In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Chamber Music: Six Sonatas for Harpsichord or Piano Forte with an Accompaniment for a Violin, op. 2; Six Sonatas for Violoncello (with Keyboard Accompaniment)
  • Mark Kroll
Chamber Music: Six Sonatas for Harpsichord or Piano Forte with an Accompaniment for a Violin, op. 2; Six Sonatas for Violoncello (with Keyboard Accompaniment). Edited by John Metz and Barbara Bailey-Metz. (Recent Researches in American Music, 43.) Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, Inc., c2001. [Acknowledgments, p. vii; introd., p. ix–xiii; 2 plates; score, 113 p.; crit. report, p. 115–17. ISBN 0-89579-483-3. $70.]

The celebration of America's bicentennial in 1976 was a glittering year of self-congratulation, one in which there seemed to be a fireworks display every evening. Monuments were cleaned and rededicated, our Revolutionary Era leaders were extolled for their vision, wisdom, and self-sacrifice, and the market in colonial costumes and muskets was brisk.

Naturally, musical performances played an important role in the celebration, but the repertoire was usually limited to popular tunes like Yankee Doodle or patriotic anthems like the Star Spangled Banner and America, the Beautiful. Classical musicians looking to perform music of the colonial past therefore faced a particularly difficult challenge. The musical traditions of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America were frankly not as sophisticated or firmly established as those found in Europe during the same period. Works by the "Yankee Tunesmiths" such as William Billings (1746–1800) and Supply Belcher (1751–1846, known as the "Handel of Maine") are certainly admirable and were welcomed at many bicentennial events, but they do not compare in quality or richness with the music of George Frideric Handel, Joseph Haydn, or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Many performers found themselves confined to potboilers like the Battle of Trenton by James Hewitt (1770–1827) and other similar program pieces, while others found ingenious solutions to the problem. The Smithsonian Chamber Players, for example, issued a recording called Music from the Age of Jefferson in the 1970s (Smithsonian Collection N002, LP) that included works of Johann Christian Bach and Muzio Clementi.

There were, however, several places in colonial America where music in the central European tradition was being written. The Moravian communities in Pennsylvania and the Carolinas, for example, placed a great emphasis on music in their religious services and daily life. Strings, winds, and especially the organ were a regular feature in their sacred music, and an independent instrumental repertory was also created at this time. The best composers from this group included the German émigrés Jeremiah Dencke (1735– 1795), Johannes Herbst (1735–1812), and Charles Theodore Pachelbel (1690–1750), the son of the famous Johann. The American-born Moravian John Antes (1740–1811), a builder of string instruments, wrote three trios for violins and cello, one of the earliest examples of American chamber music.

Significant contributions were also made by non-Moravians, such as the Philadelphia-based composers Benjamin Carr (1768– 1831), Alexander Reinagle (1756–1809), and Francis Hopkinson (1737–1791), one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Carr immigrated from London in 1793 and founded an important publishing house in his adopted city. Reinagle, who had also come to Philadelphia from London, wrote numerous keyboard pieces in the style of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and served for many years as music director of the city's New Theatre at Chestnut Street. Hopkinson also wrote some fine instrumental music, such as his Seven Songs for the Harpsichord or Fortepiano dedicated to George Washington and, in a characteristic gesture of American innocence, arrogance, and ingenuity, set out to improve the harpsichord. Hopkinson presented four papers at the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia between 1783 and 1787 in which he described his "improvements," and he maintained an active correspondence with Thomas Jefferson on the subject. When Hopkinson placed an order for a harpsichord with the venerable London firm of Shudi and Broadwood, he did not hesitate to demand that they incorporate his new method of quilling for the instrument. [End Page 1101]

It is in this context that we can appreciate the notable contributions of another Philadelphia composer, Rayner Taylor, whose works are featured in this handsome volume from A-R Editions edited by John...

pdf

Share