The foundation of American musical culture—State of English musical culture in the seventeenth century—The Virginia colonists—The Puritans in England and in America; New England psalmody.
Whatever else the American music-lover may be, he is decidedly not chauvinistic. Deprecatingly he is wont to speak of native artistic accomplishment, and, however much he may be disposed to vaunt the stellar achievements of our few great opera houses and orchestras, he is content to draw a veil of modest silence over that part of our musical history which precedes the advent of those de luxe organizations. Hence it is, perhaps, that the searchlight of the historian has played but fitfully upon the early musical life of America—for, although popular interest may not inspire the writing of history, it is not without its influence on the publication thereof. Possibly the musical life of pre-Revolutionary America has had little to do with shaping the ultimate artistic destinies of the nation, yet it formed the matrix into which our subsequent musical culture has been embedded and as such it is of both interest and importance to those who would follow a phase of our national development, as yet regrettably neglected.
It is a peculiar tendency of the American historian to lay the foundation of our national history squarely on the Rock of Plymouth. A solid foundation, truly, but not a very broad one. The predominant influence of New England in the industrial and commercial development of the United States can hardly be gainsaid. That its influences on the country's æsthetic development have been equally predominant is questionable. More especially in musical matters are we inclined to call it into dispute. If we might judge from American popular music, we should be disposed to infer that such influences as may have been active in the shaping of it came chiefly from the South. Nor is popular music a negligible criterion in this respect, for in it have always lain the germs of truly national art. Of course, our knowledge of the state of musical culture in the early colonies does not enable us to say definitely and dogmatically just where and how American musical development first began. It will probably appear eventually that the early musical life of the colonies has had very little to do with our musical culture of to-day. But, purely as a matter of historic justice, it might be pointed out that unqualified statements, such as the assertion of Ritter that 'the first steps of American musical development may be traced back to the first establishment of English Puritan colonies in New England,' are, to say the least, somewhat premature.[1]
I
A consideration of music among the Indians is not germane to our present purpose. As far as we are concerned Indian music is an exotic, and it is only of recent years that American composers have turned to it in a conscious search for national color which is, perhaps, the first real symptom of aspiration toward characteristically national expression. From the point of view of musical history the development of American music must be considered as beginning among the first white settlers on these shores, and it may be said at once that those beginnings, like Guy of Warwick's death, are still 'wrop in mystery.' Regarding musical life in the colonies before the year 1700 our information is so slight as to be negligible. For almost a century preceding that year white men—many of them men of culture—had been settled in America.[2] That these men completely forgot the art in which so many of them found pleasure, and in which at least a few of them must have possessed some skill, is a supposition too absurd to be seriously entertained. As to the nature and proportions of their musical activities we have no exact evidence and, in default of such, it is necessary for us to dip a little into comparative history.
In England the curtain of the seventeenth century rose on a country that as yet knew not cropped heads nor Geneva cloaks nor steeple-crowned hats nor the snuffling drone of Hop-on-High-Bomby mournfully mouthing the sinfulness of the flesh and the menace of the wrath to come. England still deserved its old-time appellation of 'merrie.' It still ate and drank, sang and swore, bussed and wantoned blithely, lustily, as befitted a country with a full purse, a sound constitution, and a healthy indifference to the disturbing subtleties of theology and metaphysics. It was a robust, Falstaffian England, still unregenerate, still addicted to sack and loose company, but with a mind as clearly keen as a Sheffield blade and a heart as soft and impressionable as its own Devonshire butter—'pitiful-hearted butter that melted at the sweet tale of the sun.' In short, a normal, vigorous, able-bodied, human country, not yet soured by the virus of an acidulated Puritanism, nor devitalized by the distemper of a cultivated licentiousness; a country in whose fertile soil the seeds of art might well germinate and flourish apace. And, as a matter of fact, English music, like English drama and poetry, was then approaching the culmination of its golden age. In Italy, Palestrina had just died; Peri and Monteverdi were shaping the beginnings of opera; the madrigal, the mystery, the morality and the masque were the prevailing media of secular musico-literary expression, while popular instrumental music was represented by Pavans, Galliards, Allmains, Courantes, and other courtly-sounding forms. The stern, strict god of polyphony was already stooping to flirt with the light and wayward muse of the people, making the first tentative advances toward a union from which was destined to spring a seductively human art. Never since has England stood so high musically among the nations of Europe. Never since has she produced composers who so closely rivalled the greatest of their contemporaries. There was William Byrd 'a Father of Musicke,' as the Cheque-book of the Chapel Royal has it—one of the most learned contrapuntists of his time and unequalled by any of his contemporaries in compositions for the virginals. There was John Dowland, 'whose heavenly touch upon the lute doth ravish human sense.' There was Orlando Gibbons, one of the greatest composers of his period, who was then in the beginning of his distinguished career. These, and many other English composers of scarcely lesser note, were as highly honored abroad as they were at home. Their influence on the development of German music has been admitted even by German critics.[3] In England the madrigal flourished then as it did nowhere else in Europe and reached a degree of perfection hitherto unattained even by the best madrigalists of Italy and the Netherlands. What Peri and Monteverdi were doing successfully in Italy in the pseudo-Grecian music-drama, the English were attempting to do, more characteristically though less successfully, in the masque. Some of the most famous of English popular songs—like 'The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington,' 'The Three Ravens,' and 'Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes'—have come down to us from that period. Indeed, the musical vitality of the England of that time was truly remarkable, and thousands of madrigals, motets, anthems, ayres, and ballets remain as eloquent witnesses to its teeming fecundity. English instrumentalists were then rated the best in Europe and were as commonly employed in the courts of Germany as German instrumentalists are now employed in the restaurants of London.
Nor was this noteworthy musical activity confined to the small class of professional musicians. If we may believe Morley,[4] and read aright the references of Shakespeare and other contemporary writers, music was sedulously practised by all classes in England, from the sovereign to the beggar. Queen Elizabeth, we find, played excellently on the virginals and the poliphant, though it does not appear that her dour successor took very kindly to such exercises. It seems to have been a matter of course that every well-reared girl should sing at sight and play acceptably on the virginals, the flute, and the cittern. Sight-reading—alas for our degenerate days—was apparently a universal accomplishment, at least among people of the better classes. After viols were introduced, every gentleman's house contained a chest of them and the chance visitor was expected to take his part at sight in the impromptu concerts which were a favorite form of social diversion. 'Tinkers sang catches,' says Chappell, 'milkmaids sang ballads; carters whistled; each trade, and even the beggars had their special songs; the bass-viol hung in the drawing-room for the amusement of waiting visitors; and the lute, cittern, and virginals, for the amusement of waiting customers, were the necessary furniture of the barber-shop. They had music at dinner; music at supper; music at weddings; music at funerals; music at night, music at dawn; music at work; music at play.'
II
From this intensely musical England came the band of colonists who landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. About half of them were 'gentlemen' and the remainder were soldiers and servants. The proportion of gentlemen—'unruly gallants,' as Capt. John Smith calls them—was less in later emigrations, though it was always comparatively high. Many soldiers came, and some convicts and young vagrants picked up in the streets of London were sent out as servants. Starvation, disease, and the attacks of Indians left very few survivors among those who came to Virginia during the first ten years. Afterward the population grew very rapidly and contained, on the whole, representative elements of all classes in England, with a comparatively large proportion of the upper classes. In 1619, as we learn from a statement of John Rolfe, quoted in John Smith's 'Generali Historie,' the first negro slaves were introduced into Virginia. A description in the 'Briefe Declaration' shows Virginia about two years later as a country already in the enjoyment of peace and prosperity. 'The plenty of these times,' says the writer, 'unlike the old days of death and confusion, was such that every man gave free entertainment to friends and strangers.' About that time land was laid out for a free school at Charles City and for a university and college at Henrico, but the project was not then carried through. As yet, however, there was not any pressing demand for public educational advantages, as the proportion of children was still very small. Later years saw a great increase in the population, both native and English born. During the Civil War there was a large exodus from England of cavaliers, as well as merchants, yeomen, and other substantial people, who found the troubles at home little to their taste or profit. There must have been little to distinguish the Virginia society about the middle of the seventeenth century from English society of the same period. The colonists lived well; they were prosperous; they had good, substantial houses equipped with good, substantial English furniture; they entertained with open-handed freedom and generosity. 'The Virginia planter,' says George Park Fisher, 'was essentially a transplanted Englishman in tastes and convictions and imitated the social amenities and culture of the mother country. Thus in time was formed a society distinguished for its refinement, executive ability and generous hospitality for which the Ancient Dominion is proverbial.'[5]
The population of Virginia always remained largely rural, but nevertheless there was social life aplenty. Education was mainly in the hands of the clergy, who, as a rule, were Englishmen of culture. But steps toward public education were taken at a very early period. The attempt of 1621 failed, as we have noticed, but in 1635—three years before John Harvard made his bequest—Benjamin Syms left an endowment for a free school in Virginia. This, to quote a recent writer, 'was the first legacy by a resident of the American plantations for the promotion of education.' Another free school was established in 1655 by Captain Henry King, and two in 1659 by Thomas Eaton and Captain William Whittingdon. In 1670, according to a report from Sir William Berkeley to the Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, the population of Virginia consisted of 40,000 persons, of whom 2,000 were negro slaves and 5,000 white servants. The 2,000 negro slaves probably included a number of mulattoes, for even then there must have been traffic between white men and negro women, as we may infer from the law which gave to a child the status of its mother. The remainder of the population was almost exclusively English. What we have said of Virginia in the seventeenth century applies also in a general way to Maryland and Carolina, both as to population and conditions, though the Huguenot emigration to Carolina in 1685 made a decided difference in the character of the population there subsequent to that date.