For God and Country: Scriptural Exegesis, Editorial Intervention, and Revolutionary Politics in First New England School Anthems A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Division of Composition, Musicology, and Theory of the College-Conservatory of Music by Molly K. Williams BA, Lipscomb University, 2005 MM, University of Cincinnati, 2010 Committee chair: bruce d. mcclung, PhD Abstract Since 1991 music of the First New England School has become readily accessible through critical editions. The compilers of these volumes edited the music, traced the compositional styles and methods of these composers, and documented their biographies. However, no one has explored how composers of this era edited scripture and sacred poetry for anthems and how these editorial acts might reflect the politics of the Colonial and Federal Periods. Anthems afforded composers more creative liberty than strophic genres such as plain tunes and fuging tunes. Because anthems are long, through-composed works, composers had wide latitude regarding the text they set; most drew from Biblical scripture, sacred poetry, or a combination of the two. This study traces the texts that First New England composers chose and how composers edited them for anthems. In some cases, composers employed straightforward, unedited sections of scripture, but in most cases, they or their collaborators edited scripture and drew on diverse literary sources. This study addresses such issues as musical setting, geographical locale, and politics. Included are where composers lived, what their personal religious practices may have been, and how involved they were in politics and civic activities. The methodology includes an original data set of eighteenth-century anthem texts, including when they were first published, if and how the source texts were edited, the general topic of each anthem, and each scriptural citation. This study builds on recent scholarship on ministers’ use of scripture during the American Revolutionary War. This study examines the texts from First New England School anthems in a similar manner, showing the similarities and differences in the way that preachers and composers quoted, edited, and employed Biblical scripture and sacred poetry during a period of political turmoil and revolution. ii Copyright © 2017 by Molly K. Williams. All rights reserved. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. bruce mcclung, for his guidance and encouragement as I completed this project. I always left our meetings with a renewed sense of purpose. His assistance and edits always helped crystalize my ideas. Dr. Jonathan Kregor and Dr. Stephanie Schlagel served on my committee and their questions helped clarify my thoughts. They both offered a welcome perspective to my work. As a program advisor, Dr. Mary Sue Morrow helped me navigate the program requirements throughout my time in Cincinnati and I am grateful for her guidance. I am grateful to Thomas Riis and the American Music Research Center staff at the University of Colorado at Boulder for the Visiting Scholar Fellowship and their help with my research during my time there. The AMRC has an extensive collection of tunebooks and researching in their collection helped put these works in historical context. Friends of CCM helped fund the fellowship, for which I am thankful. I would also like to thank the staff at the Barbour Library at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Their Warrington Collection has several hymnals and wonderful resources on the eighteenth-century church in America that was most helpful to my research. I am most grateful to friends and family for their support as I worked toward this goal. I could not have completed this project without the help of family and friends who are like family who happily watched our son. Of course I am so thankful to my husband for his support throughout this long process. His loving encouragement helped me keep perspective and complete this dissertation. iv CONTENTS Copyright Permissions……………………………………………………………………………vi List of Examples...……………………………………………………………………………….vii List of Tables….………………………………………………………………………………... ..ix List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………….……xi Introduction………………………………………………………………………………… ..........1 Chapter 1 “Such an excellent body of divine poetry”: Sacred Poetry in the Anthem ……………………...17 Chapter 2 Bound Kings and Fettered Nobles: Revolutionary Politics in the Anthem……………………… ……….45 Chapter 3 Heterogenously Protestant: Denominational Tenets in the Early American Anthem ……... ...…70 Chapter 4 Boston and the Northern Territory: Geography and the Early American Anthem ………………89 Chapter 5 Other Topics in the Early American Anthem……………………………………………… …..113 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………… …...138 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………… …155 Appendix……………………………………………………………………………………… ..164 v Copyright Permissions Belcher, Supply. “Ordination Anthem.” The Collected Works, ed. Linda Davenport. Music of the New American Nation 5, ed. Karl Kroeger. Copyright © 1996 Routledge. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission. Billings, William. “Let Ev’ry Mortal Ear Attend.” The Complete Works of William Billings. Vol. 3 ed. Karl Kroeger. Copyright © 1990 American Musicological Society Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Billings, William. “Blessed Is He that Considereth the Poor.” The Complete Works of William Billings. Vol. 3, ed. Karl Kroeger. Copyright © 1990 American Musicological Society Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Cooper, William. “An Anthem for Thanksgiving.” Early American Anthems. Recent Researches in American Music 36, ed. Karl Kroeger. Copyright © 2000 A-R Editions. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission. Holyoke, Samuel. “Hear Our Prayer.” Early American Anthems. Recent Researches in American Music 36, ed. Karl Kroeger. Copyright © 2000 A-R Editions. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission. Morgan, Justin. “Judgment Anthem.” Two Vermont Composers: The Collected Works of Elisha West and Justin Morgan. Music of the New American Nation 7, ed. Karl Kroeger. Copyright © 1997 Taylor and Francis. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission. Read, Daniel. “A New Anthem for Fast Day.” Collected Works: Daniel Read, ed. Karl Kroeger Recent Researches in American Music 24 ed. John Graziano. Copyright © 1995 A-R Editions. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Swan, Timothy. “Anthem from the 150th Psalm,” Nym Cooke, Psalmody and Secular Songs: Timothy Swan. Recent Researches in American Music 26 ed. John Graziano. Copyright © 1997 A-R Editions. All rights reserved. Used by permission. vi List of Examples Example 1.1 Tate and Brady, Psalm 150…………………………………………… …………..24 Example 1.2 Timothy Swan, “Anthem from the 150th Psalm,” New England Harmony, 1801 ...24 Example 1.3 Timothy Swan, “Anthem from the 150th Psalm,” mm. 1–11, New England Harmony (1801)…………………………………………………………………… …….26 Example 1.4 William Billings, “Let Ev’ry Mortal Ear Attend,” The Psalm Singer’s Amusement (1781).……………………………………………………………………………… ……27 Example 1.5 William Billings, “Let Ev’ry Mortal Ear Attend,” mm. 38–46, Psalm Singer’s Amusement (1781)……………………………………………………………… ……….29 Example 1.6a Isaac Watts, Psalm 132, Elias Mann, “Anthem for Dedication,” Massachusetts Harmony (1803)………………………………………………………………..………... 30 Example 1.6b Isaac Watts, Psalm 132, Stanza 4, used by Elias Mann, “Anthem for Dedication,” Massachusetts Harmony (1803)………………………………………………………… 30 Example 1.6c Isaac Watts, Psalm 132, Stanza 3 as in Elias Mann, “Anthem for Dedication,” Massachusetts Harmony (1803)………………………………………………………… 31 Example 1.6d Isaac Watts, Psalm 132, Stanza 7, Psalms of David (1719)…………………….. 31 Example 1.7 Isaac Watts, Stanza 6, Psalm 65, Psalms of David (1719), used by William Cooper, “Anthem for Thanksgiving,” Independent Publication, (1792)………..………………... 32 Example 1.8 William Cooper, “Anthem for Thanksgiving,” mm 55 – 71, Independent Publication (1792).…………………………………………………………………….... 34 Example 1.9 Isaac Watts, Stanza 2 Psalm 150, Psalms of David (1719), used by William Cooper, “Anthem for Thanksgiving,” Independent Publication, (1792)………………... 35 Example 1.10 John Cennick, “Lo He Cometh,” A Collection of Sacred Hymns (1749)…..........39 Example 1.11 Justin Morgan, “Judgment Anthem,” mm. 1–6 and 19–23, The Federal Harmony (1790)…………………………………………………………………………. …………40 Example 2.1 William Billings, “Independence,” The Singing Master’s Assistant (1778)……………………………………………………………………………...…….. 53 Example 2.2 Deuteronomy 32:43, used by William Billings, “Peace, God is King,” Independent Publication (1783)…………………………………………………………………… …..54 vii Example 2.3a Psalm 149, Authorized Version…………………………………………… …….55 Example 2.3b Psalm 149, used by Hans Gram, “Bind Kings with Chains,” Worcester Collection (1794)……………………………..……………...……………………………………… 56 Example 2.4 Hans Gram, “Bind Kings with Chains,” Worchester Companion (1794)…….. ….58 Example 3.1 Samuel Holyoke, “Hear Our Prayer,” mm. 55–66, The Christian Harmonist (1804)………………………………………………………………………... …………..77 Example 3.2 Daniel Read, “A New Anthem for Fast Day,” mm. 59–72, The Columbian Harmonist (1794)…………………………………………………………………… …...78 Example 3.3 Text from Jeremiah 9 and Isaiah 3, from Oliver Holden “Anthem” Sacred Dirges…George Washington (1800)…………………………………………………… .81 Example 3.4 Oliver Holden, Funeral Anthem, The Union Harmony (1796)………………… ...81 Example 4.1 Elias West, “Deliverance Anthem,” The Musical