jean-jacques rousseau and the spirit of romanticism in american colonial (folk) music: immanence and...

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Spirit of Romanticism in American Colonial (Folk) Music:Immanence and InfluenceAuthor(s): Frederick William Dame and Jean-Jacques RousseauSource: Lied und populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture, 46. Jahrg. (2001), pp. 71-116Published by: Deutsches VolksliedarchivStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/849510 .

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JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND THE SPIRIT OF ROMANTICISM IN AMERICAN COLONIAL (FOLK)

MUSIC: IMMANENCE AND INFLUENCE

FREDERICK WILLIAM DAME

Intonation

There has always been a symphonic spirit running under the current of

development concerning an American political identity and the role that

political expression in the form of music played in that progression. Par-

ticularly in the American Colonial Period did this undercurrent conscious- ness we know as Romanticism begin to emerge. The wildness of an un- scathed nature inhabited by pristine Indian cultures, when contacted by European pioneers, resulted in a new political landscape we know as re-

publican democracy and a cultural panorama we know as American Ro- manticism. The harbinger of the Romantic Movement is the sage Jean-

Jacques Rousseau.

Exposition

The very first North American music originated with the Indian natives, and traditionally speaking, North American Indian Music in the form of memorized chanting and singing with simple to complicated rhythms established by drums and rattles that accompanied Indian religious rituals and festivals was a part of their everyday life. The chanting and singing were often complemented by the dancing, which took place on special occasions like preparation for war, weddings, work, festivals, funerals, and religious observances. The oral traditions that have survived the almost complete genocide of the Native American is a record of this history. When the first one hundred Pilgrims arrived in New England in the 17th century (Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 1620), their music had the same characteristic of

Lied und populare Kultur/Song and Popular Culture 46 (2001) 71



Frederick William Dame

being an accompaniment to their religious services in the meeting house and communal festivals. They too sang and chanted. For both cultures the

concept of music was never understood as a performance of art. For the North American Indian the singing and chanting provided an escape from the realistic world into the reverie world, a world in which the Indians were able to communicate with and become absorbed by their ancestral and natural spirits. In this sense it was purely Romantic. For the Puritans there was no such method of communication with ancestral and natural spirits. Indeed, any direct communication with God was considered a heresy and the Puritan religious leaders would not tolerate this type of deviltry, as the case of Anne Hutchinson before the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637 attested. Anne Hutchinson was a nimble-witted woman with flippant tongue who interpreted the sermons of the Puritan ministers

in her form of Calvinism. The Puritan preachers saw this as a threat to their

position and said that she was trying to communicate directly to God. This

was a sin. She was tried and banished from the colony with no account

taken by the court that she was the mother of 14 children.' It is at this

point- the communication of people with the Higher Spirit - that the

commonality of music for the two juxtaposed cultures ceases to exist. If

music provided the Whites with an escape from their realistic world, it did

so only in so far as their Puritan conviction allowed it. In the belief of New

England Puritan Colonials, singing and chanting, indeed music as a means

of communication, was used for the praise of God only. In 1684 the fiery Puritan preacher Increase Mather (1639-1723) railed against music and

dancing that did not praise God because such gynecandrical dancing

)[...] or that which is called mixed or promiscuous dancing, viz., of men

and women (be they elder or younger persons) together [... was] utterly unlawful and that it [could not] be tolerated in such a place as New England without great sin.<<2 Indeed, such action of God's people was a sin against the Scriptures and, therefore, against the word of God, particularly the Sev-

enth Commandment because such behavior would lead to adultery. Due to

1 For the full details read Adams, C.F.: Three Episodes of Massachusetts History. Boston

1892, pp. 501-508. 2 See Mather, Increase: An Arrow Against Profane and Promiscuous Dancing Drawn out of the

Quiver of the Scriptures. Boston 1684, pp. 1-2 for the quotation and the conclusion.

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Spirit of Romanticism

these views and because there was no memorized oral tradition, the White music by the close of the 17th century had become discordant and disturbed with harsh, unpleasant sounds. North American Indian music, on the other

hand, remained natural in its euphony. In this regard American Indian Mu- sic is very identifiable with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's concepts of the noble

savage, the state of nature, and man-in-nature, as being indigenously native. The popular folk music in the North American colonies were native bal-

lads to the immigrant peoples. They were texted in heroic couplets in iam- bic pentameter. Two important ones that have survived in text form are

Forefather's Song, which was known by 1630. Its content is concerned with

living in the new land and praising the Lord. In lines 43 to 46 one sang

But you whom the Lord intends hither to bring, Forsake not the honey for fear of the sting; But bring both a quiet and contented mind, And all needful blessings you surely will find.

The other, We Gather Together, has a Dutch immigrant tradition. It is a

praise of thanks to God for his watchfulness over his flock in the new land. Already in the first verse was sung

We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing, He chastens and hastens His will to make known. The wicked oppressing now cease to be distressing, Sing praise to His name for He forgets not His own.

It was probably brought to the colonies by Dutch settlers also around 1630. After its translation into modern English after the First World War, it received its place in American music as the American Thanksgiving Hymn.3 Such popular songs were of Puritan standard.

In 1640, 20 years after the first arrival of the Pilgrims in New England, there were 26.000 Puritan settlers. The only kind of music they officially allowed were simple psalms. Instruments were forbidden because they were inventions of the devil. The majority of Puritan psalms had originated in England. Most of them are to be found in the Ainsworth Psalter of 1612,

3 For the full texts see The Annals of America. Ed. by Mortimer J. Alder. Vol. 1. Chi- cago 1976, pp. 21-22.

73




named after the English non-conformist Puritan theologian Henry Ains- worth (1571- c 1622). The method of singing was done in a manner

whereby the melody was lined by the preacher with the congregation re-

peating line by line. Then the whole psalm was sung in unison, seldom in

parts. The psalms for the New England Puritans were written down in the

Bay Psalm Book, also called The Whole Books of Psalms, the oldest book in existence published in British North America. Prepared by the Puritan

leaders, the most illustrious being Richard Mather (1596-1669)4 of Dor- chester in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Bay Psalm Book was a metrical version of the Book of Psalms in the English language. It was printed by Stephen Day in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1640. By 1752 it was in its 70th edition. The group of ministers had literally translated the Book of Psalms, also called The Psalter, and set them to already established composed tunes. The translations were awkward because the pastor editors refused to

allow for poetical license to account for melody, rhythm, and meaning. Only the true words of David in the order in which he had spoken were

allowed. Under these circumstances neither the music nor the singing could have been anything but cacophony. The resulting wretchedness of

the poetry can be seen in Psalm 137. It does not even attain the melodious

beauty of the authorized King James version of the Bible.

The rivers of Babylon there when wee did sit down,

Yea, even then wee mourned when wee remembered Sion.

Our harp wee did hang it amid

upon the willow tree Because there they that us away

led into captivitee.

Required of us a song, and thus askt mirth us waste who laid,

Sing us among a Sion song, unto us then they said.5

4 Richard Mather was the father of Increase Mather. 5 Psalm 137 from The Whole Booke of Psalmesfaithfully translated into English Metre. Where-

unto is prefixed a discourse declaring not only the lawfullness, but also the necessity of the heavenly Ordinance of singing Scripture psalmes in the Churches of God. Coll. III. Let the word of God

74




Supporting the cacophonous development was the fact that the Puritan Colonial worshipers could no longer read the metrical patterns in the Bay Psalm Book, regardless of the rude monolithic strength and aim of the music. The Puritan raison d'etre of music was set forth in the book's introduc-

tory dissertation on the lawfulness and necessity of singing psalms in

church, regardless of the incorrectness of the congregational singing. Reli-

gious fervor was more important than any correct rendering of holy tunes, and since dancing and theater were forbidden in all of the New England colonies it is no wonder that such types of secular music remained uncom-

posed for 150 years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. It was this

type of controlled religion, controlled society, and controlled State that put Rousseau's l'homme into chains, more than hampering innate genius and

creativity. To combat the continued cacophony into the 18th century and to

engage the congregation in more church singing participation, many Puri- tan ministers and musical reformers supported the teaching of musical notation. This development restored much order in the Puritan meeting- house. At the same time and although not desired by these Puritan musical

reformists, the regular singing to musical notation soon gave rise to singing schools and the creation of music for secular entertainment that eventually led to the evolution of popular folk music.

Motif Development

Romanticism as a cultural movement in music has the same force that it has in art, architecture, literature, history, philology, folklore, politics, and

sociology. It was a reaction against the prevailing intellectual atmosphere of the times: the attempt at establishing empirical order and classification, the attempt at creating perfect proportions. Signals to the shift against the

Enlightenment with its reasoning of everything occurred throughout Europe, most exactly in English literature with the publication in 1765 of the gothic novel The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1717-1797), and in German literature in 1776 with the appearance of the play Der Wirmarr,

dwellplenteously inyou, in all wisdom, teaching and exhorting one another in Psalmes, Himmes, and spiritual Songs, singing to the Lord with grace in your hearth. lames V. If any be afflicted, let himpray, and if any be merry let him singpsalmes. Imprinted 1640. Cambridge 1640.

75




oder Sturm und Drang (The Whirlwind, or Storm and Stress) by Friedrich Maxi- milian von Klinger (1752-1831). The mother of Romanticism, the counter-movement to the Enlightenment and Classicism, however, is the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), while the high priest of the Enlightenment is the Frenchman Voltaire, the pen name of Francois Marie Arouet (1694-1778). Where Voltaire preaches reason and intellect for the proliferation of order, Rousseau advocates order as reflected in the truth and proliferation of Nature. Where Voltaire supports enlightened

despotism, Rousseau seeks the destruction of despotism. Where Voltaire is the paradigm of artificiality in style, Rousseau is the paragon of an artistic,

simplicity in style.

Romanticism: The Rebellious Cause

In order to comprehend the serene, deliberate emerging movement of

Romanticism it is necessary to understand its etymology. The term Ro-

manticism derived from the word )Romance<<, originally meaning the lan-

guage of the Romans. This of course was Latin. But due to the expanse of

the Roman Empire, developing languages were based upon Latin dialects, and the further away from Rome one was, the more independent the dia-

lect became. The language dialect forms of the Roman Empire came to be

known as )romans< to make a distinction between them and the official

Latin of the Empire. In the Roman provinces in what is now France the

practice arose of writing entertaining pieces of poetry and prose in the

language dialect that was more popular there. Making reference to a ?)ro-

mans? means that one was referring to an old tale written in Old French

)romans<(, the subject matter of which was chivalry, courtly love, a love

tale, in short, as it was borrowed into Middle English as )romauns<<, ?>ro-

maunce<<, which eventually yielded )romance<<. In this sense we have the

conception of )romance<< meaning ?)emphasis upon the free play of the

imagination, the feeling of the heart<<, and ?being adventurous<<. The de-

rivative >)romantic<< would eventually lend itself to describe an entire cul-

tural movement that would place emphasis upon being inventive in subject matter as well as description. This was a direct opposition to the con-

straints of the classical view of cultural development. According to the

76




Oxford English Dictionary the word ?>romantic(< first appeared in England in 1659 and by the 18th century it was synonymous with the word ?>wild, fan-

ciful, rule breakingo<. In French the word )romanesque?< was associated with the word )etrange<, meaning >>foreign< or )strangeo<. Particularly after the French Revolution did it take on the original implications of >coming from the people, being homely, rustic, rebellious<, as well as )placing feeling over order?. Only in the 19th century did the word )Romanticism<< come into being to signify a cultural movement in art and thought. Its apex years as a cultural attitude lie between 1790 and 1910, although the advancement has really never stopped. Yet, before 1790 there appeared the wellsprings of attitudes that placed the heart over the head, one's imagination over established form, and personal instinct over accepted reason. If Johann Wolfgang von Goethe claimed Classicism to be an )etat de sante<( and Romanticism to be an )etat de maladieo<, then Jean-Jacques Rousseau turned the concept around and declared that Romanticism was )gesundo and Classicism )krank< because the only healthy condition for humans was to be seen in their relationships with Nature and what humans could learn from their experiences with it and in it. This would be the way for one to achieve identity and become a contributing member of the community, at one and the same time a brotherhood with individualism. Humans now had to be answerable to themselves. Answers to problems would no longer be accepted as an act of faith. They would be found by the undertakings of the imagination. In music artists would compose more freely than in the

past because they would pay attention to sensations and use emotional

impulses as guides in their work. If there is any one source of Romanticism then it is the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The Availability Of Rousseau's Thought

The restraints of the English system of government felt unnatural to a nation such as that existing informally in the American colonies. The writings of Rousseau, which called for the creation of a socio-political system that existed for the general good of the ruled, seemed to express their wishes and meet their needs. Underscoring this interest is the role that France

played in the American Revolution. It was more than just the contribution

77




made by her aristocratic soldier Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Rich-Gilbert du

Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), who was chiefly responsible for

bottling up the British Commanding General Lord Charles Cornwallis in the summer of 1780 and causing his defeat and subsequent surrender at

Yorktown, Virginia on 19 October 1780, which ended the Revolutionary War. Over and above the military contribution was the elevation of the United States of America diplomatically. France recognized the United States of America and joined in war against England on 6 February 1778, when she signed two treaties with the United States. The first treaty established and regulated trade and assistance. The second treaty had a secret

stipulation that should England declare war upon France, the United States would join in defense; neither country was to make a peace with England without the other's consent. Both countries were to continue to fight Eng- land until American independence had been won. Moreover, France lent

the following amounts of money to the United States: 1776 - one million

livres, 1778 - three million livres, 1779 - one million livres, 1780 - four

million livres, 1781 - four million livres, 1782 - six million livres.6

In the 18th century there was a plethora of Colonial publications. The first successful newspaper was the News-Letter of Boston, Massachusetts, its first publication year being 1704. 70 years later there were 50 newspa-

pers in the American Colonies. Between 1741 and 1789, the year in which

George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United

States of America, 40 magazines had come into publication.7 American

Colonists were familiar with the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and

other French liberals as early as 1751. Rousseau's Discours sur les Sciences et les

Arts, published in France in 1750, was being advertised in the Virginia Ga-

gette of Williamsburg, Virginia already in November of 1751. There were a

variety of Rousseau's works available in the colonies of North America in

English translations. As early as 1760 the leading Colonial intellectuals

were familiar with the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as is substanti-

6 Consult Martin, Henri: The Age of Louis XIV. 2 vols. Boston 1865, ch. XVI, pp. 500ff. The >livre< was a French coin before 1796. The word descends from the Roman word for >pound<, >>libra<<, from which we have the present-day English abbreviation l>b.< for pound. The >livre< had a weight value of 675 grams.

7 The American Tradition in Literature. Ed. by George Perkins, Sculley Bradley, Richard Croom Beatty, and E. Hudson Long. New York 1985, p. 9.

78




ated by listings of their private library holdings. All of the imported works written by Rousseau were >)advertised for sale in the Colonial press. Such advertisements indicate the taste of the reading public more accurately than do catalogues of private libraries, which indicate individual prefer- ences.<8 Rousseau's Du Contrat Social, which sold under the title Treatise on the Social Compact, or the Principles of Political Law, was an especial favorite and ))he himself is referred to again and again as >the ingenious Rousseau< or >the celebrated Rousseau<.((9 Emile and La Nouvelle Heloise were also in great demand. American Colonial writings, especially John Dickinson's Letters

from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies (1768) and Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer

(1782), were widely read in France. Indeed, the fact that France took an interest in Colonial literature inclined the Colonists toward the French

philosopher's position on government.10 After the American Revolution, in the decade of the 1790s, students attending Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut gave mutual greetings with nicknames )>Voltaire<< and )Rous- seau< when they met each other on the campus. The interest in Rousseau was enduring. People paid an entrance fee to see his life-size wax figure in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1797.11 There were many Colonial Americans who had bilingual expertise in French and English. The inventory of the

circulating libraries of the east-coast American cities at the turn of the 19th

century show that one-fifth of the books in the inventory were non-

English language books. A large number of them were available in the

original French. In most bookstores the writings of Rousseau were avail-

8 The quotation is from The Cambridge Histoty of American Literature. Ed. by William Peterfield Trent, John Erskine, Stuart P. Sherman, and Carl Van Doren. New York 1947, Part I, p. 119.

9 Ibid., pp. 119f. 10 Ibid., pp. 118ff. See also Dickinson, John (1732-1808): Letters from a Farmer in

Pennsylvania, Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Vol. 14. Philadelphia 1895; and Crevecoeur, Michel Guillaume Jean de (1735-1813): Letters from an American Farmer. London 1945.

11 Information concerning the proliferation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's fame in Colonial America can be found in France and North America Over Three Hundred Years of Dialogue. Proceedings of the First Symposium of French-American Studies, April 26-30, 1971. Ed. by Mathe Allain and Glenn R. Conrad. The USL History Series. Lafayette/Louisiana 1973, pp. 77, 82, 85.

79




able in English translation long into the 19th century and any individual, male or female, who was considered as belonging to the intelligentsia surely had some of Rousseau's works in their private libraries.12

It was in this intense relationship that Rousseau's philosophy permeated America's forming Colonial society. The retreat from entrenched

ideology, was an attractive alternative to the vast, fledgling country of the United States in which the lure of self-government was strong. America, the young republic, had a bountiful supply of land. This fact alone enabled

people to move freely to take up farming or other work in new locations. If the local conditions became oppressive, people could pick up their pos- sessions (most of them were sparse enough), move to another place, and make a new start. This was active Romanticism. It was not a question of

escaping responsibility, but rather a matter of establishing new scopes of mankind based upon a recognition of the individual's place in nature. The

unsurpassed opportunity to start anew was complemented by the freedom of mobility. This activity in itself supported the desire for self-government, or as little government as possible.

The process was paralleled in the realm of music. The rebelling Ameri- can composers did not have to compose what the King of England and his

loyalists in the Colonies wanted to hear, regardless of who they might be.

They did the opposite. They undertook musical mobility in their philosophical outlook. This philosophical outlook eventually led to and supported political revolution, as well as cultural revolution in a search for a folk

identity. Taking ideas from the free thinkers of the European continent

and transferring them to America, the early American political philoso-

phers were able, for the first time in history, to establish a government by

design, founded not upon reason alone, but upon a feeling for the innate

qualities of humans. This transfer initially carried over into the field of folk

songs and music as well. The political and cultural life was destined for a

12 For the information concerning the Colonial libraries, public and private, and their holdings, consult Shera, Jesse H.: Foundations of the Public Library: The Origin of the Public Libraty Movement in New England, 1629-1855. Metuchen/New Jersey 1965; Morrison, Samuel E.: The Intellectual life of Colonial New England. New York 1956; Thompson, C. Seymore: Evolution of the American Public Library, 1653-1876. Wash- ington/D.C. 1952; and Laugher, Charles T.: Thomas Bray's Grand Design: Libraries of the Church of England in America. Chicago 1973.

80




>limitless< expansion across a continent, preparing to give its inhabitants a better opportunity for spontaneity, freedom, and self-expression. The musical culture was destined to develop from a singular emphasis on the goals of religion with a cacophony anarchy into a movement based on the wide-

spread cultural needs of a growing nation with a limitless incorporation of instinct and invention, innate genius and spontaneity, feeling, and soul. The Romantic idea of being free and unhampered occurs throughout Rousseau's complete writings. His ideas were read and adapted in the Brit- ish colonies of North America. They would lead to an attitude that embedded itself firmly in the musical literature of the Colonial-Revolutionary period. If the political product in America is the child of Rousseau's philosophy of revolution, then the cultural and musical product is the child of Rousseau's Romanticism.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Rebellious Composer

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was not only a rebellious philosopher against the new school of the Enlightenment. He was sublime Romanticism, a self-

taught musician of a rebellious new movement of music, the subject matter of which is closely linked to the philosophical thought that he promulgated. In other words, he was against the unwavering obedience to the established traditional rules of music composition just as much as he was

against the established political forms. In his thinking and activity non- conditional obedience in both fields was a crime that inhibited the freedom of humans. The creative fountain of innate genius had to be set free for the continued development of humans as political beings. For him the same reasoning applied to the art of music, even though his Lettre a M. d4Alembert sur les Spectacles (Letter to d'Alembert on the Theater) is considered a refutation of artful creativity concerning matters of the theater, the spectacles. Similarly, the Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts is a criticism of the pro- gress of civilization and moral corruption. We cannot, however condemn Rousseau at face value, for he divides art, of which music is an important category, into useful art - like agricultural pursuits - and pleasant art - like luxuries: the former meaning when talents are put to good use for the whole society, and the latter meaning when talents attempt to satisfy only

81




the will of the wealthy. The latter was the >gaite Parisienne<. Music for the French was a ?fete galantes<<; >>opera buffao reigned over >>opera seria<<. These were open to the nobility and composed especially for them. Rous- seau criticized this and demanded a return to Nature where bad morals and bad taste, bad manners and bad art did not exist. In other words, Rousseau denounced those activities that we nowadays refer to as the >fine arts and

letters<<, those activities that are based upon opinion and pleasure, and

praised the utilitarian arts in general, which in their invention undertake to make life for human beings more comfortable. In his age only the wealthy were able to afford the luxury of theater visits, private concerts, and operas, the luxuries of pleasures and opinions. For Rousseau this predilection for fickleness was the source of insensibility and evil corruption of civilization. It was a question of the >haute monde< and the >>demi monde< and the resulting conflict between the two that concerned Rousseau.13 His

judgement on the fine, luxurious arts does not mean that Rousseau argues for a society in which there is all work and no play. On the contrary, his

argument is that singularly all play and no work supports the vices and

corrupts the morals of society. There should be a healthy equilibrium mak-

ing work and play available to all levels of society. In the modern world

where it is possible for all levels of society to take part in the fine arts, Rousseau would surely not view the spectacles as being of immense luxury. Furthermore, creative genius is not limited to a social class. It can have its

source in the rusticity of the common person, as well as in the intelligence of those reared with golden spoons in their hands. The aim is to use this

innate genius for the betterment of life for all of the body politic. Coming from the rustic countryside of the city-state Geneve, Rousseau's life as a

composer of music and musical texts is a paradigm of this innate genius usefulness vis-a-vis the affinities of the luxurious classes he encountered

throughout his life.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is not only important concerning the changes that occurred as a result of his influence and immanence in the literature of

confession, in the establishment of political systems, in expansion of phi-

losophy, or the establishment of a humane sociology and education. His

13 Refer to Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts. Part 2. In: Rousseau, Jean-Jacques: CEuvres Completes. Paris 1959-1964, vol. 3, p. 26.

82




immanence and influence transcends these fields. Additionally, it surely springs up in the craft of music. As with much of his learning, Jean-

Jacques Rousseau's formal musical education was little or none. What

training he received was of vocal instruction. Like that of the other sub-

jects with which he was concerned, the larger segment of his musical

knowledge was autodidactic, by reading Jean-Philippe Rameau's

(1683-1764) Traite de l'harmonie (1722), and by copying music- a profession and source of income throughout his life. Already at the age of 18 he was selling his musical services as a composer and as a singing instructor.

By the age of 22 he was writing both words and music for a serious opera. At 24 he was composing the music for a second opera. Among his Benja- min Franklin-like inventions was a scheme for replacing notes with ci-

phers. Presented to the >>Academie des Sciences<< in Paris when he moved there in 1742, it was rejected as a method of musical notation because it could be used to score simple accompaniment only. This, of course, was the reason Rousseau invented it. Simple accompaniments were the kind of music that he thought were the most natural. As a result of the rejection by the ?Academie des Sciences<< Rousseau wrote the Dissertation sur la musique moderne (1743) to defend his system. Both the notation scheme and the defense were rebuffed as being impractical by the composer of the age, Jean-Philippe Rameau, who in 1735 had composed his heroic ballet Les Indes galantes. Upon receiving this disesteem Rousseau began composing the music and text of his own opera-ballet, Les muses galantes. The intent was to show the French world that Rameau was not the only able com-

poser. But when in May of 1743 Rousseau departed Paris to become the

secretary to the French ambassador in the Republic of Venice, his opera- ballet - a favorite method of interlude in the French opera - was unfinished. It was in Venice that Rousseau came into live contact with Italian

stage opera, orchestra concerts, and the common art of Venetian popular songs- the singing gondoliers. Copies of these songs appeared in a

posthumous publication Les consolations des miseres de ma vie ou Recueil d'airs, romances et duos (1781).

Jean-Jacques Rousseau spent only one year in Venice. This experience with Italian music is consequently short. Upon returning to Paris in 1744, he turned his attentions to the finishing of Les musesgalantes. When Rameau

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heard sections of the opera-ballet he verbally pounced upon the composer, claiming that the work was done by an idiot, asserting that the bad parts were surely of Rousseau's doing and that any good parts were definitely plagiarized. Such false charges accompanied Rousseau's fame as a musical

composer as well as his fame as a philosopher. It is too simple to contend that this unjust evaluation was the result of his lack of professional training

only. He did claim to be a composer and as such became a rival to Rameau

and the establishment. The same process occurred with respect to his philosophical works. Not having received private tutoring from a well-known

educator, and not having received a university education in philosophy, he

nevertheless had the audacity to become a rival to the Parisian intellectuals, Denis Diderot (1713-1784), being the most influential and, therefore, the

most able to keep Rousseau from being fully recognized. In addition, it

was not common for one to be both a successful composer and a success-

ful philosopher. Plagiarism had to exist somewhere. The crux of the matter

is that Rousseau just did not fit in the group of effeminate intellectuals. He

was a rule breaker. He was from a lower social class. His music compositions did not conform to the rigid strictures of Rameauesque theory. Nei-

ther did his philosophical works remain confined to the rule that they should appeal to the intelligentsia and satisfy their whims only. He broke

with the constraints of both. In 1745 at the Castle of Versailles, a revised performance of Lesfetes de

Ramire, originally texted and scored by Voltaire and Rameau respectively, received positive court judgement. This revision, accomplished by the

poet-musician Rousseau, was acclaimed by the Versailles court and it put Rousseau into contact with the directory of the Parisian Opera who per- suaded him to revise Les muses galantes. When finished in 1747 it was given a general public rehearsal with positive criticism. But Rousseau withdrew

the work before it was put on the performance bill, supposedly on the

grounds that his genius was being exploited. Five years later in October 1752 Rousseau was triumphant as a com-

poser. An >intermede<<- an interlude piece - Le devin du village was staged for the king's court at Fontainebleau. It was an immediate success and was

acclaimed as being the work of a self-taught genius. It was so popular that

it permeated French culture, being performed well into the age of Hector

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Berlioz (1803-1869) in the 19th century. It was even exported to foreign countries. The English version was known as The Cunning-Man (1766) and

adapted by the English music historian Dr Charles Burney (1726-1814).14 The fame of the Le devin du village rests on its emerging Romantic character. It presents humans as they are and society as it is. The work's message is

simple and down-to-earth, majestic in its rusticity, passionate and pertinent to its own age and the following eras. The plot is concerned with the ve-

nality and corruption of the higher social classes and how that deplorable state can be triumphantly overcome by the simple, rustic virtues that are

innately of high spiritual, moral, and intellectual value. Rousseau's style contains the same simplicity and rustic attributes. The music is the melody of the people; it is their innate language. The whole theme is underscored not only by both music and text, but also by the gavotte dance rhythms. Rousseau shows the importance of a non-embellished musical style with a

pervading folkishness. The length of performance, about an hour, com-

plements the theme, as does the number of characters: there are only three. Rules were also broken. A spoken dialogue does not exist; this, indeed,

being a consequential >adieu< to the established genre of French interludes. In spite of all this praise, Le devin du village has, in hindsight, its shortcom-

ings. For example, some musical chords are dissonant and thin, some lead-

ing notes are doubled, and some part-writing is inadequate. On the other

hand, this can be interpreted as belonging to the quality of breaking with the established rules of the past. In one location there is such an explosive treatment of the chord that its scoring predates accepted 19th century rules of harmony by almost one hundred years. This occurs where the seventh chord is preceding the cadenza in Dans ma cabane obscure.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a prime example of the Romantic in paradox, for immediately following the encompassing success of Le devin du village he

penned a most eloquent denouncement of French opera, his Lettre sur la

musique franfaise (1753), in which he concluded that the French language was not suitable for the composition of opera. A most fiery and acrimoni- ous debate concerning the merits of French music vis-a-vis Italian music

ensued, fuelled by the sparks of Rousseau's revolutionary ideas, which

14 Dr Charles Burney, organist, composer, and music historian is famous for his four volume History of Music, 1776-1789.

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went so far as to claim that French music was not worthy to be named as music. He would show what music was. Almost 20 years later his work

Pygmalion (1770, already formulated in the 1760s) proved to be a direct

consequence of this standpoint.15 Introduced by a symphony and contain-

ing interludes - 26 in all - composed by the contemporary violinist, singer, harpsichordist, and composer from Lyons, Horace Coignet (1735-1821), except for two andantes by Rousseau, Pygmalion is a spoken melodramatic monodrama. When performed in Paris - the first staging was in Lyons -

Rousseau carelessly, but evidently not intentionally, neglected to indicate that it had been done in concert with Coignet, who claimed the music to

be of his creation, as indeed 90 % of it was.16 Again Rousseau was accused

of plagiarism and this attack raised earnest doubts about his talents as a

poetic-composer. The originality he had shown in Le devin du village was

seriously questioned and it haunted him for the remainder of his life.

Rousseau's final musical opus was Daphnis et Chloe, a pastoral opera follow-

ing very closely the style of Le devin du village. It was unfinished upon his

death in 1778 and was printed posthumously in 1779.

The American Colonies: Rebellious Composers

It is exactly the maturation of popular, Colonial music in the United States

of America that contains within it an expression of the democratic and

Romantic impulses found in the political philosophy of the French phi-

losopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, notwithstanding his musical philosophy. The outpouring of nationalistic sentiment during the exciting Revolution-

ary Era that first stimulated the Colonial literati such as the Connecticut

Wits, most notably John Trumbull (1750-1831), Timothy Dwight

(1752-1817), David Humphreys (1752-1818), Joel Barlow (1754-1812),

15 Georg Benda's (1722-1795) work Ariadne aufNaxos, first performed in 1775, is considered to be the first example of the melodramatic genre, although anticipated by Rousseau's Pygmalion already in 1770.

16 In a letter to the Mecure de France in January of 1771, Coignet wrote that all but two of the 26 )?ritournelles<< in Pygmalion had been composed by him, the remaining two by Rousseau. See Salles, A.: Horace Coignet et le Pygmalion de Rousseau in Revue musicale de Lyon. Decembre 24, 31, 1905. The instrumental interludes to Rousseau's Pygmalion are the only extant compositions by Horace Coignet.

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the only Wit to remain true to the initial philosophy of the American

Revolution, and Fisher Ames (1758-1808), the speaker for the new Fed- eralist Party, to warn against corrupting old world influences and dream of a unique destiny for the new American nation, found expression in the area of popular music. However, as in political life, the educated classes would soon abandon the idea that these first native musical compositions represented the innate genius of ordinary men. Instead, they rejected these native works as coarse, crude, and undisciplined, and reverted to European forms as a source of standards.

We see the pattern which took place in the political thought of the Co- lonial Revolutionary age and the development of an American literary identity repeating itself in the area of popular music. The Revolutionary Era, with its ideological and military struggles, set changes in motion. These changes were in the direction of awakening the common man to his

highest potentialities and honoring his innate capacity to be creative and

self-governing. The changes were marked by a recognition of what was

special, good, authentic, and non-European in the American experience. This necessitated a widespread questioning of inherited political, social, and cultural arrangements. There was a general increase in vitality among the population. The great events of the day seemed to awaken the common man and activate his energies, stimulating his imagination to dream of

grand destinies and ideal realizations. This awakening was stimulated by the radical thinking of Rousseau's democracy and early Romanticism. The force of events in America, which had been intellectually parented by Rousseau in France, was the main source of the new energies in the air, and of the new images in the minds of the populace. Even the conservatives who supported the Revolutionary War were initially caught up in the excitement. The questioning of European ways, and the envisioning of a

special destiny for the new nation, as is reflected in the writings of the Connecticut Wits during the late 1770s and the early 1780s, were part of that engagement. But inevitably many of the monarchical-oriented elements of society soon began to dwell on the destabilizing aspects of the American Revolution, on the radical implications of the act of throwing off the old order with its inherited forms and habits of submission to au-

thority. Many broke faith with the revolutionary spirit of the times, turning

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back to the old order as a defense against chaos. Some of the staunch Co- lonial conservatives even turned Tory and many of this group returned to

England in a back-to-Britain mania. It is not true that the most important reason for the waning of popular

music was the cataclysm of the Revolutionary War, a time when the Ameri- can Colonists had more to do and to think about than just singing. But it is true that popular music in Colonial North America underwent a pattern that is echoed in the following manner. America was a pioneer society. Its culture was provincial. Its psychology depended upon the individual as

proclaimed and protected by the will of God. This communication with the

Almighty could best be facilitated through prayer and the singing of song to

His glory. Therefore music had a very limited place in the American Colo- nial Period. Like the other arts, it suffered from neglect in a society under

religious constraints. Like art, poetry, dance, popular music had to seek a

place in a hierarchy that did not actively desire its presence. The first extant piece of American secular composition composed in ei-

ther 1759 or 1760, by the Philadelphia lawyer, author, designer, judge, states-

man, and musician Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791), was not written until

almost 140 years after the landing of the first Pilgrim Colonists.17 Tited My

Days have been so wondrous (and) freel8 and composed for voice and harpsichord, its contents reflect and predate by 22 years the same kind of reverie

for life that Rousseau expounds in his book Les Reveries du Promeneur Solitaire,

published in 1782. My Days have been so wondrous (and)free is a short song with

charming music and lyrics composed in the British ballad style. Herein lies

the irony of the American piece: a British style is still evident. The composition is surely one of the singular pieces that attempted to set itself free from

the 17th- and 18th-century Protestantism holding a strangling grasp that prohibited the development of a popular, secular music tradition. Hopkinson was a fairly prolific composer who is famous as the first native-born Ameri-

can who wrote harpsichord scores. The work is tiled Seven Songsfor the Harp-

17 Francis Hopkinson was a self-made man in many respects. He invented a shade for candles and a method to quill harpsichords. For more detailed information on Francis Hopkinson read Hastings, George E.: The Life and Works of Francis Hopkin- son. Chicago 1923.

18 Some references leave out the word >and?. The words ))wondrous< and >free< are often capitalized.

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sichord or Forte Piano (1759). In a dedication of the work to President George Washington in 1788, Francis Hopkinson gave himself the credit for the first American composition. He wrote ))[...] I cannot, I believe, be refused the Credit of being the first Native of the United States who has produced a Musical Composition.'19 If we accept the term )>Musical Composition< to mean a secular piece of music and not a sacred piece of music, then Hop- kinson's claim is correct. It is most likely that he did not consider that

hymns and psalm tunes did not meet the qualifications as ?>Musical Compo- sitions<. This conclusion is more easily accepted when we take into account that this self-taught musician, who began to play the harpsichord at age 17 and who, like Rousseau, copied music, which enabled him to gain a knowl-

edge of the works of Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778), Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785), Francesco Gem- iniani (c 1685-1762), Georg Friedrich Handel (1685-1759), and Johann Stamitz (1717-1757), composed music for public concerts given by visiting European musicians in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Francis Hopkinson's greatest claim to fame in American history, however, lies in his being one of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence. His prose and satires were influential in the struggle for American independence and the later

adoption of the United States Constitution. Two important Colonial composers who wrote hymns and lively fuging

tunes of the period were William Billings (1746-1800) and Daniel Read

(1757-1836). Billings, as an example of the self-made man, was not only an auto-didactic composer, but likewise an auto-didactic singing conductor who had learned the trade of tanner. He also depended upon work as an

inspector of trade, as a scavenger, and as a hog-catcher. His knowledge of music was a direct outgrowth of the psalm singing tradition, the rules of

composition from which he early declared his independence. His notations

very aptly indicate an attempt to depart from the established ways of writing music and to lead towards an indigenous American style. In addition, he makes prefatory remarks in the introduction to his book The New-England

19 Capitals are in the original text. See Hopkinson's Seven Songs for the Harpsichord or Forte Piano. Philadelphia 1788. Republished in Musical Americana. Ed. by Harry Dichter. Philadelphia 1954. See also Hastings, George E.: The Life and Works of Francis Hopkinson. Chicago 1926, pp. 440-445; and Chase, Gilbert: America's Music: From the Pilgrims to the Present. New York 1955, pp. 99-100.

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Psalm-Singer, or, American Chorister that are filled with true American patriotism, as are some of the texts he penned and set to music. He was definitely unwilling to follow established rules of composition. It may be that because of this characteristic his published collections were widely known at first and sung often, enough to initially enable him to give up his trade of tanner in order to devote himself to the composition of music, which ranged from anthems to hymns to psalms.20 Above all, his anthems were composed in chordal style, succeeded by melodic tune. It is sad that for a number of reasons he outlived the popularity of his music and died penniless.

In the minds of posterity and American music historians William Bill-

ings is considered the best of the native American Colonial composers. The

New-England Psalm-Singer, or, American Chorister, published in Boston in 1770 contains 123 compositions, all by Billings. It is the first collection and the first music proclamation of an American identity by any American com-

poser. He reminds us of the early Romantic teaching of Rousseau's original genius when he speaks for the radicalism of his contemporaries in stating in The New-England Psalm-Singer

Perhaps it may be expected by some, that I should say something concerning Rules for Composition; to these I answer that Nature is the best Dictator, for all the hard, dry, studied rules that ever were

prescribed, will not enable any person to form an air. [...] It must be Nature, Nature must lay the foundation, Nature must inspire the

Thought. [...] For my own Part, as I don't think myself confin'd to any Rules for composition,laiddown by any that went before me, neither should I think (were I to pre- tend to lay down Rules) that any one who came after me were any ways obligated to adhere to them, any further than they should think proper; so in fact, I think it best for every Composer to be his own Carver. [...] Artis subser- vient to genius.21

20 At that time an anthem was the setting of a biblical text to music. A hymn was the setting of any text praising God to music, whether of biblical origin or not. A psalm tune was the setting of a psalm to music.

21 William Billings in the introduction to The New-England Psalm Singer, or American Chor- ister. Boston 1770, no page number. The italicized emphasis is the present author's.

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This is quite an assertive statement for a man who was of no strong physi- cal stature, had a short leg, one eye, unkempt appearance, and no address. In a number of his compositions Billings showed that the concept of innate genius could be sparked to life and could burn brightly even if one had not undergone formal musical education and training. The New-England Psalm-Singer contained many patriotic works. Canons, or as they were called in the Colonial times >rounds< or >fuging tunes<, were one of his special- ties. His types were >>twenty times more powerful than the old slow tunes< because each part >>(strove) for mastery and victory< of the motif.22 In the austere canon When Jesus Wept William Billings has David sing an emotional lamentation to a soft melody that lingers in the musical ear when heard. This memorable characteristic of being an >>ear worm< is compara- ble to the grandeur to be found in his anthem compositions The Lord is Risen Indeed, David's Lamentation, and Be Glad Then America. These religious works of earnestness and authoritativeness contrast to the comic buoyancy of the non-religious song Modem Music. Another aspect of Billings' innate

geniality is that when he was criticized for not being able to compose dissonant music, William Billings replied with his well-known dissonance

composition, humorously titled Jargon. It is a choral work that consists of dissonance only.23 Jargon is quite humorous due to the fact that the intro-

ductory directions of how it should be sung is a satire on the art of performance. It is dedicated to the >Goddess of Discord<, whose text is as

ironically jovial as Billing's introduction:

Let horrid Jargon split the air, and rive the Nerves asunder, Let hateful Discord greet the ear As terrible as Thunder.

William Billings knew the art of singing performance quite well due to his being an itinerant singing master. It was out of this experience that he

22 Ibid. 23 In music dissonance means sounds separated from each other that result from a

combination of tones that suggest unrelieved tension. When heard the tones sound bad in the ear. For the music and the text consult Music In America. An An- thology From The Landing Of The Pilgrims To The Close Of The Civil War, 1620-1865. Ed. by W. Thomas Marrocco and Harald Gleason. New York 1964, p. 113.

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published The New-England Psalm-Singer in 1770, engraved by the Boston

patriot Paul Revere (it shows singers sitting at a table); The Singing Master's Assistant (1778), commonly known as Billings' Best, the contents of which were often pilfered and notoriously copied by many of his contemporaries; and The Continental Harmony (1794), the title of which had political over- tones in an age when the United States of America had just reformed itself under the Constitution. In the latter work he went so far as to proclaim that >when fancy (Billings' word for creativity) gets upon the wing, she seems to despise all form, and scorns to be confined or limited by any formal

prescriptions whatsoever.<24 William Billings is also famous for being the composer of the patriotic

hymn Lamentation over Boston and the early national anthem Chester, both of which became popular during the Revolutionary War, with little regard paid to the composer. Chester served as a semi-official national anthem of the United States of America until the adoption of Francis Scott Key's The

Star-Spangled Banner on 3 March 1931, when it was signed into law by President Herbert Hoover. Before that time Chester, Hail to the Chief, or The

President's March were used in official ceremonies as the combined national anthem of the United States of America.25

24 Introduction to Billings, William: The Continental Harmony. Boston 1794, p. 3. 25 For an interesting history of the American National Anthem, see Krythe, M.R.:

Sampler of American Songs. New York: 1969, pp. 15-39. It is a common belief that Key wrote the text and composed the music of The Star-Spangled Banner. Only half of this is true. The text is Key's, but the musical score is that of the old English beer drinking song To Anacron in Heaven, claimed to have been composed by John Stafford Smith (c 1750-1836) in 1779. It was very popular in England and was brought by settlers to the American Colonies. For further background information consult Nettl, P.: National Anthems. New York 1967; and Report on >)The Star-Spangled Banner(, ))Hail Columbia(<, )America<, ))Yankee Doodle(. Ed. by Oscar G. Sonneck. New York 1972. Many songs have served as semi-official anthems of the United States. The President's March, first published in 1798, is credited to Philip Phile (17??-1796), a German-born musician, music educator, and conductor who came to the United States sometime before 1784. It was set to Hail Columbia (1798), by Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842), the son of Francis Hopkinson. Amer- ica, also known as My Country Tis of Thee (1831), by Rev. Samuel Francis Smith (1808-1895), and sung to the melody of God Save The Queen was used as the national anthem at the beginning of the 20th century as was America The Beautiful (1893), by Catherine Lee Bates (1859-1929). The latter was sung to various tunes, the most common being those by Will C. Macfarland (1870-1945) and Samuel A.

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The Colonial Revolutionary soldiers brought the music and text of Chester to their military camps and it was an especial favorite of all fife and drum corps. The patriotism is apparent and needs little discussion.

Chester

Let tyrants shake their iron rod, And slavery clank her galling chains, We fear them not, we trust in God, New England's God forever reigns.

Howe and Burgoyne and Clinton too, With Prescott and Cornwallis joined, Together plot our overthrow In one infernal league combined.

When God inspired us for the fight, Their ranks were broke, their lines were forced, Their ships were shattered in our sight Or swiftly driven from our coast.

The foe comes on with haughty stride, Our troops advance with martial noise, Their veterans flee before our youth, And generals yield to beardless boys.

What grateful offering shall we bring, What shall we render to the Lord? Loud Hallelujahs let us sing, And praise His name on every chord.26

Ward (1814?-1884?), who composed the most renowned version titled Matema (1882). America The Beautiful is recognized as the national hymn of the United States of America.

26 Billings, William: The Singing Master's Assistant, or, Key to PracticalMusic. Boston 1778. In lines 5 and 6 the named persons were British generals during the American

Revolutionary War. General William Howe (1729-1814) was Commander-in- Chief of the British Army in North America from 1776-1778. General John Bur-

goyne (1722-1797) was the British commander during the Saratoga campaign and was defeated by superior American forces. General Henry Clinton (1738-1795) was the British Commander-in-Chief in North America between 1778 and 1781. General Robert Prescott (1725-1816) was Governor-General of Quebec. General

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If we time-machine ourselves back to the atmosphere of the Revolutionary War during which Chester became the most popular patriotic folksong, we should find that the title has nothing to do with the use of it as a male

name, which is most common today. The clarity with which the text force-

fully opposes tyranny is supported by the etymology of the word Chester. The nomenclature can be traced back to the Indo-European stem >kes-2<, which means )to cut<. From this developed the Latin )castrum< meaning >fortified place<<, a )camp<<, a place )cut off< from a civilian settlement.

From this the English language developed the word )chester<, very common as the ending of many English localities to signify that they were a

>fortified place<. Transferred to the American Revolutionary atmosphere Chester means that the American Colonies were fighting for their independence; ?to cut themselves off from the tyranny<< of Great Britain and to establish ?a new fortification of democracy<<, a concept that is often referred to in American history as >fortress America(<. In Chester Billings ex-

presses a confidence that the new nation would be able to shake off iron

gun barrels of despotism and persecutive chains of tyranny. The immediate

post-Revolutionary cultural climate was full of the optimism that Ameri- cans could create their own culture free of English influence. Just as the American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758-1843) with his book A

Grammatical Institute of the English Language (1783) cried out for an American

language that would serve the needs of an American people, William Bill-

ings and his music sounded the call for creative individual American com-

posers and voices.

If, in the one ear, Billings' music is considered crude because it

abounds in technical faults, in the other ear, it must be considered ?avant

garde< for its day because the faults that were considered technical in his

times have now become accepted. An example is his use of parallel fifths, the movement of multi-voices in continuous distance from each other.

Once considered to be strongly forbidden, the parallel movements are now

accepted in musical scoring. The rough-cut mass of his music deserves to

Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805) was the British Army commander in the southern North American colonies. He is most famous for the surrender of the British forces in North America at Yorktown, Virginia on 19 October 1781. Cornwallis was also Governor General of India (1786-1793, 1805) and Viceroy of Ireland 1798-1801.

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be sung by experienced voices >a cappella?, but they may be accompanied by the discreet playing of an organ or orchestra. This is Billings' challenge. When sung professionally and correctly they emit powerful sounds from within the human being. On the whole, his music has the characteristics of

vitality, freshness, and straightforwardness in its presentation of motifs and

rhythm. The value lies in the compositions being an important part of the American folk culture tradition. Billings himself, although not in servitude to rules or regulations of composition, was limited in his abilities by the

society for which he wrote and composed: the archaic New England Con-

gregational Church of Boston. Even so, he is America's 18th-century com-

poser.27 Daniel Read (1757-1836) served as a private in George Washington's

Continental Army between 1777 and 1778. A farmer, surveyor, and owner of a general store by profession, Read began composing at the age of 19. His American Singing Book of 1785 contained his music only. This established him as one of the leading psalm tune composers of the latter part of the 18th century. He composed more than 80 pieces of psalm music and in

retrospective is seen as a pioneer musician in the forming of an American music genre, even though he considered his contribution somewhat infe- rior to the European style of devotional music. Nevertheless, three publications establish his reputation as a cornerstone of the group of developing psalm tune composers. They are the patriotically titled Columbian Harmonist

(1793-1795), the singing instruction book without music An Introduction to

Psalmody (1790), and with Amos Doolittle (1754-1832), the American Musi- cal Magazne (1786-1787), the first American musical periodical.28

Other psalmodists worthy of mention are Simeon Jocelin (1746-1823), Andrew Law (1749-1821), Lewis Edson (1748-1820), and Timothy Swan

(1758-1842). On the one note, they are known for their European orientation in music, and on the other note, with their indigenous attempts to establish American singing schools, they played an important role in the

development of an American musical scene. Simeon Jocelyn, more a com-

27 For more background read McKay, D.P./ Crawford, R.: William Billings of Boston: 18th-century American Composer. Princeton/New Jersey 1975.

28 Refer to Metcalf, Frank J.: American Writers and Compilers of Sacred Music. New York 1925, for more detailed information.

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piler than a composer, published Chorister's Companion in 1782. It changed the content of psalmist tunes by combining both indigenous American

psalm music and established favorite British tunes into one compendium. His contemporary and travelling musician, Andrew Law, a self-

righteous New England Calvinist, while declaring a preference for Euro-

pean music, spent the last eight years of his life trying to convert singers and teachers to adopt his non-staff, shape-note tunes that he had published in The Art of Singing (1794) and to make thereof an American singing style. In his Musical Primer (1793) he even attacked native American com-

posers for relying on the repertories of the British composers. One could

prefer European music, but one did not have to rely on their works to

compose indigenous American pieces. Lewis Edson was a Connecticut composer who, unlike Billings, had a

uniform music style that was more widely accepted than that of Billings. Edson's compositions are more harmonious and less crude, and this may account for Billings' style becoming increasingly less attractive. He was not the rebel that Billings and the others were.

Timothy Swan's music, on the other hand, very much resembled Bill-

ings' compositions, particularly with respect to the emphasis on secular

songs and instrumental accompaniment. Collectively these composers and

compilers stand for the beginning of a unique American music genre. The

Romantic qualities in their attempts to create an indigenous American

singing style lies in the harmonic roughness of their melodies. When cou-

pled with melodic folkishness their music is charmingly fresh, inspired,

imaginative, and original. All of these men are credited with giving a new idiom and harmonic vi-

tality to native American music during the period from 1770 to 1800. They were generalists who were often forced to practice three or four trades at

the same time to make a living. However, the work of these men in psalm-

ody was to no avail. There were others like Oliver Holden (1765-1844) of

Charleston, Massachusetts and Samuel Adams Holyoke (1762-1820) of

Boxford, Massachusetts and Concord, New Hampshire who in their song book the Massachusetts Compiler, published in Boston in 1795, offered a

collection of European music and a long essay preface that praised >mod-

ern? European music theory. The emphasis the authors placed upon the

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term >modern( implies that European music principles were better and that the homeliness nature of American music was a degenerate development. Indeed, Holden's works are of a European-oriented style than any indigenous American composer to his day. Holyoke's 650 compositions in the Columbian Repository of 1802 were also in the European vogue. Symp- tomatic of the European orientation at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century is the life of Uri K. Hill (1780-1844) of Vermont and his musical peregrination from a rural atmosphere and musical vein to a cosmopolitan setting. His first singing school book The Vermont Harmony (1801) suits the tastes of the pioneer spirit in Vermont. In Boston in 1806 he published The Sacred Minstrel, influenced by the sacred music of Great Britain. This suited the tastes of the growing city. In New York in 1814 Hill published the Handelian Repository, followed in 1820 by the Solfeggio Americano.29 These met the tastes of the fast-growing metropolitan center. The fate of indigenous American music creations was sealed. By the be-

ginning of the 19th century the psalm tunes of Great Britain had won the

day and European styles replaced American idioms.30 The musical creativity of the post-Colonial composer, yet non-native

born James Hewitt (1770-1827) in his battle piece The Battle of Trenton, quotes the folk song Yankee Doodle and pre-dates two other world famous

pieces of the same genre. The one is Ludwig van Beethoven's Wellington's Victory, known as The Battle of Vitoria, Opus 91, pre-dated by at least 15

years. It also quotes folk songs like Malbrouck s'en va t'en guerre, known to Americans as The Bear Went Over the Mountain, and the British anthem God Save the King. The other battle piece is Petr Illych Tchaikovsky's 1812 Festi- val Overture, Opus 49. It quotes the old Russian hymn God Preserve Thy People and the French anthem La Marseillaise. The work was premiered 83 years after the Battle of Trenton, which was originally composed in 1792 and published in 1797 as a Grand Military Sonatafor the Pianoforte. The Battle of Trenton commemorates George Washington's victory over the British at Trenton,

29 The Italian term )solfeggio?< denotes >>singing exercises?, ?>singing practice< according to >ut [do], re, mi, fa, so, la, sa, (ut [do])<<, or particular text syllables in order to acquire exactness in reaching tones and to train the ear.

30 Consult Lowens, Irving: Music and Musicians in Early America. New York 1964; Metcalf: American Writers; and McCormick, D.W.: Oliver Holden, Compiler and An- thologist. Doctoral dissertation. Union Theological Seminary. New York 1963.

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New Jersey on 26 December 1776. Hewitt was an accomplished conduc-

tor, claiming to have received concert experience under Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809) and Camille Pleyel (1788-1855), the famous Austrian pianist and piano maker. James Hewitt's importance in the shaping of early American music lies in his making composers available to the general public at open concerts and in publishing three recognized treatises concerning the importance of and methods used in musical education.3

Reprise

Although there is no solid evidence that Rousseau's Romantic philosophy of man had any direct influence on these indigenous, Colonial music-

makers, it does not mean that Rousseau's influence was not felt. The indi-

rect influence, the immanence, and spiritual kinship are striking. They are

present in the fact that this new original American music idiom has ele-

ments common in the music of Rousseau and the Romantic Movement:

folkish tunes, irregular phrase lengths, lack of suspension, natural minor

(Aeolian) and gapped scales, occasional lack of closure, parallel fifths and

octaves, rhythmic independence of voices (fuging), sudden dissonance as a

result of contrapuntal part-writing, triadic and dyadic harmonies, uncon-

ventional harmonic progressions, virile rhythms.32 These American Colo-

nial pioneer artists, their personalities, their working environments, their

musical independence show that they were like Rousseau. They were rule-

breakers. The musical radicalism of this group consisted of unconventional

harmonious progressions and rhythmic independence of voices. The lively

fuging tunes composed by the men listed above were also marked by sud-

den dissonance resulting from contrapuntal part writing, with the excep- tion of Billings, who stayed true to consonance, but when challenged to

execute a dissonance composition, proved his geniality.33

31 See Wagner, J.W.: James Hewitt: His Life and Works. Doctoral dissertation. Bloom-

ington/Indiana 1969. 32 Allen P. Britton in The Musical Idiom in Ear/y American Tunebooks, an essay that

appeared in The Journal of the American Musicological Society 3 (1959), p. 286, presents a concise summary of the characteristics of early American Colonial music.

33 Music In America [Marrocco/Gleason], p. 99.

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Rousseau's philosophy of free man-in-nature, free man-in-government, and free man-in-a-free-society permeated not only political and social life and thought, but also seeped into the realm of music, becoming free creative genius in art. Indeed, for the artist to create, natural freedom must be

present. This natural freedom necessitated breaking with established form and yes, the native composers broke with the established and inherited

forms, if only for a short time. They also broke out of the attitude of ac-

quiescence to their European betters and freed themselves from the powerful moral restrictions imposed by the local Colonial clergy. Their compositions reflect a great enthusiasm for self-expression through musical works. They were proud, self-confident men who put their faith in their own native talents. In the words of Gilbert Chase, speaking of Daniel Read and the composers of his generation:

The American inferiority complex in music was a later development. The men of Read's generation proceeded with sublime self- assurance and confidence in America's musical destiny.34

These expressions of musical talent came from simple, untutored men with only a rudimentary knowledge of tradition and established rules. Their musical creations are unselfconscious expressions of native bents. They were nourished by the American experience and by the spirit of independence it and Jean-Jacques Rousseau promulgated. These American composers were men of humble origin who largely educated themselves. Accord-

ing to music historian Gilbert Chase, America's ))[...] early music makers

belonged to that self-reliance breed of men who built the first towns, established farms, schools, banks, and stores [...]<35 rather than something derived from European sources.

The Revolutionary period provided a stimulus to these efforts. One result was the composition of new national folk airs. Chester, Yankee Doodle, Hail Columbia, and The Star-Spangled Banner are the most prominent exam-

ples.36 Yet, although the Revolutionary War saw a flowering of popular

34 Chase: America's Music, p. 136. 35 Ibid., p. 134. 36 See Report on )>The Star-Spangled Bannero [Sonneck], which is a reprint of the 1909

edition. Consult also the short historical note on the record jacket of the album Greatest Band in the Land! The Goldman Band Conducted by Richard Franko Goldman. Capitol Records, SP 8639.

99




>)American<< musical creativity, a closer examination shows that this Ameri- can creativity was often limited to changes in the notation of British songs and texts. A prime example is that when the British soldiers sang Yankee Doodle with a derisive set of lyrics like

Yankee Doodle came to town For to buy a firelock; We will tar and feather him And so will we John Hancock37,

in order to taunt the flopping Colonial soldiers, the Colonial supporters of

the American rebellion changed the words of the song Yankee Doodle into an American version to deride their anti-rebellion opponents. Particularly after the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June 1775 it became a Revolutionary

song. In this sense we can consider it to be an American product. The most common musical score is that composed by James Hewitt in 1798

and titled New Yankee Doodle.38 The word ?yankee< was a nickname the British used for New England-

ers and may have had the derisive connotation of ?coward<. )A doodle<< is

the term used by the British to mean a )dope, half-wit, fool, simpleton<(. The most popular derisive verse sung by British troops, particularly outside

church during the Colonists' religious services when the church goers were

dressed in their best clothes, was

37 Consult Ewen, David: All The Years Of American Popular Music. Englewood Cliffs/New Jersey 1977, pp. 6-7. A )>firelock(( is another word for ?flintlock<<, a

gunlock in which a flint was embedded into the hammer, which when triggered produced a spark that lighted the charge to fire the projectile out of the barrel.

John Hancock (1737-1793) was an American Revolutionary and statesman. He was the first signer of the American Declaration of Independence and the first

governor of the state of Massachusetts serving terms from 1780-1785 and again from 1787-1793.

38 See Music In America [Marrocco/ Gleason], p. 282. James Hewitt texted five new verses. They dealt with the patriotic stand of guarding America's shipping and coasts against the British and French attacks that had resulted out of the Jay Treaty of 1794, whereby Great Britain evacuated her posts in the American Northwest, but did not cease stopping and searching American ships. Seeing Great Britain at an advantage, France began doing the same thing with American ships. James Hewitt's verses have been omitted.

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Yankee Doodle came to town Riding on a pony; He stuck a feather in his hat And called it macaroni.

This was followed by the refrain

Yankee Doodle keep it up, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mind the music and the step, And with the girls be handy.

On the surface the words are harmless, but when we understand that the text really says the half-witted Yanks come into town riding on ponies, they are nothing but little boys, because men ride horses. Furthermore,

they are effeminate because they stick feathers in their hats, and being so dumb they think they are macaroni and call themselves so, macaroni being a euphemism for a vain man who assumed well-bred European manner- isms. The refrain says that they should keep doing this all of their lives because they are dandies, who are not real men, for they have nothing in their minds but the frivolity of music, dancing, and carrying on with girls, not interested in mature women. These lyrics could have described both the Colonists and the British, but as a British taunt, the former, since it would have been very likely that a New England or New York frontier

Colonist, at least when he came into town (on Sundays), would try to dress

up in the latest vogue, which was British, and, therefore, would be an (out of place) dandy, dressed up in extravagant clothing.

The stanza just related is the most widely known. The fact that it did not appear in print until 1852 does not rule out its being a Revolutionary War taunt for both the Colonists and British. In fact the versions of Yankee Doodle are so numerous that a sound dating of any original version seems to be impossible. Some improbable theories are that it is the tune Nero fiddled while Rome burned; that it is the rebellious song sung during Oliver Cromwell's rule in England (1653-1658)39; that it is an Irish jig.

39 Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), English Puritan, soldier, statesman, emerging victorious from the English Civil War, established the English Commonwealth upon the beheading of Charles I (1600-1649, reigned from 1625). Oliver Crom-

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Some more probable theories are that it is a British tune dating to 1745; that it is an indigenous Colonial tune composed in 1758; that it was written

by a Harvard graduate, Edward Bangs, who did text the most common

Revolutionary War lyrics of the patriotic folksong relating a visit of a

young boy with his father to a camp of General George Washington's Continental Army. The atmosphere is that the army unit is getting ready to commence a battle and that the British will be defeated because the American Revolutionary Army is well trained and of high morale.

New Yankee Doodle, 1798

Arranged by J[ames] Hewitt (1770-1827)

4p p pp PP 1Ln '- ' L

1,r"- vpp I

yr L

Symphony

well was succeeded by his son Richard (1626-1712), who ruled the Common- wealth from 1658 to 1659 before the restoration to monarchy.

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Yankee doodle

Father and I went down to camp Along with Captain Gooding, And there we saw the men and boys As thick as hasty pudding.

[refrain]

There was Captain Washington Upon a slapping stallion

A-giving orders to his men There must have been a million

[refrain]

Then I saw a swamping gun As large as logs of maple Upon a very little cart, A load for father's cattle.

[refrain]

Every time they shot it off It took a horn of powder And made a noise like father's gun Only a nation louder.

[refrain]

There I saw a wooden keg With heads made out of leather; They knocked upon it with some sticks To call the folks together.

[refrain]

Then they'd fife away like fun And play on cornstalk fiddles, And some had ribbons red as blood All bound around their middles.

[refrain]

I can't tell you all I saw They kept up such a smother. I took my hat off, made a bow, And scampered home to mother.

[refrain]40

40 Songs of Independence. Comp. and ed. by I. Silber. Harrisburg/Penns. 1973, pp. 70-78.

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Whatever the case, Yankee Doodle is a genuine folk melody, the origin of which is lost in antiquity, regardless of how far back that may be. It being a favorite folk song throughout American history is accountable by the fact that the melody is an ear worm lending itself to a plethora of verses under different names. In 1800 it was known as The American Spirit. In presidential election campaigns Yankee Doodle has become Harrison, (President Wil- liam Henry Harrison, 1841), Farmer Clay (presidential candidate Henry Clay, 1844) Rough and Ready (President Zachary Taylor, 1848-1852), The Latest Yankee Doodle (presidential candidate Winfield Scott, 1852), Brecken-

ridge and Lane (presidential candidate John Cabell Breckenridge, 1860), Taft and Sherman (President William H. Taft, 1908). It is most always played at

Republican and Democratic political party conventions. The tune was even

used by the American socialists as Labor's Yankee Doodle (presidential can-

didate for the Union Labor Party, Anson J. Streeter, 1888).41 When gold was discovered in California in 1849 the following lyrics were sung:

The miners came in forty-nine The whores in fifty-one And when they got together, They produced the native son.42

Classical renditions occur in Benjamin Carr's Federal Overture of 1794, as

well as numerous piano solos with variations on the theme. Solos for other

instruments, particularly trumpet, exist as well.

Its American folkishness lies in its affinity for bawdy words, cleanly called four-letter Anglo-Saxonisms, which are not repeated here. For the

purposes of the use above, the folk singing of rustic words like )hasty

pudding? (a cornmeal mush served with a topping of maple syrup or

brown sugar, or other sweetener), )horn of powder, maple, cart, keg<, are

agrestic and present the life of the soldier in Washington's army as unified

camaraderie (the music of the improvised )>cornstalk fiddles<<) and some-

thing of which the British should be afraid. Indeed, they make >>a nation

louder< (v. 4). An example of the close identification of the people to the

soldiers is the line where Washington is referred to as Captain, in army

41 Refer to Ewen: All The Years OfAmerican Popular Music, pp. 5-7, 14. 42 Consult ibid., p. 59.

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jargon a term of endearment for a well-respected leader. To be sure, upon, before, and after each successful Colonial victory, and at commemorations, the song was sung to deride the British and to make Colonial Americans aware of their rights to establish their own identity, even if the process had to be done with violence.

Patriotic airs were the work of willing amateurs. In general, such tunes were often the product of a collective effort and even borrowings, emerging over time as an indigenous expression of common experience. Some forms of native musical compositions showed a tendency towards experi- mentation and an unwillingness to be caught up in the confines of inherited forms and conventions (c.f. Billings). Albeit, lyrics themselves remained conventional enough. Many composers wrote hymns of the typical sort, devoted to the glorification of God. Even when the lyrics focused on Nature and natural occurrences, they never treated Nature as a thing in itself. It was only a mask of God, an expression of the mood, will, and

morality of the Creator. Thus, it would be misleading to over-emphasize the radicalism of the new musical composers. With few exceptions they were still clearly the products of a Colonial culture dominated by orthodox

religious values and caught in the cultural confines of the old world. Like the new expressions of radical political thought, the new forms of

music were soon opposed by the educated class who ever continued to look to the old-world aristocracy as a source of legitimacy. They represented the upper social stratum who sent their sons to Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and other Colonial colleges where the curriculum was dominated

by the Classics and the Church. In general, they determinedly aped Euro-

pean society in their taste in clothing, food, drink, architecture, and music. The educated classes were soon characterizing the lively fugues and airs of native composers as >>technically crude<< and >>lacking in dignity and deco-

rum<(.43 By the dawn of the 19th century interest in the expressions of native composers was dying out as taste reverted to music derived from

European sources. The wellsprings of native compositions began to dry up. It would be one hundred years before a native popular music tradition

finally re-emerged on the scene.44

43 Chase: America'Music, p. 136. 44 Ibid., p. 140.

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An indigenous American music style that had its beginnings in the second half of the 18th century came to an end with the coming of the 19th

century. The dying away of the surfacing native musical tradition can be

politically and socially linked to the changes that came to American culture in the opening of the West. In the space of 100 years Americans had

moved ever westward. There was little time for Americans to invest in

training potential composers or to establish schools of music and music

education. This musical void was filled by visiting European musicians and

it was their art and culture that monopolized the stage and concert halls.

Such a development thwarted the advancement of indigenous arts. The

compositions of those mentioned above were considered sophomoric when compared to the European >greats<, and the rising middle and upper classes of the Eastern seaboard established a genteel taste that said culture

came from Europe. Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore estab-

lished cultural organizations that would play an invaluable role in Amer-

ica's cultural development, but the initial direction was toward Europe. For

example, as early a 1815 the >>Handel and Haydn Society<< of Boston was

founded by the German-born American Johann Christian Gottlieb Graup- ner (1767-1836) for the purpose of performing choral music. The organization still exists today and it has indigenous American compositions in its

repertoire. But when it was founded the choral repertoire was of European orientation. Graupner was also instrumental in founding the >Philo-

Harmonic Society of Boston? in c 1809. Its sister organization, >The Phil-

harmonic Society of New York<<, founded in 1842, did not perform an

American piece of music until late into the second half of the 19th century. In the same breath it must be realized that the demise of an indigenous American music at the beginning of the 1800s also has its psychological reasons. They are mainly the outcome of the reversion of the educated

classes in America, and of the composers themselves, to a psychology of

deference to European tastes. Native American music was a victim of an

inferiority complex common to Colonial peoples. It was an instinctive

clinging to inherited forms in times of radical, psychological upheaval that

prohibited an American development. In the long term, therefore, the post-Revolutionary War concert music

in America was dominated by European influences. Ballad operas modeled

106




after the English style were composed by British-born Alexander Reinagle (1756-1809) of Philadelphia. He wrote the first piano pieces that were

performed in America. His musical stage work, Slaves in Algiers, orA Struggle for Freedom (1794), set to music the ideas contained in Royall Tyler's the

Algerine Captive and pre-dated it by five years, but his refined tastes in music and high standards for musical performance were European-based and as

such, his influence in post-Revolutionary War America was widespread. Reinagle's contemporary, British-born Benjamin Carr (1768-1831) of New York edited a journal with its content very obviously oriented toward

Europe and ran a successful music business. It was sold to James Hewitt in 1797. However, for the sake of impartiality it should be noted that Carr's sales of music contained not only the classical European scores, but patriotic American music as well. His brother Thomas Carr, also a music publisher, was the first to publish Francis Scott Key's The Star-Spangled Banner, the American National Anthem. Benjamin Carr was called the >>Father of

Philadelphia Music<< because he was a versatile success in all matters relat-

ing to the music trade - as a composer, conductor, editor, organist, pianist, promoter, publisher, singer, teacher, and founder of the >>Musical Fund

Society of Philadelphia<<.45 Religious music, which had occasionally deviated from European mod-

els with such American innovations as the fuging tune, reverted to the more familiar European style. The pervasive opinion was that dignity in

religious music and settings of religious texts could only be achieved by adapting and scoring variations on melodies by Handel, Haydn, Beetho- ven, and Mozart. How entrenched this view became can be seen in the fact that the American transcendentalist reformer and conservative cultural critic John Sullivan Dwight (1813/15-1893) continued with this type of

emphasis on musical propriety throughout the 19th century. In Dwight's Journal of Music, which he began in 1852, John Sullivan Dwight, a non- trained musician, repeatedly argued that associationists, as socialists were then called in America, and transcendentalist reformers should learn Handel's Messiah in order to comprehend their mission. He remained sec- tarian throughout his life, believing that good musical taste did not include

45 Consult Sprenkle, C.A.: The Life and Works of Benjamin Carr. Doctoral dissertation. Peabody Conservatory. Baltimore/Maryland 1970.

107




popular music, especially military music, because it was a bad influence on American citizens. An anachronism for his time, he was convinced that the

only correct music for learning the lessons of democracy was that of the

European masters. Only they had the proper salutary influence. In other words his unstated maxim was that the playing of the music by Hindel,

Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart (and the listening to it) would not only make Americans better, but would also create better Americans.

Da Capo

We have seen above that the Puritans of New England were hostile to the

expression of emotion in aesthetic form, whether that form be intellectu-

ally conceived, built as architecture, written down on paper, or played on

instruments. Some even carried their arguments so far as to maintain that

the creation of a new nation was against the will of God as expressed in

the institution of the )divine right? of monarchs. The Quakers of the Mid- dle Colonies held similar views on music and the arts. The act of express- ing personal emotions in an aesthetic manner that was not directed at

honoring the glory of God was seen as a sign of vanity. It was associated

with paganism. It was the sign of deviancy to the sober, self-controlled,

self-denying, true believers. Music for the Puritans was limited to the unac-

companied vocal scoring of the psalms. This is the earliest form of Ameri- can music composition. It lasted more than 100 years. Out of psalmody would emerge the singing schools and their music didacticism written

down in the tune books, thus causing the first national movement in in-

digenous American music. More than 300 such books were published be-

tween 1770 and 1820, the period when Romanticism in Colonial America

begins to take a foothold. The singing school movement would eventually

give birth to the choral societies that were founded throughout the coun-

try. But this development would take time to become established. For the

beginning years all music was related to the Church. John Playford (1623- c 1686), a non-Puritan, and the most famous London music publisher of

the age, had expressed the accepted feeling for music already in 1655, 15

years after the dissertation of the Bay Psalm Book. According to Playford,

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music had certain uses that were more important than others; but the

priorities had to be kept straight. The first and chief Use of Musick is for the Service and Praise of

God, whose gift it is. The second Use is for the Solace of Men [...] as a temporary Blessing to recreate and cheer Men after long study and weary labor.46

The greater part of musical expression was tied to the Church. The pri- mary legitimate purpose was to glorify God and lead the spirit from the

sensory to the super sensory. Music was another means to express man's

abject dependence on the powers of God the Almighty. The bulk use was

relegated to hymns. As such, this relegation and regulation of music was a

lingering expression of European medievalism that had placed stained

glass, music, painting, sculpture, in short all of the arts, under strict clerical control. In the 17th century and long into the 18th century the arts in Colo- nial North America existed to serve the needs of the Church as expressed in the decisions of the Massachusetts General Court, as late as 1750.47 The institutions of higher learning played their role in educating their students in the ways of the Church as well. Already in 1745 Yale College was

granted a new charter and the accompanying revision of the college laws was undertaken. There were two rules for the college that were so prophylactic in their wording that any contact with non-Church music and entertainment could be interpreted as the President of the College, Thomas

Clap (1703-1767, president from 1739-1766) wished. They were still in effect well into the Post-Revolutionary period. For example, Chapter II, Article 6, stated

That if any student shall profane the Sabbath by unnecessary business, diversion, walking abroad, or making any indecent noise or disorder on the said day, or on the evening before or after, or shall be guilty of any rude, profane, or indecent behavior in the time of

public worship, or at prayer at any time in the college hall, he shall be punished, admonished, or otherwise according to the nature and demerit of his crime [...]

46 Quoted by Russel Nye in The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America. New York 1971, p. 306. The capitalization is the original.

47 See ibid., p. 140.

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The word ?>diversion< could and was used to mean having anything to do with non-secular music and theater visits. This all-encompassing phrasing

appeared in Chapter IV, Article 14 as well, where it said that

If any scholar [...] shall be present at any [...] meeting of young people for diversion or any suchlike meeting which may occasion

misspending of precious time without liberty first obtained from the

president or his tutor, [...] he shall be fined not exceeding two shil-

lings.48

Again the prophylactic word )diversion< was used and interpreted in the

manner in which President Clap, a staunch Calvinist, wished it to be.

Likewise, the rules and regulations of Baptist-controlled Rhode Island

College, now Brown University, were quite similar and harsh.49 While the

Catholic Church subordinated the aesthetic impulses of mankind to its

own uses, Protestantism in the form of New England Puritanism threat-

ened to repress them entirely. Its sober, stark, self-denying tendencies, and

its distrust of the sensuous and emotional, provided a cold climate for the

birth of a native American musical tradition. But even so, a native tradition

did emerge, despite the unfriendly context. It had its roots in psalm singing and in the British vernacular tradition. It first appeared in the 1750s. Under

the stimulus of events during the Revolutionary Era, it achieved a brief

flowering in the 1780s and 1790s. Then, for all practical purposes, it disap-

peared. But the fact that innovative musical expressions of native composers surfaced on the eve of the Revolutionary Era and continued throughout this period shows the pervasive effects of the political struggle and

final break with the mother country, England. It also shows the affinities

of segments of the American native culture for the Rousseauian doctrines

that exalted man's right to self-expression, showed faith in the native genius of the common man, and disdained the slavish imitation of tradition.

48 For the two quotes refer to Dexter, Franklin B.: Biographical Sketches of the Graduates

of Yale College with Annals of the College History. Vol. 2. New York 1896, pp. 2-18. 49 For the full history read Guild, Ruben A.: Ear/y History of Brown University. Provi-

dence/Rhode Island 1897.

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Coda

In spite of the claims concerning plagiarism and opinions that his compositions were the work of a debutante without substance, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's musical contribution to posterity is positive. In this regard three major conclusions can be drawn that apply to the spirit of Romanti- cism in early American Colonial music. Firstly, Jean-Jacques Rousseau

emphatically denied that music arises to respond to text. Music is innate emotion and that is why it appeals to emotions. Song is the origin of music because song is the original cry of passion. It is the original cry of primitive man. The consequence of this Romantic, even mystical approach to music

origin means that music advocates feeling over reason. In this sense music comes from the intuition of innate genius. The preference of song over instrumentalism eventually led to the genre of melodrama. Yet, although he did not openly opinionize about the power of pure instrumental music without song, he surely knew that orchestra instruments and the orchestra as a whole was able to express what words cannot often express and was able to paint attitudes before words are musicized in song, as Rousseau

masterfully scored in Le devin du village in which the poet-composer Rous- seau presented character portrayal by means of instrumental music without

relying on the text. This observation and execution found reception in the

fledgling Romantic Movement and the composers of the American colonies during the Revolutionary War Era. Secondly, to the degree that Le devin du village opened the doors to the development of the >>opera comi-

que(50 of the latter 18th century, Pygmalion, was the opening curtain of spoken drama set with instrumental statements that we know nowadays as melodrama. Pygmalion is a turning point for not only the French stage but for the successive stage productions throughout the Western cultures. If with nothing else, these two musical inventions - the )opera comique< and the melodrama - were breakaways from entrenched patterns. This is defi-

nitely reflected in the American play The Contrast, by Royall Tyler (1757-1826), which was first performed in Philadelphia on 16 April 1778. These two musical inventions and his views on music have established Rousseau as an important contributor to the forward movement of music

50 In 1714 there was a performing troupe in Paris that called itself >Opera Comique<.

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in Western cultures. Thirdly, posterity does not know the full spectrum of what Jean-Jacques Rousseau composed: half is extant and half is lost. This means that although an analysis of his musical development, the degree of its importance in terms of influence and immanence to the Romantic

spirit, and a total interpretation as to how the above two conclusions are

fully represented in his music can be attempted, a final judgement will

remain elusive due to a lack of closure. What resemblances there were of the Rousseauian spirit had only a

brief and slight flowering in the musical life of 18th-century Colonial Amer-

ica. But these resemblances did germinate and flower. This fact alone

demonstrates the contagious quality of Rousseau's Romantic doctrines on

man's innate goodness, self-trust, and the values of directness and honesty in self-expression. There was a new spirit in the air. Rousseau, in his bouts

of lonely introspection and his will to probe the inner depths of the natural

mind, laid the groundwork for the emergence of this spirit, that, )primar<<

among others, set man off on a course of self-discovery which was taken

up and pursued by a few bold explorers in politics, geography, literature,

mind, and music in 18th-century America. Despite the reaction of conser-

vative elements in society, this spirit was gaining momentum under the

surface of conventional society. It would have some flowering in the folk

music accompanying the American Renaissance in New England in the

middle decades of the 19th century. The concert realm remained formal.

But outside of this frame Americans created their own music, mostly as an

everyday activity. Some were for performances, like the folk songs of

Stephen Foster (1826-1864), himself an autodidactic musician who ac-

quired his own technique of song composition in the Rousseauian mien.

Being of a sentimental art and indigenously American they were extremely

popular with the public. But these Ethiopian melodies, as they were called, then succumbed to some latent, as well as full-blown racism characteristic

of the Minstrel Show, a performance in which whites dressed up as Negro slaves and ridiculed the slaves and their ignorance by presenting them as

being dumb, calling them )Niggers<< and )Boys<<, talking in their dialects, and debasing the character of African-Americans by alluding to them as

possessing the cunning of the devil. Stephen Foster's contemporary, the

pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) used both

112




North and South American popular sources in folk works for piano such as Creole Eyes, Souvenir de Puerto Rico, and The Union in which he quoted the

Star-Spangled Banner, Hail Columbia, Yankee Doodle, and Le Banjo, which has the piano imitate banjo strumming and Stephen Foster's Camptown Races.

Yet, these compositions are rendered in a technique and style reminding one of the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811-1886).

A small hold-over of plasmatic content in an Afro-American music ex-

pression found a new genre in the singing of the plantation slaves. The lives of slaves were dependent upon music as a source of human and psychological freedom. Spirituals such as My God Ain't No Lyin' Man are tes- timonials to their relationship with their faith. Like the ministers and the

congregations of bygone Puritan days, the slaves used call-and-response style to tell stories in work songs. But they are so rich in rhythm and spontaneity that the music is definitely an idiom of an emerging music style: the

pre-blues style of the field holler, a Romantic idiom in its own right. The composer and music lecturer William Henry Fry (1815-1864),

who with his public lectures in the 1850s inspired an interest in the devel-

opment of an American musical language, called for an independent American music. But the drive for cultural independence was stopped by the American Civil War, and the fact that many successful American musicians and composers had studied in Europe, and that when they returned to America they saw no reason to be a traitor to their acquired European style. American (folk) music finally came into full bloom with the advent of the Broadway Musical after the turn of the 20th century, the music of the first truly original and independent American composer Charles Ives

(1874-1954), and the plethora of post-World War I composers. Although American (folk) music independence has finally been achieved, the birth

pangs were long and trying. The conception, without doubt, is found in the Romantic Movement parented by Jean-Jacques Rousseau whose influence and immanence can still be heard if we attune ourselves properly. Hearing the echoes of his (musical) age we hear substance.

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Bibliography, Concerning Music By Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The following list of music compositions and works about music by Jean- Jacques Rousseau is chronological.

Vocal Compositions Motets, 1752; 1769, 1772, 1912 Cangoni da batello: Chansons italiennes ou Lefons de muxique pour les commenfants, 1753 Les consolations des miseres de ma vie ou Recueil d'airs, romances et duos, 1781 Recueil de chansons, (6 songs) dedicated to the Countess of Egmont Various other pieces were published in the Mercure de France and other contempor-

ary anthologies

Instrumental Compositions

Symphonie, Lausanne, 1730: music is lost

Symphonie a cors de chasse, (Concert Spirituel), May 23, 1751: music is lost. It may possi- bly have been taken from Les musesgalantes

Le printemps di Vivaldi, arranged for flute solo: no date, but most likely between 1751 and 1759

Carillon, appendix to Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique, Geneva, 1769 Air de cloches and Airs pour etre joues, la troupe marchant, printed in various editions of

Rousseau's works by the Rousseau Society, Geneve Sonate, no date, but probably after 1769 Various other minor pieces in contemporary anthologies

Theater Compositions

Iphis etAnaxorete (trag6die lyrique), Chambery, c. 1740: music is lost La decouverte du nouveau monde (tragedie lyrique, 3), Lyons, 1741: music is lost Les musesgalantes (opera-ballet, 3), Paris, residence of La Poupliniere, in 1745?: music lost Hesiode music to the entree (original La tasse) in Musee Chalis, nr. Senlis; Musette en

rondo, 1912 Les Fetes de Ramire, revision of Jean Philippe Rameau's La Princesse de Navarre (com6die-

ballet, 3, Voltaire), Versailles, late 1745: music is lost Le devin du village (intermede), Fontainebleau, October 19, 1752; scored in 1753, 6

nouveaux airs in 1778

Pygmalion (scine lyrique), in collab. with Horace Coignet, H6tel de Ville, Lyons, 1770

Daphnis et Chloe (pastorale) not performed. Act I, with sketches of Act 2, divertisse-

ment, published in 1779

Writings On Music

Projet concernant de nouveaux signes pour la musique [..] a l'Academie des siences, le 22 aout

1742, Genive 1791 Dissertation sur la musique modeme, Paris 1743

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Lettre d M. Grimm au sujet des remarques ajoutees c sa lettre sur Omphale, Paris 1752 Lettre d'un symphoniste de lAcademie royale use musique d ses camarades de l'orchestre, 1753,

Thedtre etpoesies, Geneve 1791 Lettre sur la musiquefranfaise, Paris 1753 Lettre c Monsieur lAbbe Raynal au sujet d'un nouveau mode de musique, invente par M.

Blainville, 1754, Neuchatel 1764 Examen de deux principes avances par M. Rameau, dans sa brochure intitulee: Erreurs sur la

musique dans l'Encyclopedie, 1755

J. J. Rousseau [...] Mr. d'Alembert [..] sue le projet d'etablir un theatre de comedie [...], Amsterdam 1759

Lettre a Monsieur Le Nieps ...] e 5 avril 1759, Theatre etpoesies, Geneve 1791 Essai sur l'origine des langues, ou il estparle de la milodie et de l'imitation musicale, c. 1760 Extrait d'une lettre [.. .sur les ouvrages de M. Rameau, Neuchitel 1764 Dictionnaire de musique, Paris 1769, English translation in 1771, reprint in 1969 Extrait d'une reponse du petitfaiseur a son prete-nom, sur un morceau de l'Orphee de M. le chevalier

Gluck, most likely in 1774 Lettre d M. Burney sur la musique, avec fragments d'observations sur 1Alceste italien de M. le

chevalier Gluck, most likely in 1777 Various letters to Lesage pere in 1754, to Perdriau in 1756, to Balliere in 1765, to

Lalande in 1769 Various minor writings in A. Jansen: Jean-Jacques Rousseau als Musiker. Berlin 1884.

reprinted in 1971

General Works

Adams, C. F.: Three Episodes of Massachusetts History. Boston 1892 The American Tradition in Literature. Ed. by George Perkins and others. New York 1985 The Annals ofAmerica. Ed. by Mortimer J. Alder. Chicago 1976 Billings, William: The Continental Harmony. Boston 1794 Billings, William: The New-England Psalm Singer, orAmerican Chorister. Boston 1770 Billings, William: The Singing Master's Assistant, or, Key to PracticalMusic. Boston 1778 Britton, Allen P.: The Musical Idiom in Early American Tunebooks. In: The Journal of the

American Musicological Society III (1959) Chase, Gilbert: America's Music: From the Pilgrims to the Present. New York 1955 Crevecoeur, Michel Guillaume Jean de: Lettersfrom an American Farmer. London 1945 Dexter, Franklin B.: Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the

College History. New York 1896 Dickinson, John: Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia 1895 (Memoirs of

the Historical Society of Pennsylvania XIV) Ewen, David: All the Years of American Popular Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1977 France and North America Over Three Hundred Years of Dialogue, Proceedings of the First Sym-

posium of French-American Studies, April 26-30, 1971. Ed. by Math6 Allain, and Glenn R. Conrad. Lafayette, Louisiana 1973 (The USL History Series)

Greatest Band in the Land! The Goldman Band Conducted by Richard Franko Goldman. Capitol Records, SP 8639

Guild, Ruben A.: Early History of Brown University. Providence, Rhode Island 1897

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Hastings, George E.: The Life and Works of Francis Hopkinson. Chicago 1926 Hopkinson, Francis: Seven Songs for the Harpsichord or Forte Piano. Philadelphia 1788.

Republished in Dichter, Harry: MusicalAmericana. Philadelphia 1954

Jansen, A.: Jean-Jacques Rousseau als Musiker. Berlin 1884. Reprinted in 1971

Krythe, M.R.: Sampler ofAmerican Songs. New York 1969

Laugher, Charles T.: Thomas Bray's Grand Design: Libraries of the Church of England in America. Chicago 1973

Lowens, Irving: Music and Musicians in Early America. New York 1964 Martin, Henri: The Age of Louis XIV. 2 Vols. Boston 1865 Mather, Increase: An Arrow Against Profane and Promiscuous Dancing Drawn out of the

Quiver of the Scriptures. Boston 1684 McCormick, D.W.:Oliver Holden, Compiler and Anthologist. Doctoral dissertation. New

York 1963

McKay, D.P./ Crawford, R.: William Billings of Boston: Eighteenth-century American Com-

poser. Princeton, Jew Jersey 1975 Metcalf, Frank J.: American Writers and Compilers of Sacred Music. New York 1925

Morrison, Samuel E.: The Intellectual Life of Colonial New England. New York 1956 Music in America. An Anthology from the Landing of the Pilgrims to the Close of the Civil War,

1620-1865. Ed. by W. Thomas Marrocco and Harald Gleason. New York 1964

Nettl, P.: NationalAnthems. New York 1967

Nye, Russel: The Unembarrassed Muse: The PopularArts in America. New York 1971

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts. Part II. In: Rousseau, Jean-

Jacques: CEuvres Completes. Paris 1959-1964, Vol. III

Salles, A.: Horace Coignet et le Pygmalion de Rousseau. In: Revue musicale de Lyon (Decembre 24, 31, 1905)

Shera, Jesse H.: Foundations of the Public Library: The Origin of the Public Library Movement in New England, 1629-1855. Metuchen, New Jersey 1965

Songs of Independence. Comp. and ed..by I. Silber. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 1973

Sonneck, Oscar G.: Report on >)The Star-Spangled Banner<, ))Hail Columbia<', )America(, ))Yankee Doodle<. 1909. Reprint New York 1972

Sprenkle, C.A.: The Life and Works of Benjamin Carr. Doctoral dissertation. Baltimore,

Maryland 1970 Strauss, J. F.: Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Musician. In: Music Quarterly LXIV (1978) Thompson, C. Seymore: Evolution of the American Public Libraty, 1653-1876. Washing-

ton, D.C. 1952 Trent, William Peterfield/ Erskine, John/ Sherman, Stuart P./ Van Doren, Carl: The

Cambridge History of American Literature. New York 1947

WagnerJ. W.: James Hewitt: His Life and Works. Doct. diss. Bloomington, Indiana 1969 The Whole Booke of Psalmes faithfully translated into English Metre. Whereunto is prefixed a

discourse declaring not only the lawfullness, but also the necessiy of the heavenly Ordinance of singing Scripture psalmes in the Churches of God. Coll. III. Let the word of God dwellplente- ousy in you, in all wisdom, teaching and exhorting one another in Psalmes, Himmes, and spiritual Songs, singing to the Lord with grace in your hearth. lames V. If any be afflicted, let him

pray, and if any be merry let him singpsalmes. Imprinted 1640. Cambridge 1640.

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jean-jacques rousseau and the spirit of romanticism in american colonial (folk) music: immanence and...

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