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Thor Martin Johnson
The Unknown Century Of American Classical Music (1760-1860): Arias, Anthems And Chorales Of The American Moravians, Vol. 2

Album US 1962 on Columbia Masterworks label
Classical (Vocal, Classical)

Available on Monaural–ML 5688 © Columbia Records 1962 PREFACE Only within the present decade have musicians become aware that the United States possesses a vast but as yet incalculably rich classical music heritage. Where formerly we were quick to accord to Edward MacDowell and his confreres of the late-Romantic school the laurel as the "first" American composers, or a few better informed scholars insisted that the wreath might more properly be placed upon the threescore-year-older Lowel Mason, we now have acquired considerably better perspective in American music history. Our knowledge now extends back to the seventeenth century and we have developed a taste even for the earliest art music of the embryonic republic. It is simply incorrect to suppose that our musical life was barren until 1900. The New England artisan-composers whose humble musical essays are quite bewitchingly ingratiating, or Benjamin Franklin whose invention of the glass harmonica made him a musical connoisseur known to the greatest composers of Europe, or Thomas Jefferson with his enlightened visions of employing musically competent servants, or Charles Hommann the first American symphonist -- each of these is in the warp and woof of the American musical tradition. And yet we have nothing approaching a complete story of this rich heritage. In 1962, curiously enough, the United States is the only one of the world's cultured nations which does now know and use its own early art music. (An example: A 1959 census of American music on long-playing records showed that 1,602 compositions have been recorded, but of these only 159 were written before 1918!) The heritage is, fortunately, unfolding gradually and steadily after more than a century of neglect. As it unfolds and as the unsung is sung once again, there is every reason to believe that much of the vastly rich early American repertoire will assume a rightful place in the firmament of art. Occupying a unique niche within the early American repertoire is the music of the American Moravians, encompassing the years 1760-1860, the unknown century of American classical music. Their compositions -- nearly all of which are sacred works -- are not at all inferior to similar compositions by contemporaneous European masters. They are significant on the American scene as the only religious compositions calling for orchestral accompaniment. Moreover, from a historical perspective, Moravian music gives evidence of a glorious culture which flourished during extremely difficult times, and of the strong cultural ties binding a young nation to its parent nations. In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Salem, North Carolina, particularly, but in Lititz and Nazareth, Pennsylvania as well, the German-Americans who were of the Protestant-Moravian persuasion conceived of music as a necessity, to be nurtured always despite the vicissitudes of life. Neither wars nor pestilence could shake the Moravian dedication to music. As one keen observer has analysed this phenonmenon, the early Moravians were the very essence of moderation in religious matters, but in music matters they were quite fanatical. The Moravians tuned their whole lives to the sound of music. From morn to sunset music was with them as chorales in the fields, at the table, on journeys, at christenings, weddings and funerals. In the evening it graced special worship services or offered delight when the latest quartets of Haydn or Mozart were played by the Collegium musicum. On Saturday night it was civic music by the Collegium musicum, the Philharmonic Society, or perhaps the Männerchor. The fare on such occasions might be symphonies, concertos, oratorios, woodwind suites or songs. Sunday morning brought the customary Sabbath service but coupled with music in full glory, and especially so in the Advent and Lenten seasons. It is doubtful that any other communities resounded as did the Moravians' with brasses, woodwinds, strings and organs. These same instruments were often re-tuned for a sacred or secular concert in the afternoon of the Lord's day. A New England divine once asked a Moravian youth, who had just finished some Haydn chamber music on Saturday afternoon, whether he would use the same instruments tomorrow to worship the Lord. The Moravian, to whom a division of music into sacred or secular was unthinkable -- his only criterion being whether the music was good or band -- answered: "And shall you, sir, pray with the same mouth tomorrow with which you are now eating sausages?" Quid pro quo! It is precisely this good sense which allowed the Moravians, in 1957, to look back over 500 years of existence and service as the oldest continuing Protestant denomination. It is easy to count their contributions to the American cultural heritage -- they comprise one of the great but unheralded sagas of Colonial and post-Revolutionary history -- but it is probable that the Moravians themselves do not know the story! An ambush averted by Moravian-Christian Indians to save the lives of Americans during the French and Indian War; Benjamin Franklin commanding the militia in Bethlehem; Generals Washington and Lafayette resting in Bethlehem, Lafayette to recuperate in the special hospital run by the Moravians; a Lititz violinist named Hirte who was portrayed by Kipling, but whose real accomplishment was as a pioneer in the petroleum industry. In other areas were Zeisberger, the great missionary-linguist-explorer who helped to open the Middle West; Loskiel who produced one of the first and singularly important early geographies of the Colonies; Tannenberg, the best and most prolific organ builder before 1800; John Antes, a true American genius. Or again, Benjamin H. Latrobe, Antes' nephew, who brought the classic revival to America and as architecht completed the United States Capitol; the Salem botanist von Schweinitz, who discovered more than 1,400 species of American flora and gathered the largest private collection of botanicals in the United States; Bishop Jacob van Vleck, whose ancestors had owned Wall Street; Commodore Vanderbilt, who was raised in the Moravian faith; J. Fred Wolle, who first introduced J.S. Bach to Americans, and so on. But it was in music that the American Moravians made their greatest contribution to American culture. Among the significant records of musical development in classical America none is more important than the archives of the Moravian Church. For in these archives are upwards of 10,000 compositions, mostly handwritten and including many lost works by leading European composers, comprising the largest known collection of indigenously written and used music in the western hemisphere. This is early American Moravian music, and Jeremiah Dencke, John Antes, John Frederik Peter, Francis Florentine Hagen, Christian Ignatius Latrobe and Peter Wolle were six of its great practitioners.

Musicians

	Thor Martin Johnson , US conductor, album by, edited by, arranged by
	Aurelio Estanislao , baritone vocals
	Ilona Kombrink , soprano vocals
	David , edited by, arranged by
	Donald M. McCorkle , edited by, arranged by
	Clarence Dickinson , 1873-1969 US arranged by
	Helen A. Dickinson , words by, translation

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