Sheet music by Henry Sandwith Drinker

Henry Sandwith Drinker, was an American lawyer and amateur musicologist. In 1964, the American Bar Association gave Drinker the American Bar Association Medal, stating that Drinker’s monumental treatise Legal Ethics (Columbia U. Press 1953) was "recognized throughout the civilized world as the definitive treatise on this subject. Though he was a successful lawyer, Drinker spent every minute of his spare time playing music, a passionate hobby that was as important to him as his real profession. Apart from active music-making, he devoted himself to the translation of the German text of vocal compositions of great composers into English. Among them are Schubert’s songs and Haydn’s Creation, and a variety of works by Johann Sebastian Bach, among others, the Christmas Oratorio, the St. John Passion and the St. Matthew Passion.