Lost and Saved

Lost and Saved

Parlor Drama

With words by poet and songwriter Eben Rexford and music by singer, teacher, and composer T. Martin Towne, Lost and Saved was quite elaborate, requiring sets, props, and a cast of nine women and ten men; yet, it was still intended for amateur production. Towne designed his cantata so “as to utilize the best musical and dramatic talent in a community; and at the same time offer an entertainment highly moral and educational in character.” He recognized that participants must include “vocalists and those having good elocutionary powers,” but believed that it “was not so difficult of execution, nor so heavy in character as to need an imported conductor and a large chorus to make it effective.” Ultimately, Towne hoped that the piece would “become an important factor in the mighty war now being waged against the terrible foe of intemperance throughout the world.”

Lost and Saved: A Dramatic Cantata in Three Acts on the Subject of Temperance (Chicago: David C. Cook, 1879).