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In a time of
recession that stretches beyond national and geographical
boundaries, there is a lot to be said for comfort derived from the
past. For many the arrival of The Shenandoah Harmony, in
content and form an homage to sacred and secular music over
more than two hundred years, will be welcomed as a ray of light in
an otherwise troubled world. It has been a privilege to be asked to
review The Shenandoah Harmony as members of the United
Kingdom shapenote singing community, a task made easier by the
provision of an electronic copy, using LaTeX, a powerful typesetting
program, complete with interactive hyperlinks between commentary,
indices, and scores.
The Music
Committee used as their starting point works contained within the
five editions of a publication by Ananias Davisson, The Kentucky
Harmony, together with three editions of A Supplement to the
Kentucky Harmony, published collectively between 1816 and 1825.
The intention to produce such an anthology of music expanded to
include sacred and secular tunes from a wide range of 18th -
and 19th-century American sources, and to embrace tunes
of the 20th and 21st centuries. With the
inclusion of pieces in two and three parts as well as standard four
part harmony, The Shenandoah Harmony offers a wide corpus of
music to explore for groups ranging from duos and trios to larger
singing schools and shapenote gatherings. The committee�s
enlightened decision to resource, or to commission the composition
of alto lines for many of the tunes which were originally in three
parts only, is applauded.
The use of
Lilypond 2.14 as a publishing tool has made lighter work of
producing such a large collection of material than other compilers
may have experienced in the past. Both the modification of the
software to create slightly larger noteheads, and the fonts chosen,
allow for greater legibility, clarity and ease of singing than those
found in tune books from the early 19th century. There
are a few instances where dotted slurs over notes in a tune with a
peculiar metre might have been more helpful than splitting a
syllable.
The ordering of
the book, for the most part, follows a traditional historical format
starting with exemplars of the earliest, and often simplest,
compositional forms. From Bruce Randall's 'Frewsburgh' onwards,
compositions from the late 20th and early 21st
centuries appear at a steady rate, judiciously placed with an eye to
key, metre, form � whether strophic or fuguing � and text. A
little lighter in weight, but of similar dimensions to The Sacred
Harp, Ed. 1991, with 480 pages (including indices) The
Shenandoah Harmony comprises 469 tunes. Slightly more than half
of them are in minor keys, going a long way to redress what has been
perceived by some singers as an imbalance of choice between major
and minor in other publications.
From a British
perspective, it is very rewarding to see the inclusion of several
pieces from the west gallery canon, especially those by William
Knapp. In the case of his 'Funeral Hymn', however, additional rests
appear which are not in the stated source, and disturb the integrity
of the text. With William Tans'ur's 'Barby' tune, by 1755 he had
extended this plain tune with an attractive fugue, which was
reproduced in Boston in Thomas Walter�s The Grounds and Rules of
Musick Explained, in 1764. Perhaps an instance of a
missed opportunity to include what might have been a superior
version of the tune?
Two tunes that
have been part of the English carolling tradition in and around the
city of Sheffield, documented for more than a century, appear in
The Shenandoah Harmony. Contrary to the practice of the time,
John Wainwright�s 150-year old tune 'Walworth', (known to him as
'Christmas Day Hymn'), had the air in the soprano/treble line, and a
much beloved variant, 'Old Christians', continues to be sung thus on
this side of the Atlantic. To some native ears, the switching of
Wainwright's air to the tenor line produces a harmony which sounds
at odds to their tradition.
Known also as
'Tunbridge', 'Invitation' and principally as 'Knaresborough', Abijah
Forbush had included a four part version of James Leach's tune
'Jacob�s Well' as 'Stillman' in The Psalmodist�s Assistant,
Ed.2, Boston, 1806. The Shenandoah Harmony three part
version of 'Jacob's Well' seems to be missing the emotive strength of
'Knaresborough', the four part version predominantly found in
English publications and MSS, and together with that which has come
down as part of the Sheffield carolling tradition. Much more could
be said about the history of these tunes and their transmission to
America, would space permit.
The committee are
congratulated on giving Daniel Read's 'Stafford' a less pejorative
text than that used almost exclusively since its first publication
in 1782, together with the restoration of the fugue in his tune
'Lisbon'; it is a delight to find it whole again in The
Shenandoah Harmony following its 'fugectomy' in The Sacred
Harp. The reviewers look forward to this practice being
extended to other similarly treated tunes. It was pleasing to see
the inclusion of Ezra Goff's 'Sutton New' and the Babcock tune
'Springfield', personal favourites of several years, together with
Elias Mann�s tune 'Foster'.
Also welcomed are
arrangements of tunes from the tradition of the Lee family of
Hoboken and from the Sand Mountain tradition; John Bayer�s
arrangement of the latter's 'Symyadda' is another gem in the
collection. The Glen Rock Carollers have their origins in an
English oral tradition of carol singing which has been perpetuated
in southern Pennsylvania for more than 150 years. Having heard them
at the Festival of Village Carols in both 2002 and 2012, it was
exciting to find the committee had selected their 'Hark, Hark' � a
version of the tune 'Sheffield Park' by John Hall, now known as 'New
Hark'.
Given that the
original project had as its crux the tunes from Ananias Davisson's
publications in the second and third decades of the 19th
century, the decision to include more than sixty 20th-
and 21st-century compositions in The Shenandoah
Harmony was a bold one, but a wise one. It would be invidious
to single out particular tunes and their composers for praise, but
if there was one modern song which might tip the balance as to
whether to purchase a copy of The Shenandoah Harmony or not,
Richard Popp's 'Stony Island' is a strong candidate. A minor fuguing tune in the best tradition, with a text presaging changes in
theology, and a memorable alto line; the only complaint would be the
absence of additional verses, James Montgomery�s fourth verse would
certainly serve.
Another inspired
move by the committee was to draw on D.H. Mansfield�s seminal
publication, The American Vocalist, 1848. This edition was a
source first encountered by the reviewers through Larry Gordon,
Anthony Barrand and Carole Moody Crompton�s Northern Harmony,
rev. 3rd Ed., 1995. It is a joy to be given the
opportunity to revisit these versions of 'All Is Well' and 'Amazing
Grace', in particular.
This leads to
consideration as to how the content of The Shenandoah Harmony
mirrors the expansion of interest in the shapenote genre over the
past 30 years or so. 1991 saw the publication of the latest edition
of The Sacred Harp, offering new compositions together with
exploring previously untapped sources of psalmody that predated the
compilation of Smith and Little's Easy Instructor, 1801.
Eleven years previously, in Vermont, Larry Gordon et al had
collaborated to self-publish Northern Harmony, containing for
the most part compositions from the First New England School. The
second edition in 1990 expanded to include new works, and in 1993
the third edition continued this process, adding music from what had
become to be recognised as the west gallery tradition in the United
Kingdom. The fifth edition, published in 2012, offers the same
eclectic mix as in previous years, but celebrates the growth of
modern compositions in the genre on both sides of the Atlantic. The
selection of tunes over the years by Gordon et al have become
widely known and loved by singers in the United Kingdom, and the
inclusion in The Shenandoah Harmony of 28 of those previously
published in Northern Harmony 1993 bears testament to the
Vermonters' innate sense of a good tune.
In similar vein,
the scholarly Norumbega Harmony, 2003, offers historic tunes
from the First New England School and modern works, together with
pieces from the Western and Southern States, indicative of the
emergence of interest in folk tunes, exemplified, inter alia,
by those that appear in the Kentucky Harmony. There, 38 of the
choices of the editorial committee in Boston chime with those of
The Shenandoah Harmony, and several pieces appear in all three
collections.
It is possible
the resonances between the three books will appeal initially to
those singers in the UK who were first made aware of shapenote music
by Larry Gordon, but there is so much more to The Shenandoah
Harmony than just a happy coincidence of some old favourites in
a new publication. What started out as an intention to bring the
music and the times of the Kentucky Harmony to a 21st
-century audience, has patently expanded to embrace the demands of a
new generation of singers and composers who have been eager for the
opportunity to be more involved with this exciting genre. Were
there any doubt about this, the YouTube videos and recordings of
enthusiastic renderings of The Shenandoah Harmony sampler
collection from early 2012 onwards, are more than sufficient
testament. Thanks are due to the groups of singers on both sides of
the Atlantic who, over the past year, have welcomed these tunes into
their shapenote repertoire. The leap of faith shown by The
Shenandoah Harmony Music Committee in their decision to
self-publish a new anthology for a new millennium is well
justified. The times certainly are a-changing, order your copy now.
Sheila Girling
Macadam and Edwin Macadam
Oxford
February 2013 |
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