During the 1870s, Buck composed extensively for choir, orchestra, and organ, while also helping organize and conduct the first Central Park Garden Concerts. His reputation was such that he was asked to collaborate with the poet Sidney Lanier to commemorate the nation's centennial, and his Forty-Sixth Psalm was the first American composition performed by Boston's Handel and Haydn Society. Placing Buck's life and career within the Victorian mindset that sought to draw citizens into higher circles of art and beauty, Orr stresses how Buck's music touched players and listeners of all classes.