• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

SLUG MORGAN FAULDS PIKE David Pike (l) and composer Kevin Siegfried at the meetinghouse (built 1792) in Canterbury Shaker Village, New Hampshire, USA Gentle words, kindly spoken Many readers will be familiar with ‘Lord of the Dance’, Sydney Carter’s hymn to the Shaker tune ‘Simple Gifts’. Yet how many know that Shaker songs represent the largest body of spiritual folk music in the USA? David Pike meets composer Kevin Siegfried, whose research has led him to seek a revival of the genre he year was 1774. Enthused by a and persecution, intent on spreading their in tongues, even dropping to the floor as mystical revelation to their char- unique message. The burgeoning sect had a manifestation of individual religious T ismatic young leader Mother Ann originated roughly 25 years earlier in and ecstasy, elicited the derisive sobriquet Lee, nine members of the United Society around Manchester, having branched off ‘Shaking Quakers’. As their acknowledged of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, from a Quaker community there. Uniting leader, Mother Ann preached to her disci- commonly called Shakers, embarked from dance and song, their spirited style of ples, ‘Put your hands to work and your Liverpool on the ship Mariah. They were worship, which often involved spontane- hearts to God,’ and once they disembarked headed for America, fleeing contempt ous whirling, leaping, speaking and singing in New York City on 6 August 1774, this is www.choirandorgan.com JULY/AUGUST 2016 CHOIR & ORGAN 37 COJA16_037-041_F_Pike and Freestyle.indd 37 01/07/2016 14:03:11 SHAKER MUSIC MORGAN FAULDS PIKE MORGAN FAULDS Kevin Siegfried (l) and David Pike in the Canterbury meetinghouse, which reflects the simplicity of Shaker life-style precisely what they did. They journeyed up Beginning in the 1780s, several more at Sabbathday Lake in New Gloucester, the Hudson River to a place near Albany Shaker communities were founded in Maine. There, four Shakers continue to then known as Niskayuna, and there they New York and New England, and just live and practise their faith. cleared land and erected buildings. Thus it after the turn of the century Shaker was that this small band of Shaker Believers, missionaries began venturing further Love is little, love is low, on the eve of the American Revolution, west, establishing villages in Ohio, Love will make my spirit grow. began community life in America. Indiana, and Kentucky. By the 1840s, Grow in peace, grow in light, when the Shaker movement in America Love will do the thing that’s right. In yonder valley there grows sweet union, was at its zenith, roughly 6,000 Believers (from South Union, Kentucky 1834) Let us arise and take our fill. inhabited more than 20 communities. (Father James Whittaker, Enfield, Today there remains but one active Shakers looked upon their daily existence Connecticut 1787) Shaker village, originally founded in 1794, as a spiritual gift to be governed by what has been termed ‘radical gentleness’. Sunday worship took place in plain white meetinghouses. There were no pulpits, no pipe organs. Musical instruments were SIEGFRIED PUBLISHING SIEGFRIED PUBLISHING not permitted; the human voice was, in Shaker belief, the only proper instrument for sounding forth prayer and praise to God. One early convert observed that ‘… the wisdom of their instructions, the purity of their doctrine, their Christ-like deportment, and the simplicity of their manners all appeared truly apostolical.’ Notably, Shaker religious practice regarded women and men as equals. At every level From Siegfried’s cantata Angel of Light: the second movement, ‘Gift Song – Woben Mesa Crelana’ (l), uses spirit language; movement 6, ’Dance – Vum Vive vum’ (r), uses vocables to represent drums 38 CHOIR & ORGAN JULY/AUGUST 2016 www.choirandorgan.com COJA16_037-041_F_Pike and Freestyle.indd 38 01/07/2016 14:03:19 SHAKER MUSIC of the church and village hierarchy, women and men shared authority. A central tenet of their belief was that God was both female and male; a logical extension of that principle was that women and men were peers in the sight of God. Gentle words kindly spoken often soothe the troubled mind, While links of love are broken by words that are unkind. (Polly M. Rupe, Pleasant Hill, KY ca. 1867) D.C. OF CONGRESS, MUSIC DIVISION, WASHINGTON LIBRARY COURTESY Simply stated, the Shakers are the most enduring of the American utopian sects. Although only a handful remain today, Shakers have practised their faith in small communities without interruption for over 240 years since that small band of Believers settled in upstate New York. Throughout In Yonder Valley in Shaker lettoral notation the 19th century they generally found (above) and in staff notation (r), as published in acceptance. However, for their unorthodox Siegfried’s arrangement worship practices, their strict adherence to celibacy, their unswerving policy of American composer Kevin Siegfried is a SIEGFRIED PUBLISHING pacifism, and their forsaking of private pre-eminent scholar of Shaker music. His property ownership, they were frequently first encounter with Shaker songs came in ridiculed. Ironically, by the middle of the 1995 during a visit to the Shaker village at 20th century they had come to exemplify Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. Two years later he American ideals of religious faith, race began arranging Shaker songs for choir, and gender equality, resourcefulness, self- and his first collection was published in sufficiency, diligence, and artistry. They 1998. I caught up with Siegfried recently conceived a unique architectural style of near his home in Andover, Massachusetts, simple and timeless beauty. They designed and asked him what it was that first drew and built furniture that, for its clean lines him to the Shakers: ‘My first introduction and pure functionality, was unsurpassed in to Shaker music came through reading its day. For them, occupation and ‘doing’ E.D. Andrews’s 1940 book The Gift to were fundamental aspects of their salvation. be Simple. My subsequent visits to the For use in worship, they imagined countless Pleasant Hill community made me dances of elaborate design. And they realise, here was an opportunity to open a imagination and pleasing to sing – they diligently wrote down thousands of songs window on a little-known, yet enormously draw people in.’ in musical journals, many of which were significant, branch of American folk What is it that Siegfried hopes to ‘gifted’ in moments of spiritual inspiration. culture.’ With over 10,000 songs in accomplish with his SATB arrangements? It is in these songs – words and melodies existence, Siegfried goes on to explain, ‘My goal in arranging these Shaker – that the visionary and inventive Shaker Shaker music represents the largest body melodies for choirs has been to make them spirit found its loftiest expression. of spiritual folksong in this country’s accessible and useful in modern concert history, yet most of it is hidden in archives. and worship settings, to move the songs How blest are the souls who walk in pure The early Shakers, seeking separation from historical curiosities to living musical Wisdom, from the world, avoided all harmony settings. If they help raise awareness of Whose feet are well-planted in virtue’s fair and instrumental accompaniment in this overlooked tradition of American soil, their music. As a result, the early Shaker music, that’s all the better. There’s a Shaker Who cheerfully work in Mother’s pure songs display an almost chant-like sense proverb that says “Don’t make something garden, of musical line. The Shakers created unless it is both necessary and useful; but And for her Rich Blessings do willingly toil. their own ‘letteral’ music notation to if it is both necessary and useful, don’t (Brother William, Canterbury, record these unique, unfettered songs hesitate to make it beautiful.” To my ear, New Hampshire 1847) [see above], whose melodies are ‘full of these songs reveal a unique, other-worldly www.choirandorgan.com JULY/AUGUST 2016 CHOIR & ORGAN 39 COJA16_037-041_F_Pike and Freestyle.indd 39 01/07/2016 14:03:23 SHAKER MUSIC beauty. Arranging them for performance When a contemporary composer sets What motivates me is a respect for the in contemporary times brings about arranging music that is on a par original songs.’ As I listen to Siegfried talk, I functionality to them again.’ Though with folk music, isn’t there a danger of realise that his approach indeed embodies fi rmly based on the traditional tunes making something that is essentially simple, the quintessential Shaker ideals of humility and texts, Siegfried’s lovely, compelling over-complicated? Siegfried explains: and self-restraint. arrangements have a surprising freshness ‘As a composer and arranger, my approach that speaks to our time. The music to these songs grows out of an intense Lay me low, lay me low. feels grounded and organic rather than involvement with the material, rather than Where the Lord can fi nd me, ‘composed’. a preconceived idea rooted in my own Where the Lord can own me, particular musical style. It’s a process of Where the Lord can bless me. ’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be dialogue with the traditional material, and (Addah Z. Potter, New Lebanon, free, there’s an aesthetic involved in it. I want to New York c.1838) ’Tis the gift to come down where we ought maintain the simplicity and directness of to be. the original unison melodies. When adding Last year, Siegfried was commissioned by (Elder Joseph Brackett, harmony, I try to create counterpoint that Washington D.C.’s Capitol Hill Chorale, Alfred, Maine 1848) feels like it is coming from a similar place. where he has been composer-in-residence SHAKER-INSPIRED RESOURCES PUBLICATIONS Some popular titles for SATB unacc.

Load more

  5

Copy Link