American Choral Review Archive

The period from 1770 to 1810 – thus from the...

The period from 1770 to 1810 – thus from the birth of Beethoven to the birth of Chopin and Schumann – witnessed in American musical history a rich proliferation of choral psalmody composed by native musicians. This development was sparked by the New England singing school movement.

William Billings 1746-1800) has been remembered, if chiefly by name,...

William Billings 1746-1800) has been remembered, if chiefly by name, up to our own time. During his life he was highly respected as the author of psalm tunes and anthems and as a singing-school teacher. And not only was he recognized for his musical inventiveness but also for his historical role as one of the earliest and most influential composers of American sacred music.

Although plenty of qualified people have praised Billings and have...

Although plenty of qualified people have praised Billings and have honored him by reprinting his psalm tunes and anthems, others have roundly castigated certain technical aspects of his works, especially his limping rhythm. Where, then, does the fault lie? The answer: not with the rhythms themselves, but occasionally with the way they are notated. Since the reader may easily encounter some of these difficult places, it is advisable to show just what they are, and how easily they may be corrected.

The method of performance of early music remains one of...

The method of performance of early music remains one of the knottiest problems of music history. When we realize how many variant readings exist even of a Brahms symphony, which is in our traditional repertoire, it can readily be seen how thorny the problem becomes when we try to reconstruct the performance practice of previous centuries. John Cole's The Rudiments of Music (1810) fortunately gives us an insight into some of the practices employed in the performance of his music and that of his contemporaries, and therefore provides documentary evidence of some of the problems that he, as a practical musician, had to face.

George Pullen Jackson has traced for us the bonds between...

George Pullen Jackson has traced for us the bonds between the tunes of many shape-note hymns and the secular folk tunes of America. The question at once presents itself: what do the extraordinary settings of these hymns owe to printed sources and what to predominantly oral tradition? I shall consider here only the three-voice choral settings of the type published during the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century in such famous collections as Southern Harmony, Sacred Harp, Kentucky Harmony, Harp of Columbia, Missouri Harmony, Social Harp, and the like.