SAMANTHRA

[David Walters]

Hello,

I’m new to the group. Can anyone tell me the history of the tune ‘SAMANTHRA’? I find it in Southern Harmony, and in the Supplement to Kentucky Harmony (1820). One scan of the latter credits Wyeth’s ‘Repository’ as a source, but I can’t find it in the online scans I’ve looked at. And, does anyone know the origin of the name? the CCEL site at Calvin College says it’s Hebrew for ‘listener’ (“His voice, as the sound . . .”), but that is apparently not quite true, according to a scholar of Biblical languages I know. It’s been picked up by several modern hymnals, like mine, the Grey Psalter-Hymnal (Grand Rapids, Faith Alive) #616, but with more recent words.

 

Peace,

David

[Gabriel Kastelle]

:-)

yay,
my friend SAMANTHRA visits again!
This lovely tune was discussed here in decent detail a few years ago, and that discussion should be easily findable in archived discussions... 

I think it got split into two, an original and responses, and a RE: ... altered subject and its replies... ?

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/fasola-discussions/QKCjL0mwqbc/w2t17lZtbrwJ

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/fasola-discussions/QKCjL0mwqbc/uLhESpoOMm0J

Enjoy!

-- Gabriel Kastelle --

New London, CT

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[Wade Kotter]

Having participated in that previous conversation, I should have remembered that Davisson attributed the tune to Humphreys in the 2nd edition of his supplement but not in his third. The more I learn the more I forget....

 

Wade Kotter
South Ogden, UT
"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord"

---

From: Gabriel Kastelle <gabrie...@gmail.com>
To: dwal...@golden.net
Cc: Discussions List <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 5:04 PM
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] SAMANTHRA

[Wade Kotter]

Welcome to the group, David!

SAMANTHRA is a favorite of mine; I was so happy to see it in The Shenandoah Harmony. The earliest printing I'm aware of is the c1821/1822 2nd edition of Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony. It's not in the 1820 first edition of this tune book according to Temperley's Hymn Tune Index, nor is it, according to Temperley, in any pre-1821 edition of Wyeth's Repository or his Repository Part Second. I'm not sure what to make of the attribution in the Supplement. The tune is attributed in the Hesperian Harp to Humphreys; here the tune name is spelled SAMANTHA:

http://www.shapenote.net/berkley/271.jpg

Warren Steel says the following about Humphreys in The Makers of the Sacred Harp:

"HUMPHREYS, R. D., contributed five tunes to Kentucky Harmony and Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony. In 1817, Ananias Davisson named him among 'gentleman teachers' in Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky." (p. 125)

Nikos Pappas from the University of Alabama and  Warren Steel (from Ole Miss), both of whom frequent this list, probably know more about the history of this tune than I do. Hopefully one or both will chime in along with anyone else with more info. As to the name, I took advanced classical Hebrew in graduate school and the claim that the tune name is based on Hebrew for listener is as problematic as your scholar friend indicates.

Wade 

 

Wade Kotter
South Ogden, UT
"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord"

---

From: David Walters <dwal...@golden.net>
To: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 3:31 PM
Subject: [fasola-discussions] SAMANTHRA

[Wade Kotter]

Gabrielle's post also reminds me that there is an 1821 printing (in a book printed but not compiled by Wyeth) of the tune that precedes Davission's version from the 2nd edition of the Supplement. Follow his links and you'll learn a lot more about this beautiful tune.

Wade

 

Wade Kotter
South Ogden, UT
"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord"

From: Gabriel Kastelle <gabrie...@gmail.com>
To: dwal...@golden.net
Cc: Discussions List <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 5:04 PM
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] SAMANTHRA

[Wade Kotter]

Here's a link to a scan of Swain's original poetry:

https://archive.org/stream/experimentalessa00swai#page/8/mode/2up

Wade

 

Wade Kotter
South Ogden, UT
"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord"

---

From: Wade Kotter <wadek...@yahoo.com>
To: "gabrie...@gmail.com" <gabrie...@gmail.com>; "dwal...@golden.net" <dwal...@golden.net>
Cc: Discussions List <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 7:21 PM
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] SAMANTHRA

[Rachel Hall]

Hi David - I'm curious about your Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony scan that credits Wyeth.  Do you know where it came from, or which edition it is? Is the annotation handwritten, or printed? 

As others have mentioned, the tune is in Rothbaust (1821) with both English and German words.

It's a great tune!

best,

Rachel

[Wade Kotter]

Rachel:

I think David is referring to the 3.3 mb PDF of Robert Stoddard's resetting of the Supplement available here:

http://www.bostonsing.org/music/suppl-kt-harmony/

Or perhaps to the individual page scans of Robert's reset version here:

http://www.shapenote.net/berkley/SKyH3.htm

Robert includes the Wyeth attribution in his reset version (the 3.3 mb PDF)  but it is not there in the 97 mb concatenated PDF Robert made from scans Berkley Moore originally had on his site. Perhaps Robert can tell us the source of the attribution since it does not seem to have appeared in the original.

 

Wade Kotter
South Ogden, UT
"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord"

---

From: Rachel Hall <rh...@sju.edu>
To: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2013 2:02 PM
Subject: [fasola-discussions] Re: SAMANTHRA

--

[Nikos Pappas]

OK.  I'll take the bait here too.  I've found four variants of this tune, with only one seemingly based on the Davisson/Rothbaust version found in all of Funk's editions of the Genuine Collection.  The three basic variants are:

5u1123215554(3)          2321d57u21 from the second edition of Ananias Davisson's Supplement to Kentucky Harmony (1820?)

5u1123215554(3)          2321(d7)57u21 from Samuel Wakefield's Ecclesiastic Harmony (1825)

5u1123215554(3)          2321d577u1 from Joshua Leavitt's first volume of The Christian Lyre (1830)

The Funk variant differs only by one or two notes in the middle section of this tune and the time signatures have been changed from 2/4 to 2/2 with the note values doubled accordingly.  While I believe that the Davisson/Rothbaust variant is the source for Funk's (given that the opening phrase is identical) I have doubts about its indebtedness to the Wakefield and Leavitt variants.  As such, I believe also that Humphries was not the composer but rather the arranger of the tune if he was actually responsible for the setting.  Davisson dropped his attribution as Wade pointed out in the third edition.  I don't know of any other piece that lost an attribution in a succeeding edition of a publication by Davisson.  As to who was first, Rothbaust or Davisson, remains problematic.  As has been pointed out, Die Franklin Harmonie, und Leichter Unterricht in der Vokal-Musik is dated 1821 and published by John Wyeth, the publisher of the two parts of Wyeth's Repository.  Perhaps Wyeth's role as publisher of Rothbaust's volume would explain the Wyeth ascription that David found.

The settings of Davisson's SAMANTHRA and Rothbaust's SAMANTHA are also almost identical.  The only difference is found in two measures of the treble part.  I've attached (as small files jpegs of the two settings).  So the question remains as to whether Davisson's second edition was released before or after the Rothbaust publication.  I myself would be inclined to favor Davisson over Rothbaust for a couple of reasons. 

First, there is precedent for German tunebook compilers to publish works from English-language imprints.  Some of the earliest shape-note German-language tunebooks started to include the Anglo repertory beginning with popular fuging tunes such as Newburgh and Sherburne, as well as other plain and antiphonal tunes.  Specific to Davisson, Funk credited two tunes in his first publication, Die allgemein nützliche Choral-Music (1816), a setting of Chapin's ROCKBRIDGE and the tune SUPPLICATION: "Die obige zwey Melodien sind von der Kentucky Harmonie genommen" [The following two tunes are taken from the Kentucky Harmony]. Funk's version of SUPPLICATION is however unique to this source and not that of Davisson's KH. 

Second, the first edition of Davisson's Supplement to Kentucky Harmony seems to be a practice run for the real publication, the second edition.  Certain aspects of this tunebook remain incomplete.  For instance, he didn't even include the entire preface to the book but inserted at the bottom of the page "(To be continued in the Second Edition.)"  A number of pages are missing in the volume, but the index includes no tunes for an expected signature of eight pages (9-16), which comprised the number of pages in one folded sheet.  It appears that Davisson couldn't wait to even finish preparing the book before printing the first edition.  The second edition is the first complete edition of the three.  I would find it hard to believe also that Davisson waited two years to release a complete version of his tunebook.  I think the 1820 date on the second edition is authentic based upon a comparison with the first, and despite the fact that he re-used the same plates for the title page and preface (he never did finish that preface and just gave up in the third ed., simply omitting his promise to continue it).

Where it gets interesting is that none of the instances of the Davisson/Rothbaust variant ever credit this tune to Rothbaust.  In fact the only variant to credit Rothbaust (in various misspellings) is the one originating with the Methodist Minister Samuel Wakefield of Westmoreland County in western Pennsylvania.  I'm attaching a PDF document of the 35 instances of this tune I've found in the repertory.  Wakefield credited the tune: "Rotpoust's Coll."  Every other instance of this variant attributes it to "Rothburst" or "Rothboust" (the tunebooks of Wakefield and Ohio musician Amos Sutton Hayden).  As with the Funk attribution of SUPPLICATION to KH, the Wakefield variant SAMANTHA is not identical to that in Rothbaust.  So, the question remains whether Wakefield adapted his setting from Davisson or Rothbaust.

I would argue in favor of neither for several reason.  First, although Wakefield included a number of tunes in his Ecclesiastic Harmony (1825) attributed to Davisson, as many of these attributions are false or simply incorrect, suggesting that he in fact copied them from some intermediary source and not necessarily directly from Davisson's tunebooks.  A number of tunes in this book appeared in Davisson's Kentucky Harmony and the Supplement to Kentucky Harmony as well as James M. Boyd's The Virginia Sacred Musical Repository (1818).  Only two tunes appeared in the SKH and of these, FLORILLA is unattributed casting some doubt as to him having direct access to this collection.

Tunes appearing in Kentucky Harmony

1. CONDESCENSION - Davisson (KH 2 and later)
2. IMMENSITY - Davisson
3. JUDGMENT - ascribed to Boyd but not printed in Boyd's The Virginia Sacred Music Repository (1818)           
4. REFLECTION - Davisson (KH 2 and later)
5. SALEM - Bovelle (KH 2 and later)
6. SOLEMNITY - Davisson (KH 2 and later)
7. SOLITUDE [IN THE GROVE] - Davisson (KH 2 and later)

 

Tunes appearing in Supplement to Kentucky Harmony

1. DAVISSON'S RETIREMENT - Davisson
2. FLORILLA (no attr.)

A number of other pieces remain common to both Davisson's KH and Boyd's VSMR

1. MELINDA - Boyd
2. NEW ORLEANS - Boyd
3. SALVATION - Boyd

 

Besides the nine authentic Davisson settings, there are in contrast nine incorrectly attributed tunes to Davisson, Davisson's Coll., Davisson's Sup. and the one Rotpoust.  Here's a list:

1. BREWER attr. to Davisson but this tune does not appear in any tunebooks by Davisson.
2. CRUCIFIXION attr. to Davisson but this tune variant is not the same as Davisson's setting and variant.
3. CHARLESTOWN attr. to Davisson's Coll. but actually from Boyd's Virginia Sacred Music Repository.
4. GREENFIELDS attr. to Davisson's Sup. but melody variant and harmonization is different
5. IDUMIA attr. to Davisson, but variant is from Boyd
6. INVITATION attr. to Davisson, but this is a variant unique to Wakefield
7. SAMANTHA attr. to Rotpoust's Coll.
8. THIRTIETH attr. to Davisson but is not Davisson's GOLDEN HILL, an arrangement of Amzi Chapin's 30TH.
9. TRIBULATION attr. to Davisson but is its own unique variant that appeared for the first time in this source and not that of Davisson.  An earlier manuscript c. 1815 from Shelby County, KY precedes it.

 

His direct access to Davisson, and Boyd for that matter is called into question.  However, no earlier published source contains these attributions either.  So, either he had access to manuscript that itself was incorrectly copied, or the attributions for these tunes remained in oral circulation rather than by the word.  Either way, it strongly suggests that the melody was in oral circulation and subject to regional or perhaps denominational variation.  Davisson was the Presbyterian, Wakefield a Methodist.  That he would draw strongly from the repertory of James Boyd, a fellow Methodist, remains expected too.  The attribution to Rothbaust seems strange given that he did not draw any other tunes from Rothbaust's tunebook.

The third variant found in Leavitt's Christian Lyre has no connection to either Rothbaust or Davisson.  At least this source attests to any lack of direct influence from one source to another.  What remains complicated to determine, from my point of view, is whether the setting in Davisson became so popular that the tune entered into the folk repertory, as occurred with Billings' UNION HYMN, or whether the tune is of folk provenance.  Perhaps, once the Swiss and German books are indexed, we'll be able to determine if this tune goes back to one of these sources.  The contents of a number of the earliest German-language tunebooks took their sources from 18th-century tunebooks from these areas, such as Rachel Hall discovered a few months ago.  But until then, it appears that the tune was more popular among English-language musicians and most likely originated as a common melody.  For the list of abbreviations for these sources in the PDF, you can find a key at: http://www.lib.ua.edu/digitalhumanities/sacredmusic

Here's my two cents.

Nikos Pappas

Tscls, AL

--

[Warren Steel]

Nikos, I always learn a lot from your detailed and copious postings. One
thing that caught my eye was your discussion of the first and second
editions of Davisson's Supplement to Kentucky Harmony:

>Second, the first edition of Davisson's Supplement to Kentucky Harmony
>seems to be a practice run for the real publication, the second
>edition. Certain aspects of this tunebook remain incomplete. For
>instance, he didn't even include the entire preface to the book but
>inserted at the bottom of the page "(To be continued in the Second
>Edition.)" A number of pages are missing in the volume, but the index
>includes no tunes for an expected signature of eight pages (9-16), which
>comprised the number of pages in one folded sheet. It appears that
>Davisson couldn't wait to even finish preparing the book before printing
>the first edition. The second edition is the first complete edition of
>the three. I would find it hard to believe also that Davisson waited two
>years to release a complete version of his tunebook. I think the 1820
>date on the second edition is authentic based upon a comparison with the
>first, and despite the fact that he re-used the same plates for the title
>page and preface (he never did finish that preface and just gave up in the
>third ed., simply omitting his promise to continue it).

You've offered some information that may help in dating the "second
edition," if indeed it may so be called. I have a question and a comment.
What do you mean that Davisson used the "same plates" for title page and
preface? Do you mean that the entire first sheet (title page [1],
introduction [2], preface [3] and rudiments [4]-8) is identical in the two?
Or only a portion of this? And what about the musical pages of the NNUT
pages? Are they completely identical to those in the so-called second
edition, and not reset? If you have photocopies of both, it should be
possible to tell, in view of the quality of Davisson's work.

The reason that I ask is because I've never seen any evidence that any
one of Davisson's books was printed from "plates" at all--they were printed
directly from movable type, and reset with every edition, since a printer
could not afford to keep composed types standing between editions. This was
true with the first five editions of Wyeth's Repository--they were reset
for each edition, even for identical content--until the final stereotyped
edition of 1826. Missouri Harmony was only stereotyped with the 1829
edition. Even the New Haven edition of Walker's Southern Harmony was
printed directly from type, and only stereotyped beginning with the
"corrected and improved" 1838 Philadephia edition. In the early days of
stereotyping, it was usually mentioned of on the title page, and the
stereotyper (a specialized craftsman, not the printer) was often credited.

So, if considerable portions of the first two editions of the
supplement are truly identical, i.e. actually printed from the same
impression, then this would support your suggestion that the "first
edition" (a unique and incomplete exemplar at the Union Theological
Seminary) may well consist of early and partial proofs of the same
printing, and we should renumber the editions "beta or 0.9" (the NNUT
copy), "first or 1.0" (1820 or possibly 1821) and "second or 2.0" (1825 on
the title page, but July 1826 in the colophon). I say "possibly 1821"
because Davisson may have run behind schedule here as in the final edition;
but note that his 40-page Introduction to Sacred Music is signed 13 March
1821, so one might expect that the Supplement was complete before this date.

As you have already shown in the rest of your posting, and in the
attachment, a revised date for the "second edition" has implications in
determining the priority of printing for various tunes, including
SAMANTHA/SAMANTHRA. Thanks for your contribution; please let us know about
the close examination of the typesetting.

--
Warren Steel mu...@olemiss.edu
Professor of Music University of Mississippi
http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/

[Nikos Pappas]

Warren,

Thanks for the kind words.  I was a bit hasty in using the word plates.  I know that the musical portions were printed from moveable type, but I thought the title page and the preface perhaps were engraved.  However, I was perhaps mistaken in this claim.  I should correct myself in saying that these pages were printed from type too (I haven't seen the 1st edition in person to know whether it was engraved).  Upon a second look, the title and preface pages do differ somewhat (I'm appending the title pages, prefaces, and a sample page from the rudiments section), and the rudiments were reset with very minor details between them.  For this reason, I would say that the second edition is a true second edition because of the difference in typesetting between the two editions.  It must be said though that Davisson probably did not consider them independent editions.

Regarding the title pages, if you look in the listing of booksellers at the bottom of the page, you'll notice that the first line in SKH 1 (a scan from the Union Theological Seminary) ends with "each of the following" and continues on the second line with "places, viz."  In SKH 2 this same line ends with "in each of the" and continues with "following places."  Likewise at the end of the second line, SKH 1 present "and Louisville" and continues with "Missouri" without a semicolon after Louisville.  SKH 3 end with "Kentucky, and" and continues with "Louisville; Missouri."  A bibliographical entry would not have shown this difference between the two editions and I should have looked more carefully before I posted.  Both editions are however dated 1820, implying that SKH 2 in all likelihood dates from 1820 too.  Because of these differences, I would argue for a real first and second edition.

As you'll see, the prefaces are almost exactly identical, both in spelling, spacing, and punctuation, a remarkable feat for Davisson if he in fact reset this page for the second edition.  Davisson was notoriously sloppy in his printing and much variation exists in orthography from edition to edition.  The only differences I can spot are: 1) in the third line the word "nevertheles" in SKH 1 was corrected to read "nevertheless" in SKH 2, and 2) in line nine of SKH 1 there is an extra space between "a" and "wise" that was corrected in SKH 2.  As I stated earlier both prefaces contain that same note at the bottom in parentheses (To be continued in the Second Edition).

More obvious details occur in the Rudiments section.  Page 5 is a good example.  Under the Moods of Common Time, the first mood (C) is prefaced with "1st," in SKH 1 and "1st." in SKH 2.  Also the text indentation of the direct (after the hand sign) after the "Moods of Treble Time" (upper right corner of the page) is not indented in SKH 1 but is in SKH 2.

So the question remains how to document these two editions.  Davisson apparently didn't consider them separate editions (attested by the Preface page), but they are clearly different settings.  Is the SKH 1 merely a practice for SKH 2.  Is SKH 1a and SKH 1b more appropriate? In SKH 3, he removed the note at the bottom of the Preface page, so evidently he considered this to be the second edition.  My copy of SKH 2 was photographed from that at Eastern Mennonite University of Harrisonburg.

What do you all think?

Nikos Pappas
Tscls, AL

[Wade Kotter]

Nikos & Warren:

I'm still working through all of this fascinating information and may have questions/comments later  but I  wanted to thank both of you for your detailed and thoughtful posts. When I see a message from either one of you I know I'm in for something good.

Cheers!

Wade

 

Wade Kotter
South Ogden, UT
"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord"

---

From: Nikos Pappas <nikos.a...@gmail.com>
To: Warren Steel <mu...@olemiss.edu>
Cc: Fasola-Discussions <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 3:03 PM
Subject: [fasola-discussions] Re: SAMANTHRA

[Rachel Hall]

Yes, I've been pondering the SKH dates too even since I got a look at the first edition scans last month.  Davisson calls the 1825/6 edition the "third" and writes "the subscriber has added 24 pages to his Supplement" on the last page.  However, I agree that the NNUT edition is incomplete - I also noticed the missing signature.  The EMU edition adds the missing signature plus another signature at the end of the book.  In it are several Carrell tunes that we know were published in Songs of Zion (1821).  However, Carrell registered the copyright for SZ in 1820, and presumably his pieces existed in manuscript before 1820, so I don't think that's conclusive evidence one way or the other. 

One tantalizing note is that Wm E Chute dates a bunch of Davisson songs to 1824.  Perhaps there was a "real" 2nd edition?  If so, it had the same number of pages as the EMU edition.

best,

Rachel