Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

Reflections on Early Sacred Musicof New EnglandbyMichael WinshipMusic serves as an indicator both delicate and profound of a person’s ora people’s relationship to world and cosmos. As such, it has great capacitiesfor historical revelation. The re-creating and experiencing of music, for performerand listener alike, can be a readily accessible gateway to the spiritualand historical impulses of the past.With such revelatory capacities latent in musical composition, it isunfortunate that American art music has had such difficulties in findingits way as an authentically American mode of musical expression. Untilrecently, such music looked away from America towards Europe for itsmodels and techniques, and consequently, it has not been able to integrateitself comfortably into American culture. The role it has played has been asmuch one of a cultural icon as of a living experience.However, there existed in the early days of this country a group ofcomposers, little known today, whose art did not suffer from this confusedorientation. These composers produced a varied body of music uniquelyAmerican in orientation. Their style of music flourished from the last third ofthe 18th century through the early years of the 19th century. It was centeredin New England, from whence it radiated out along the Eastern seaboard.What was it about New England that allowed an indigenous style ofmusic to arise? At the end of the 18th century, New England was, by Americanstandards, unusual in its ethnic, cultural, and spiritual homogeneity.The original European settlers had come to the region for the most part outof religious impulses, and a stern and serious Christianity still held sway.A geography textbook 1 written around 1800 in New England describedthe New Englanders with an equal mixture of accuracy, hyperbole, andinsularity, as:82