A Celebration of American Music

I’m excited about the music this Sunday—even more than usual! The music of this country is as diverse as its inhabitants, and it reflects the cultures of many nations. When I think of music that emanated directly from the American experience I think of spirituals, shape-note music, Shaker hymns, folk songs, jazz and the blues, country and bluegrass, to name a few.

Classical or Jazz? Blurred Lines

Prelude: Graceful Ghost Rag by William Bolcom (b. 1938) Our superb guest musicians, Jorge Ávila (violin) and Minju Choi (piano) will open the service with a nod to one of the earliest forms of jazz: Ragtime—or “Ragged Time,” so called because of its notorious syncopated rhythm. This form of dance music flourished for two decades (1897-1918) in the hands of well-known virtuosi such as Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton. The compositions of contemporary composer William Bolcom run the gamut from popular songs, opera and symphonies, to his epic oratorio setting of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Of Experience. With Graceful Ghost, a sophisticated and sweetly melancholy rag, Bolcom pays homage to the legacy of Joplin. (For liturgical purposes we can think of it as Graceful Holy Ghost!)

Prelude: Three Preludes by George Gershwin (1898-1937) Another who blurred the lines between jazz and classical music was Brooklyn-born pianist and composer, George Gershwin. Ragtime was still in its heyday when the teenage Gershwin’s career was launched on Tin Pan Alley, and his first of many hits was Swanee, composed in 1919. His first classical composition, a concerto for piano and orchestra, Rhapsody in Blue, followed in 1924. Collaborating with lyricist and elder brother Ira, the name Gershwin became synonymous with hit songs and Broadway shows, but all the while George wished to be taken seriously as a classical composer. His Three Preludes for solo piano, composed in 1926, are a groundbreaking synthesis of ragtime, blues, and classical styles, and they also demonstrate his formidable skill as a pianist. They were premiered by the composer in 1926 at New York’s Roosevelt Hotel.

Prelude: Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar This haunting melody became well-known as the theme from Ken Burns 1990 PBS Series, The Civil War. [LISTEN] Heard throughout the five-part documentary, many assumed the Ashokan Farewell to be a traditional ballad of the time, when in fact it is the only modern composition Burns used in the series. It is a waltz composed by Bronx native Jay Ungar in 1982 for use at his Fiddle and Dance Camp, held at the Ashokan Field Campus of SUNY New Paltz. ‘Ashokan’ means ‘place of many fishes’ or ‘where waters converge.’ In the documentary this music memorably accompanies the reading of a letter by Major Sullivan Ballou, (Rhode Island Volunteers) written to his wife a week before he was killed at the First Battle of Bull Run.

Please note: the above prelude music will begin at our 10:45am in preparation for 11am worship.

American Folk Hymns—An Enduring Legacy

Perhaps one reason I so resonate to American folk music and hymns is because as soon as I could walk my parents were hauling me off to hear Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Woody and Arlo Guthrie, and others. I’m still trying to figure out why my mother, in particular, who grew up in an apartment in Evanston and settled in suburban Chicago (aka “outer whitelandia”) was so drawn to this music. I think it’s for much the same reason I’m drawn to Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion: I feel nostalgia for something I’ve never experienced, except through its music. In my mind’s eye I imagine people who lived simpler lives unhindered by ambition, knew the land and lived by the seasons, and were bonded by common roots in music as well as locale. By chance, this week a friend and former congregant sent the very picture of this quaint life I’ve never known but long to return to, and here it is, right on her front porch in North Carolina!

Introit: I Come With Joy—American Folk Hymn, arr. Kenneth Dake One of my favorite hymn texts and folk tunes, I’ve arranged this in different ways over the years, including a sprightly a cappella choral setting which the Sanctuary Choir recorded on their 2004 CD, With Many Voices. This week’s version was originally composed for a July 4th service in 2004, and it features a plaintive violin obligato with choir and organ. [LISTEN] I don’t know of a text that better sums up the worship life of our community than these words of British hymn writer Brian Wren (b. 1936): “Together met, together bound, in friendship we will stay, and go with joy to love the world, and live the way we pray.”

Worship for very long at Marble and you’re bound to hear the choir sing Shape-Note Hymns, including this beloved gem, Africa, composed in 1770 by the man considered to be America’s first composer, William Billings. [LISTEN] In this authentic rendering by The Tudor Choir you hear the rugged, earthy sound and dialect that was typical of the day; the music is not so much sung as it is proclaimed. Following the Revolutionary War, a novel approach to music notation, more accessible to the non-musician, was developed by Little and Smith and came to be known as “Shape Note” music. In the publishing bonanza that followed, the rich oral heritage of folk tunes spread among congregations and singing communities throughout southern and rural areas of the country. Numerous volumes such as the Kentucky Harmony (1816) and the Sacred Harp (1844) testify to the legacy American folk hymns have in the social and musical fabric of the nation. Sunday’s postlude features another joyful Shape-Note hymn from the Sacred Harp named Pisgah (1817), arranged for organ by Dale Wood.

The Gift to Be Simple

Anthem: A Shaker Medley Rounding out this celebration of American music is a medley of 5 Shaker songs. The United Society of Believers, known as the Shakers, began in the 18th century with Mother Ann Lee as their guiding spirit. Taking the Beatitudes as their central Biblical text, they gave up life in secular society to live in communities which stretched from Maine to Kentucky. As this first song describes, they chose beautiful settings for their villages and equated spiritual fulfillment with growing things, cultivating their land with love. [LISTEN] For the Shakers all of life was infused with faith—there were no divisions between work and worship. Their core values were simplicity, union with God and one another, pacifism, and gender equality.

Using the Shaker motto for the title of her 2001 sermon, Hands to Work, Hearts to God, Rev. Dr. Kimberleigh Jordan likewise challenged us to think of everything we do as an offering to God, pregnant with the same expectation of God’s presence in our workplace as when we enter the sanctuary on Sunday mornings. Certainly the Shaker notion of ‘simplicity’ is extremely inviting to us weary, worn New Yorkers. But Dr. Jordan reminded us that simplicity is not to be confused with ease, for simplicity is deceptively difficult to find, and requires a diligent and intentional search, as well as a fair amount of letting go.

As you listen to the Sanctuary Choir singing Bob Chilcott’s arrangement of the well-known Shaker hymn, The Gift to Be Simple [LISTEN] I leave you with a poem I wrote several years ago, reveling in our bountiful heritage of American music.

America sings with many voices,
Faint and strong,
Celebrated and unnoticed,
Emanating from cotton fields and concert halls,
Cathedral spires and country schoolyards,
In accents of distant motherlands and Midwest backyards,
Appalachian backwaters and corner delis.

America sings with many voices,
About every suffered loss and celebrated gain,
Every unrealized aspiration and burning desire,
Every broken dream and promising breakthrough,
Every lovers’ parting and longed-for reuniting,
Every ecstatic joy and silent epiphany,
Every hope for peace, no matter how fleeting.

With many voices America sings her sacred song of faith.