Includes bibliographical references (pages 349-365) and index.
Contents:
Introduction: Hymnody's Road to Classical Music -- Antebellum Psalmody in its Cultural Context -- An Immigrant's Musical Memoir : Clifton's 1819 Original Collection and the Modest Launch of a Tradition -- Institutional Certification : Mason's 1822 Handel and Haydn Society Collection and Its Impact -- Heyday : Kingsley's 1838 Sacred Choir and the Midcentury Mania -- Psalmodic Adaptation as Musical Translation -- Conclusion -- Epilogue -- Appendix 1. Classical Music in Pre-Civil War American Psalmody : The Repertoire -- Appendix 2. The Repertoire by Composer.
Summary:
"In the decades leading up to the Civil War, most Americans probably encountered European classical music primarily through hymn tunes. Hymnody was the most popular and commercially successful genre of the antebellum period in the United States, and the unquenchable thirst for new tunes to sing led to a phenomenon largely forgotten today: in their search for fresh material, editors lifted hundreds of tunes from the works of major classical composers to use as settings of psalms and hymns.[...] Gems of Exquisite Beauty is the first in-depth study of the historical rise and fall of this adaptation practice, its artistic achievements, and its place in ninetheenth-century American musical life."--Book jacket.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.