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Listen to pieces in this collection
This diverse group of pieces represents a small slice of the musical life of the southern United States during the mid-19th century. The collection includes the early American hymn settings of William Billings (1746-1800), whose music formed the foundation of the uniquely American tradition of "shape-note" or "Sacred Harp" music which began in the North and in the early 19th century was spread to the South by travelling singing masters. This was the most popular religious music of the period and Billings was one of its major composers. On the secular side there is the virtuosic and wildly popular music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869), hymns and popular tunes for brass band, and programmatic pieces for orchestra and piano.
The composers range from the musically self-taught to the highly trained; one (Ernest Guiraud) wrote recitatives for Bizet's Carmen and orchestrated works of Offenbach. This was music sung by common people in churches and barns, played by military bands, or performed by travelling composer/performers night after night to massive audiences across the US and South America. Some of the pieces represent the most popular works of their time and genre.
The musical roots of this music stretch as far as England, Scotland, Moravia, France, the Caribbean, the Americas, as well as New England and the South -- but the pieces themselves, for the most part, demonstrate a distinctively "American" identity. The words and melodies of Billings' music and that of his fellow hymn composers came directly out of English traditions and developed into a more raw, folk-oriented idiom worlds away from its European origins. Likewise, Gottschalk's early training in the music of 19th-century Europe (France in particular) was only the beginning of his long musical journey. His travels to Cuba, the Caribbean, and South America brought him into contact with a wealth of music from which he forged his uniquely multicultural musical style.
The mid-19th century was a time of tremendous technological, social, and political change in the United States. The transcontinental railroad and telegraph began to unite the country just as the Civil War (1861-1865) nearly destroyed it. Slavery was legally abolished in 1865. Industrialization, urbanization, and the war were radically remaking the country. While it is beyond the scope of this project to provide a history of the 19th-century South, the unusually colorful stories of these composers and some of the fascinating histories behind the pieces themselves provide a bit of social and historical insight into the period.
 Pasquinade. Caprice, op. 59 (c. 1863) by Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Ricordati. Nocturne. Méditation, op. 26 (c. 1856) by Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Manchega. Étude de concert, op. 38 (c. 1852/1860) by Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Le Chant du martyr. Grand caprice religieux. (c. 1854) by Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Lorena / Bright Smiles (1857/1860's) by Joseph P. Webster and William T. Wrighton
Here's Your Mule (c. 1863) arranged by William H. Neave
Sleepers Wake / Covenant (c. 1735/1784) arranged by Christian Gregor
Kittery / Cobham / Morpheus / Broad Cove (1779-1794) by William Billings
Emmaus (1778) by William Billings
Euroclydon (1781) by William Billings
David's Lamentation (1778) by William Billings (original)
David's Lamentation (1778) by William Billings (shape-note)
Singing School (1832) by J. H. Moss
Jolly Soldier (1855) by Edward R. White
Battle of Manassas (1861) by Thomas Wiggins
Chasse fantastique (1887) by Ernest Guiraud
The Last Hope. Méditation religieuse, op. 16 (c. 1854) by Louis Moreau Gottschalk
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