Resignation

[Charlie Steele]

Anyone have historical information on Resignation beyond the fact that it appeared in Southern Harmony, which is basically all some hymnal commentaries have said that I have looked at.

 

 

Charlie Steele, DMA
Brevard-Davidson River Presbyterian Church
249 East Main Street
Brevard, NC 28712
828.884.2645, ext. 31

[Wade Kotter]

Charlie:

George Pullen Jackson identifies Resignation as a folk hymn in his
"Down-East Spirituals," but he doesn't mention any related secular
tunes. For what it's worth (perhaps not much), the booklet accompanying
the "American Angels" album by Anonymous 4 cites the 1828 edtion of
"The Beauties of Harmony" by Freeman Lewis as their source for the
tune.

Wade Kotter
Ogden, UT

--- Charlie Steele <bdrpc...@citcom.net> wrote:

> Anyone have historical information on Resignation beyond the fact
> that it appeared in Southern Harmony, which is basically all some
> hymnal commentaries have said that I have looked at.

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[Nikos Pappas]

It appears that Anonymous 4, did not do their homework.  After checking through the revised edition of The Beauties of Harmony (Pittsburgh, 1828), the tune does not appear.  However, in Lewis' earlier work, Songs of Zion (Pittsburgh, 1824), a tune called RESIGNATION is found on page 131.  However, this is not the RESIGNATION that appears later in the southern shape-note books.  This is the tune most often called WATCHMAN by the English nonconformist tunesmith James Leach, which appeared in the 1st ed. of The Sacred Harp on page 39.  Lewis apparently got his tune from John Cole, an Episcopalian reform musician in Baltimore.  Cole published The Beauties of Psalmody (Baltimore, 1805) with this tune, but named it RESIGNATION with the same text and text attribution as found in the later Lewis publication (Psalm 130, T & B, vs. 5).

In terms of the tune RESIGNATION that this thread has dealt with (here's the melodic incipit):

1(3)53(2)35u1d6(5)3  1(3)51321

The earliest source I've been able to find of this tune is in Funk's 1st ed. of The Genuine Collection of Church Music (Winchester, 1832).  Walker got this tune from this source, along with other's unique to Funk's book like BOZRAH, which is then how it entered the southern repertory.

Nikos

[Wade Kotter]

Thanks, Nikos. Has anyone checked for this tune in Funk's "Die
Allgemein nützliche Choral-Music" from 1816?

Wade

--- Nikos Pappas <nikos.a...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It appears that Anonymous 4, did not do their homework. After
> checking

> through the revised edition of *The Beauties of Harmony* (Pittsburgh,
> 1828),
> the tune does not appear. However, in Lewis' earlier work, *Songs of
> Zion*(Pittsburgh, 1824), a tune called RESIGNATION is found on page

> 131.
> However, this is not the RESIGNATION that appears later in the
> southern
> shape-note books. This is the tune most often called WATCHMAN by the
> English nonconformist tunesmith James Leach, which appeared in the
> 1st ed.

> of *The Sacred Harp* on page 39. Lewis apparently got his tune from

> John
> Cole, an Episcopalian reform musician in Baltimore. Cole published

> *The
> Beauties of Psalmody *(Baltimore, 1805) with this tune, but named it

> RESIGNATION with the same text and text attribution as found in the
> later
> Lewis publication (Psalm 130, T & B, vs. 5).
>
> In terms of the tune RESIGNATION that this thread has dealt with
> (here's the
> melodic incipit):
>
> 1(3)53(2)35u1d6(5)3 1(3)51321
>
> The earliest source I've been able to find of this tune is in Funk's
> 1st ed.

> of *The Genuine Collection of Church Music* (Winchester, 1832).

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[Nikos Pappas]

There is a version of the tune called HOPEWELL but it's not the tune that's RESIGNATION.  Rather, it's in the tune family from which HOPEWELL and RESIGNATION both spring.

HOPEWELL
15435u1d6(4)3 1(3)51(2)321

RESIGNATION
1(3)53(2)35u1d6(5)3 1(3)51321

They're close, but definitely not the same. So, I don't think it could be said the Funk adapted RESIGNATION from HOPEWELL anymore than, ST. MARYS and GALLAHER influenced SOLON, HARMONY GROVE, or NEW BRITAIN.  These were just orally circulating tunes among evangelical musicians in the US at this time.  And in any case, it shows again the connection between PA and VA and of false separation of these places from one another.

Nikos

On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 2:07 PM, <berkleym...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

I think that Lewis was indeed the first to publish Resignation, but in a non-pentatonic version that he named "Hopewell".  Hopewell can be found in John R. Daily's "Primitive Baptist Hymn and Tune Book", No. 141.

Berkley Moore
Springfield, IL


----- Original Message ----- From: Nikos Pappas
To: wadek...@yahoo.com
Cc: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 10:43 AM
Subject: [fasola-discussions] Re: Resignation

[Wade Kotter]

Here's a JPEG of CHRISTIAN TRAVELLERS from the Hesperian Harp:

http://www.shapenote.net/berkley/185.jpg

Wade

--- Nikos Pappas <nikos.a...@gmail.com> wrote:

> IRWINTON is a version by Dr. T. W. Carter. Houser also published a
> version in *The Hesperian Harp* (p. 185) called CHRISTIAN TRAVELLERS.
> I don't have it on hand to check, but it's also in F major in 3
parts.

[Nikos Pappas]

Freeman Lewis's Beauties of Harmony was revised during the 1820's after his unsuccessful venture with his second book, which I cited in my first post.  And it doesn't appear in either.

I was also surprised at the Anonymous 4 citation, and looked in my
index to the different, earlier (first) 1814 Freeman Lewis' Beauties
of Harmony, where the tune does not appear (I have index and selected
tunes, mostly Chapins :-),  copied from Library of Congress copy).

GP Jackson only lists the tune in Down-East Spirituals, p. 113, in a
list of 'folk-hymns' as Wade pointed out.  Jackson's only cited
source, unusually unthoroughly,  is Southern Harmony, 1854, which is
third edition, and he has nothing else to say about the tune...

The 1854 ed. is not the 3rd ed., bu the new rev. ed.  And, though it's on an early page, it doesn't appear in the early eds.  Walker first published the tune in his Southern and Western Pocket Harmonist (1846) on page 54.  After Walker conglomerated the SWPH and Southern Harmony together in the 1854 ed., he brought this tune into the SH and later published it with an added 4th part in The Christian Harmony.  Walker's version is identical to the original Funk publication.

But there RESIGNATION  is on page 38...  isn't that a page that was in
since the first edition of 1835?  I don't know Walker's publishings
well enough to know whether Walker only added at the end like the
first few editions of Sacred Harp so that page 38 clearly means 1835,
or if he removed and inserted whereever, so who knows what...  someone
have access to earlier Waker editions to see how early RESIGNATION is
there?

If you actually go to the Southern Harmony, 1854 ed., you will see that the plate and engraving is not the original - see BOZRAH on the next page for a tune printed from the original plates.

Similarly, in more recent seven-shape "Harmonia Sacra" editions of
what was originally Funk's Genuine Church Music, RESIGNATION is on
page 302--  so, was it really in the first 1832 volume of 208 pages
(page count form Richard Stanislaw's Checklist), or only added later?
 I only have a very modern Harmonia Sacra, and Nikos, you say you
found it in 1832 first edition (do you have that!! ?  pretty dang
rare, isn't it?  wow...), but I just wanted to double-check that
detail....  accept apologies please if I'm not trusting enough your
earlier precision.

 

Yes, I got this from the 1st ed. (p. 144), of which I have a digital copy of and just cross referenced.  Funk later published it in the Harmonia Sacra as did Martin D. Wenger, the "successor to J. Funk" in his Elkhart, Indiana Mennonite 7-shape book, the Philharmonia (Elkhart, 1875).  However, these appear in different keys between Funk and Wenger.  Funk published it in the GCCM in 3 parts, in F major, as found in Walker's 4-shape sources.  The Harmonia Sacra is the revision of GCCM, but it is not an identical book with added supplements like the 1850, 1860, and 1870 eds of The Sacred Harp.
 

Then, the bass and treble parts are very substantially different from
each other in Sacred Harp, Southern Harmony, and Funk's books (which
have alto also, completely different of course from Sacred Harp alto),
and completely different in third / middle phrase-- more different
than very many stolen and borrowed tunes, which make me think again
that it's not so clear who took from whom, or when, or even at all,
and if RESIGNATION might not have been a rather widely-known melody
independently arranged by several people in the 1830's and 1840's (or
earlier, if we find it....)

IRWINTON is a version by Dr. T. W. Carter.  Houser also published a version in The Hesperian Harp (p. 185) called CHRISTIAN TRAVELLERS.  I don't have it on hand to check, but it's also in F major in 3 parts.

And meanwhile, my stomach just doesn't go for Funk for this tune, and
my stomach has a pretty good track record in melody hunting....
(that's a wacky couple of statements that can just be trusted or
ignored, I suppose....)

I can't speak for your stomach, but this is the reality from the printed sources.  It also illustrates the problem of ignoring German-American contributions to the repertory, as exemplified by almost all scholarship in shape-note music.  We tend to forget that Germans were in the Shenandoah Valley as early as anyone else.  We also tend to forget that Pennsylvania and backcountry Virginia were quite similar during the 18th and early 19th centuries.  This music is not just Scotch-Irish, it's cross cultural and representative of evangelicalism, despite cultural and language backgrounds.

Nikos

[berkleym...@sbcglobal.net]

I think that Lewis was indeed the first to publish Resignation, but in a
non-pentatonic version that he named "Hopewell". Hopewell can be found in
John R. Daily's "Primitive Baptist Hymn and Tune Book", No. 141.

Berkley Moore
Springfield, IL

----- Original Message -----
From: Nikos Pappas
To: wadek...@yahoo.com
Cc: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 10:43 AM
Subject: [fasola-discussions] Re: Resignation

[Gabriel Kastelle]

Fasola--

RESIGNATION / IRWINTON-- I love this tune....

The mixed poignant feeling and the ambitus and the grand arc and
spacious 3/2 musical meter of the main air somehow strike my stomach
as Gaelic or Welsh like our Welshman compiler of Southern harmony Wm.
Walker, and somehow, just as subjective feeling, I'd be surprised if
German Mennonite Jos. Funk were really the source....

Here's a few publishing details that make me wonder whether there
aren't still some loose ends in our thinking about history of the
tune:

I was also surprised at the Anonymous 4 citation, and looked in my
index to the different, earlier (first) 1814 Freeman Lewis' Beauties
of Harmony, where the tune does not appear (I have index and selected
tunes, mostly Chapins :-), copied from Library of Congress copy).

GP Jackson only lists the tune in Down-East Spirituals, p. 113, in a
list of 'folk-hymns' as Wade pointed out. Jackson's only cited
source, unusually unthoroughly, is Southern Harmony, 1854, which is
third edition, and he has nothing else to say about the tune...

But there RESIGNATION is on page 38... isn't that a page that was in

since the first edition of 1835? I don't know Walker's publishings
well enough to know whether Walker only added at the end like the
first few editions of Sacred Harp so that page 38 clearly means 1835,
or if he removed and inserted whereever, so who knows what... someone
have access to earlier Waker editions to see how early RESIGNATION is
there?

Similarly, in more recent seven-shape "Harmonia Sacra" editions of

what was originally Funk's Genuine Church Music, RESIGNATION is on
page 302-- so, was it really in the first 1832 volume of 208 pages
(page count form Richard Stanislaw's Checklist), or only added later?
I only have a very modern Harmonia Sacra, and Nikos, you say you
found it in 1832 first edition (do you have that!! ? pretty dang
rare, isn't it? wow...), but I just wanted to double-check that
detail.... accept apologies please if I'm not trusting enough your
earlier precision.

Then, the bass and treble parts are very substantially different from

each other in Sacred Harp, Southern Harmony, and Funk's books (which
have alto also, completely different of course from Sacred Harp alto),
and completely different in third / middle phrase-- more different
than very many stolen and borrowed tunes, which make me think again
that it's not so clear who took from whom, or when, or even at all,
and if RESIGNATION might not have been a rather widely-known melody
independently arranged by several people in the 1830's and 1840's (or
earlier, if we find it....)

And meanwhile, my stomach just doesn't go for Funk for this tune, and
my stomach has a pretty good track record in melody hunting....
(that's a wacky couple of statements that can just be trusted or
ignored, I suppose....)

???

Had to ask....

-- Gabriel Kastelle
New London, CT

[Karen]

A variant of the melody of RESIGNATION does appear in the "Beauties of Harmony", under the name HOPEWELL.

In the Sacred Harp, #229 IRWINTON is another variant of the tune.

We'll find it in tons of places, under different names. GP Jackson's research led him to declare it one of the 80 most popular tunes found in the southern 4-shape tunebooks. And those who dig amongst the northern round-note books find it there, too.

Karen Willard

[Nikos Pappas]

Wade, it's not in there either

[Nikos Pappas]

Houser evidently adapted this from IRWINTON.  The bass is almost identical, and the treble follows closely in sections.  The alto is Houser's original (apparently).

Also, HOPEWELL was published by Amos Sutton Hayden in The Melodeon.  Daily might have gotten it from this highly popular and influential book.

Nikos

[Gabriel Kastelle]

Nikos--

Excellent-- thank you!

I think that answers all my questions and fills in the gaps I didn't
know, and as earlier, still,

" accept apologies please if I'm not trusting enough your
> > earlier precision."

:-)

Yes, it is always good to remember the polyglot roots of the
shape-note 'tradition'-- I enjoy the variety.

Thanks again for your good scholarship.

-- Gabriel Kastelle
New London, CT

(five unseen new messages as I've typed-- what's happened here !! ??
-- I'm replying to all after Nikos' first reply to my first comment /
questions, but I suppose this reply will appear much later...)

[Wade Kotter]

Gabriel:

What's happening is that people (including myself) are using "Reply to
All". So responses are not only going to the list but also to the
sender and anyone else who's listed in the To: or CC: fields. So you'll
be getting two copies of each message, one from the sender (usually
comes first) and one from the list. I try to respond only to the list,
but you need to remember to delete the original sender's email address
(and any other personal email addresses) from the To: and CC: fields.
For this message, I'm only sending it to the list and everyone should
only receive on copy.

Also, thanks to you, Nikos, Berkley, and Karen for their commentary on
this beautiful pentatonic melody.

Wade

--- Gabriel Kastelle <gabrie...@gmail.com> wrote:

> (five unseen new messages as I've typed-- what's happened here !! ??
> -- I'm replying to all after Nikos' first reply to my first comment /
> questions, but I suppose this reply will appear much later...)

[Gabriel Kastelle]

Hmmm...

I only get single copies of any post...

I have usually done "reply to all"-- do people get doubles of mine?

[this I'm sending only to fasola]

What really happened was lots of smart people and fast typers were on
their computers at the same time, and lots of postings were going up,
and I was only wondering what content I might be missing ....

Thanks, though!

-- Gabriel K.

[Stephen Conte]

On Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:35:44 -0500, Nikos Pappas
<nikos.a...@gmail.com> wrote:

> They're close, but definitely not the same....

> These were just orally circulating tunes among evangelical musicians in
> the US at this time.

Nikos' erudite statement (above) is no less startling to me than some of
George Pullen Jackson's attributions of affinity, such as the relationship
between "North Port" and "Henry Martin," though Nikos seems to argue in
one direction and G. P. Jackson in the other. Taxonomic lumpers and
splitters, perhaps.

To me, "Hopewell" is "Irwinton" with extra ornaments, just as "Melody"
(#313 in the Daily book) is "Sweet Prospect," and "Dunbar" (#239 in the
Daily book) is the same as the loose-leaf "Sing to Me of Heaven/There'll
be no sorrow there" that a lot of Sacred Harp singers like, and so on.

The musicologists I've spoken with have tended to deny any similarity
between "Dunbar" and "Sing to Me of Heaven," except for one who barely
admitted (maybe) a little resemblance. Yet the traditional singers I sing
with in Iowa, Missouri, Alabama, and Georgia have no question that they
are the same tune - the one a straight "book" version, the other a slow
"mountain" version with lots of ornamental whines and wiggles.

Clearly, there are different sets of criteria being invoked by these
parties. I would welcome some definition, especially from the academic
side, as to what makes a tune "the same" or "not the same," and in what
sense or context the criteria apply.

Ever,
Stephen Conte

[Will Fitzgerald]

On Apr 9, 7:21 pm, "Stephen Conte" <child_of_gr...@iowatelecom.net>
wrote:

> On Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:35:44 -0500, Nikos Pappas  
>
>

> Clearly, there are different sets of criteria being invoked by these  
> parties. I would welcome some definition, especially from the academic  
> side, as to what makes a tune "the same" or "not the same," and in what  
> sense or context the criteria apply.
>
> Ever,
> Stephen Conte

Hear, hear! I would very much like this as well. And, perhaps,
pointers to references.

Will Fitzgerald