Music of the Pilgrims

Nine Psalms from ¨The Ainsworth Psalter¨ Narration excerpts from Governor William Bradford’s ¨Of Plimoth Plantation¨ 00:00 Psalm 108 01:48 Narration: Departure from Leyden 02:31 Psalm 3 04:53 Narration: Arrival in the New World 05:36 Psalm 136 08:51 Psalm 15 09:44 Narration: The First Spring 10:20 Psalm 21 11:17 Psalm 24 13:56 Narration: Thanksgiving 14:15 Psalm 23 16:19 Psalm 34 19:11 Narration: The Pilgrim Spirit 19:39 Psalm 100 English Madrigals 21:01 My bonnie lass she smileth (Thomas Morley, ) 22:55 April is in my mistress´ face (Morley) 25:02 Fire, fire, my heart (Thomas Weelkes, 1576-1623) 27:03 The silver swan (Orlando Gibbons, 1583-1625) 28:55 As Vesta was from Latmos Hill descending (Weelkes) 31:47 Fair Phyllis I saw (John Farmer, ) 33:32 Weep you no more, sad fountains (John Dowland, 1563-1626) 38:11 Willy, prithee go to bed (Thomas Ravenscroft, ) The New England Conservatory Alumni Chorus, conducted by Lorna Cooke de Varon James Pease, baritone soloist and narrator (sponsored by Plimoth Plantation) Art: Pilgrims going to church (1867), by George Henry Boughton (1833-1905) The music the Pilgrims brought to the New World was the Ainsworth Psalter, published in Amsterdam in 1612. Henry Ainsworth, a member of the Pilgrim or Separatist sect, fled from England to Amsterdam in 1593, for in Holland the religious exile found freedom to worship God. A learned Biblical scholar and honored ¨teacher¨, Ainsworth translated the Psalms from the Hebrew, turned his translations into verse form which he set to music. This work, called the “Book of Psalmes”, became known as ¨The Ainsworth Psalter¨ and served as the religious music of the Pilgrims for many years. ¨The Ainsworth Psalter¨ has 39 tunes for all 150 Psalms, so a number of Psalms use the same tune. Some of the tunes were taken from the famous English ¨Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter¨, and some were melodies Ainsworth heard around him in Holland. He wrote of them: “Tunes for the Psalms I find none set of God; so that each people is to use the most grave, decent and comfortable manner of singing that they know... The singing-notes, therefore, I have most taken from our former English Psalms, when they will fit the measure of the verse. And for the other long verses I have also taken (for the most part) the gravest and easiest tunes of the French and Dutch Psalmes”. In this way, the vigorous popular music of France and the Low Countries was adapted for religious purposes. Ainsworth used many fine French melodies, such as the ¨Huguenot Marseillaise¨ (Psalm 136), ¨Toulon¨ (Psalm 23), and ¨Old Hundred¨ (Psalm 100), and the famous old German melody ¨Vater Unser¨ (Psalm 34). The Pilgrims sang in unison and without accompaniment. They believed, as did John Calvin, that the sole purpose of sacred music was the worship of God and that organ accompaniment or intricate part singing was a distraction from that prime purpose. Congregational singing was a feature of the Protestant movement. As the melodies were handed down by memory from one generation to the next, in the wilderness far from the musical world, skill in congregational singing deteriorated. The device of “lining-out” was probably used in Plymouth as in the other Massachusetts settlements. The minister or some person appointed by him sang to the end of the line and the congregation repeated it after him; then the minister sang the next line, and so on to the end. This practice had the great disadvantage of interrupting both the sense of the Psalm and the musical phrase. Music flourished in Elizabethan England and the English madrigal came into full glory. Between 1588 and 1630 over 80 vocal collections, containing between 1500 and 2000 pieces, nearly all secular in character, were published in part-books, and many more still remain in manuscript. The most famous of these publications was that known as the ¨Triumphs of Oriana¨, edited by Thomas Morley, which contained 25 English madrigals by nearly all the most distinguished English composers of the time. That the Pilgrims and Puritans were not different from the rest of their countrymen in their enthusiasm for and appreciation of the secular music of their time may be seen in the contemporary correspondence and writings of many of the members of this movement. THERESA PUTNAM (April 1953, Boston, Massachusetts) These recordings were made in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Engineering was under the direction of James Stagliano. Prior to this recording no portion of ¨The Ainsworth Psalter¨ had been recorded. The excerpts from Governor William Bradford’s ¨Of Plimoth Plantation¨ are from ¨Of Plymouth Plantation¨, edited by Samuel Eliot Morison, copyright 1952 by Samuel Eliot Morison, and were recorded with the permission of the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York The Haydn Society, Inc. (HSL 2068 / HSL-2068) 1953