MAITLAND

[Barry Johnston]

I recently came across an interesting attribution in Lewis Mudge's Songs of Praise with Tunes (1889).

On page 140[1], the tune MAITLAND is attributed to Amzi Chapin, c. 1820. I wonder what was the basis for his attribution? I didn't find anything like it in HTI, but possibly I didn't look far enough.

Mudge's hymnal is mostly pretty run-of-the mill songs, a lot of Lowell Mason (41), Dykes (16), etc. MAITLAND is a bit of a surprise, maybe there are others there.

The melody of MAITLAND sounds like a 1800-or-so revivalist folk hymn, based on a folk song, sounds best faster than the words would suggest. It's a good tune!

As far as I know, the first publication of the tune was in Beecher's Plymouth Collection of 1855[2]. William Reynolds (2001), in his discussion of Plymouth Collection[3], notes that this tune is labeled "Western Melody" with eleven others, "indicating that they had come from somewhere west of the Appalachians." This seems to point towards the early nineteenth-century revivalist tradition as well.

The tune is often attributed to George N. Allen, but the publication cited (Oberlin Social and Sabbath School Hymn Book)[4] contains only hymns and no music. I tend to agree with the notes to this tune on Hymnary.org, that "Allen was the author-adapter of the text 'Must Jesus bear the cross alone,' not the composer of the tune;"[5] the second and third stanzas of the hymn were apparently written by Allen.

On p. 35 (new) of the 1909 Sacred Harp, this tune is presented almost exactly as in the Plymouth Collection  and Mudge, only converted to four staffs with melody in the tenor. I find it chordal rather than polyphonic, not very satisfying (my opinion!). I have written parts more befitting the tune's apparent origins.[6]

Others may have more information.

Barry Johnston

Gunnison, Colorado

Notes:

1. https://archive.org/details/songsofpraisewit00mudg/page/140

2. https://archive.org/details/plymouthcollecti00beec/page/244

3. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015048008828&view=1up&seq=93

4. https://archive.org/details/socialsabbathsch00alle/page/88

5. https://hymnary.org/tune/maitland_allen

6. https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Maitland_(Anonymous)

[Steve Nickolas]

On Fri, 30 Aug 2019, Barry Johnston wrote:

> The melody of MAITLAND sounds like a 1800-or-so revivalist folk hymn, based
> on a folk song, sounds best faster than the words would suggest. It's a
> good tune!

Thomas A. Dorsey apparently thought so, since the tune to "Precious Lord,
take my hand" is an arrangement of MAITLAND. (I don't know why it's not
usually credited as such.)

-uso.

[Fulton, Erin]

Without actually looking at my indexes since it's near sundown, I would say anecdotally that I see this tune under the title CROSS AND CROWN more frequently than as MAITLAND. It not appears reasonably frequently in mid-Atlantic and Northern collections in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. In such sources, it is often (as you note) credited as a "Western tune" or similar. In addition to Plymouth, Sabbath Hymn and Tunebook is one of the really watershed publications in which it appears. 

I've always suspected that CROSS AND CROWN shares similar roots to SALEM. The correspondence isn't one-to-one, but cf. the first half of CB 56 or SoH 12, disregarding the syncopations. 

Best,

E. Fulton. 

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From: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Barry Johnston <bar...@earthlink.net>
Sent: Friday, August 30, 2019 6:43 PM
To: Fasola Discussions <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [fasola-discussions] MAITLAND

 

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[Antonio James Higgins]

Dear all,

Hello! According to Chris Fenner, Allen claimed authorship to the tune as well as those two verses . Here's from his "Precious Lord" article on Hymnology Archive:

In 1873, George Allen claimed authorship of MAITLAND, and his account was printed in the 26 August 1875 issue of the New York Observer:

The tune to which you refer—“Maitland”— was composed by me and introduced here in Oberlin about the year 1850. In my scrap-book it bears the name “Cross and Crown.” The words, “Must Jesus bear,” &c., were inserted by me in a small Pocket Hymn-Book, which I was engaged in compiling at the time; and hence the connection of the hymn with the tune. Three of the four verses which I send (copied from my scrap-book) were derived substantially from an old (Methodist) hymn-book which came under my observation at the time, and which I have not since met with. The hymn commenced with the words “Must Jesus bear the cross alone, And all the world go free?” There were a large number of verses. I introduced an additional stanza of my own (the second), of no particular merit, unless it may be supposed to connect more closely and naturally the verses somewhat detached in the original version.

You may find this on the far right column for this page: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b11858da2772cf01402ee6e/t/659c108f5ae9dd51f115604d/1704726672277/New-York-Observer_1875-08-26-lastcolumn.png 

Additionally, this source directly connects the tune MAITLAND with CROSS AND CROWN again, as the subscript above the poem reads "Tune-- Cross and Crown."

This doesn't explain Beecher's use of the term "Western Melody" in his hymnal, yet I believe it to be confident that he knew of this tune from Allen. Allen may have arranged a folk tune, which is my own personal hypothesis, but I don't know what that could be. 

Sincerely,

A. J. Higgins

[Karen Willard]

thanks to both AJ and Barry for your discussion👍

Karen

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