the 32°. In 1918 the Philadelphia Consistory published his music.
The Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives holds a copy of Combs’s music for the 32nd degree. Our copy contains various notations and an ownership stamp in it. The copy we have indicates that it was used by the organist for the Rhode Island Consistory and owned by Scottish Rite bodies in Providence, Rhode Island. The markings in our copy show that Combs’s music was used outside of Philadelphia. As you can see printed at the top left of the page shown here, some of the verses of certain compositions were keyed to specific pages in the newly revised ritual text. Also visible on this page, the Providence organist made pencil notations about this particular work.
Despite evidence of the music having been played as part of the 32° in at least two states, however, it does not appear that Combs’ work ever received a stamp of approval from the Supreme Council’s Committee on Rituals. It is possible that this is because the Committee had already engaged the services of another Scottish Rite Mason who, like Combs, was a professional composer. Before Combs’s work had been published, Daniel Protheroe, 32°, had written and arranged music for the 4° through the 25°. His compositions appeared in a series of three books, published by the Supreme Council in 1909 and 1910. In 1918, the Supreme Council issued the fourth volume of Protheroe’s compositions and arrangements, written for the 26° to the 32°. The Supreme Council’s 1919 Proceedings make it clear that Protheroe’s compositions for the 32° were tied to the newly revised degree with this note: “We recommend the sum of $200.00 be paid to Dr. Daniel Protheroe as compensation for his services in the preparation of the music for the new 32nd Degree.”
While it is unclear what impact Combs’s music had beyond Philadelphia and Providence, it is apparent that Protheroe’s music persisted as part of the Scottish Rite degrees well into the twentieth century. In the 1960s, the Committee on Rituals published a “Study of Music” report in the 1963 and 1967 Supreme Council Proceedings. In the 1967 report, the committee noted not only that Protheroe’s music was still being used in many Valleys half a century later, but that Protheroe’s arrangements and compositions were “the only official music published by the Supreme Council [and] should not be discarded because they are old.” The Supreme Council continued to encourage the use of Protheroe’s music. In a series of booklets published in the 1960s and 1970s, Protheroe’s works are among those that the Supreme Council recommended to accompany various degrees. Combs’s name, on the other hand, is not mentioned at all.
Protheroe and Combs both died in 1934. Born just three years apart, these two Scottish Rite members were accomplished musicians outside of Freemasonry. They brought their musical talent and passion for enhancing the dramatic presentation of the Scottish Rite’s 32° to their brethren. Examining these works today we can learn more about how the musical parts of the 32° might have sounded over a century ago.
A version of this article first appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of The Northern Light.
Captions:
Gilbert Raynolds Combs. Opening of “Lord Unto Thee,” in Ritualistic Music for the Thirty Second Degree As Authorized by the Philadelphia Consistory, A.A.S.R. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Consistory, 1918. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, 65.9 .U58mu 32.
Daniel Protheroe. Opening of “Lord Unto Thee,” in Music for the Consistory as Authorized by the Supreme Council, A.A.S.R., Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, United States of America. Boston, MA: Supreme Council, 33°, N.M.J., 1918. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, 65.9 .U58m 19-25.