Reshaping American Music: the Quotation of Shape-Note Hymns by Twentieth-Century Composers
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RESHAPING AMERICAN MUSIC: THE QUOTATION OF SHAPE-NOTE HYMNS BY TWENTIETH-CENTURY COMPOSERS by Joanna Ruth Smolko B.A. Music, Covenant College, 2000 M.M. Music Theory & Composition, University of Georgia, 2002 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Faculty of Arts and Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. in Historical Musicology University of Pittsburgh 2009 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Joanna Ruth Smolko It was defended on March 27, 2009 and approved by James P. Cassaro, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Music Mary S. Lewis, Professor, Department of Music Alan Shockley, Assistant Professor, Cole Conservatory of Music Philip E. Smith, Associate Professor, Department of English Dissertation Advisor: Deane L. Root, Professor, Department of Music ii Copyright © by Joanna Ruth Smolko 2009 iii RESHAPING AMERICAN MUSIC: THE QUOTATION OF SHAPE-NOTE HYMNS BY TWENTIETH-CENTURY COMPOSERS Joanna Ruth Smolko, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2009 Throughout the twentieth century, American composers have quoted nineteenth-century shape- note hymns in their concert works, including instrumental and vocal works and film scores. When referenced in other works the hymns become lenses into the shifting web of American musical and national identity. This study reveals these complex interactions using cultural and musical analyses of six compositions from the 1930s to the present as case studies. The works presented are Virgil Thomson’s film score to The River (1937), Aaron Copland’s arrangement of “Zion’s Walls” (1952), Samuel Jones’s symphonic poem Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1974), Alice Parker’s opera Singers Glen (1978), William Duckworth’s choral work Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (1980-81), and the score compiled by T Bone Burnett for the film Cold Mountain (2003). Utilizing archival sources and interviews with composers, this study draws from a number of methodologies and disciplines in order to present a kaleidoscopic view of the meanings and contexts of these compositions, including cultural, religious, American, and music history, as well as musical and textual analysis. Through this thick-history approach, the study demonstrates the ways in which shape-note quotations evoke American regional and national history, and the composers’ personal memories and identities. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................ V LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................... XI LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................. XII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... XV 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 BRIEF HISTORY OF SHAPE-NOTE HYMNODY........................................ 2 1.2 METHODOLOGY AND SOURCES ................................................................. 4 1.3 DISSERTATION STRUCTURE AND CHAPTER OVERVIEWS ............... 7 1.3.1 1930s-1950s ....................................................................................................... 7 1.3.2 The 1970s .......................................................................................................... 8 1.3.3 1980s-2000s ....................................................................................................... 9 2.0 1930s-1950s ................................................................................................................ 11 2.1 VIRGIL T HOMSON, F ILM SCORE TO THE RIVER: SH APE-NOTE HYMNS AND THE SOCIAL GOSPEL ........................................................................... 14 2.1.1 Thomson’s previous use of American hymnody ......................................... 14 2.1.2 Nostalgia ......................................................................................................... 15 2.1.3 Thomson’s contact with George Pullen Jackson ........................................ 17 2.1.4 Influence of the Social Gospel ...................................................................... 18 v 2.1.5 Film-music theory .......................................................................................... 20 2.1.6 Overview of the film and score ..................................................................... 22 2.1.7 Thomson, Jackson, and music as historiography ....................................... 30 2.1.8 The Government loves me, this I know? ..................................................... 33 2.1.9 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 39 2.2 AARON C OPLAND, “ZION’S WA LLS”: A SHAPE-NOTE H YMN AS A JEWISH-AMERICAN ANTHEM .................................................................................... 42 2.2.1 McCarthyism and Zionism ........................................................................... 42 2.2.2 Copland’s sources .......................................................................................... 46 2.2.3 Analysis of “Zion’s Walls” ............................................................................ 47 2.2.4 Theology in “Zion’s Walls” .......................................................................... 50 2.2.5 Text and music issues .................................................................................... 51 2.2.6 Analysis of “Zion’s Walls” in Old American Songs .................................... 53 2.2.7 Copland’s later use of “Zion’s Walls” ......................................................... 57 2.3 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 59 3.0 THE 1970s .................................................................................................................. 62 3.1 CELEBRATION AND CRITIQUE IN THE BICENTENNIAL ERA ......... 64 3.1.1 Folk music in the 1970s ................................................................................. 64 3.1.2 Reactions to a fractured nationalism ........................................................... 67 3.1.3 Social history and public history .................................................................. 69 3.1.4 Idealistic re-creation of the past ................................................................... 73 3.1.5 Regionalism .................................................................................................... 74 3.1.5.1 Regionalism (I): Regional and community focus ............................. 74 vi 3.1.5.2 Regionalism (II): Rural life ................................................................ 76 3.1.5.3 Regionalism (III): The unique case of the South .............................. 77 3.1.6 Personal history: family and ethnic history ................................................ 80 3.1.7 Religion and spirituality in the 1970s .......................................................... 81 3.1.8 Why shape-note hymns? ............................................................................... 83 3.2 SAMUEL JONES, LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN: SHAPE-NOTE HYMNS AS MEMORY AND MEMORIAL ................................................................... 85 3.2.1 Genesis of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men ................................................. 86 3.2.2 Hymns used in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men ......................................... 91 3.2.3 The Program of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men ....................................... 93 3.2.3.1 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: The Apocryphal passage ............ 93 3.2.3.2 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: the book ........................................ 95 3.2.3.3 Hymns as cultural artifacts ................................................................ 97 3.2.3.4 Evocation of place ............................................................................... 99 3.2.3.5 Personal memory ............................................................................... 103 3.2.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 112 3.3 ALICE PARKER, SINGERS GLEN: SHAPE-NOTE HYMNS AS LIVING HISTORY .......................................................................................................................... 113 3.3.1 Alice Parker and the preservation of the past .......................................... 114 3.3.2 Alice Parker and shape-note hymns .......................................................... 117 3.3.3 Use of shape-note hymns in Singers Glen .................................................. 120 3.3.4 Singers Glen: public history, preservation and change ............................ 123 3.3.5 Overview of Singers Glen ............................................................................ 126 vii 3.3.6 Detailed analyses of the singing schools ..................................................... 129 3.3.6.1 The “traditional” singing school ...................................................... 129 3.3.6.2 The “progressive” singing and playing school ................................ 138 3.3.7 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 147 4.0 1980s-2000s .............................................................................................................