The American Vocalist - Spirituals and Folk Hymns 1850-1870 (Century's recording: Joel Cohen)

The American Vocalist: Spirituals and Folk Hymns (1850-1870).
*Click to activate the English subtitles for the presentation* (00:00-04:27)
AT THE RIVER
00:00 I. Deal gently With thy servants
04:27 II. Shall we gather at the river
07:45 III. Happy Land
08:52 IV. Burst ye emerald gates

GREAT COMFORTER, DESCEND
11:02 I. Wrestle
14:59 II. Canterbury New
16:18 III. Edom
17:56 IV. I shall be satisfied

THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM
20:46 I. Milford
22:37 II. Star in the east
26:07 III. Bonnie Doone

THE GOSPEL FEAST
28:57 I. O come, come away
31:35 II. School Hymn
33:30 III. The Gospel Feast
36:10 IV. Go worship at Emmanuel's Feet
38:33 V. John Anderson my Jo
40:49 VI. Go when the morning shineth
42:57 VII. Captain Robert Kidd
43:42 VIII. How precious is the name
45:13 IX. Roll call
46:41 X. Glad Tidings

THE WARNING
48:37 I. The Warning
51:01 II. Windham
54:20 III. The Judgement Day
57:40 IV. Greenwich

The Boston Camerata
The Schola Cantorum of Boston
The Chamber Choir of the Havard-Racliffe Collegium Musicum
Conductor: Joel Cohen
Recorded in 1991, at Boston
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Joel Cohen: This is a recording about a surprising phenomenon: The vigorous survival, in the Northern part of the United States, of folk-inspired religious hymnody. It is well known that the "folk" element in American church music, after a start in eighteenth century New England, migrated South during the nineteenth century. In the South, shape-note hymn books like The Sacred Harp and the Southern Harmony, first published in mid-nineteenth century, have maintained, even into the present day, a style of folk-hymnody that was thought to have disappeared in the North. In the South, too, has flourished black people's congregational music, so powerful and compelling that the musical term "spiritual" has understandably but incorrectly come to mean "black religious music" for much of the general public. So the schema was supposed to be as follows: in the South, folk styles; in the North, politer church music that followed (or attempted to follow) the "rules".

What a surprise, then, to find authentic, idiomatic folk hymns and spirituals in song books compiled and published in the North! For if it is mainly true that Northern hymnbooks of the nineteenth century contain for the most part academic, watered-down Victoriana, a few prints show that the other, more vigorous tradition was indeed alive in the Northern states.

Two rare sources were of prime importance for this recorded program: The American Vocalist, an oblong hymn book in four-part harmony, compiled by the Rev. D.H. Mansfield, published in Boston in 1849 (and purchased by this writer in 1986 at a secondhand bookstore in Portsmouth, New Hampshire); and The Revivalist, a book of mostly single-line spirituals, published at Troy, New York in 1868. Click to activate the English subtitles for the complete presentation (00:00-04:27)

Traditional Music PLAYLIST (reference recordings): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3UZpQL9LIxM-yBzFbqMAyhq5dNG86WsF

american songamerican traditional songThe American Vocalist - Spirituals and Folk Hymns 1850-1870 (Century's recording: Joel Cohen)