HATFIELD - American Vocalist?

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Antonio James Higgins

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May 30, 2025, 9:22:09 PMMay 30
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Dear all,

Hello! Does somebody have the score for HATFIELD, as sung by the Boston Camerata? I've been able to track that it comes from The American Vocalist, but I'm thinking an earlier edition not found online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEHsCpNVMN8

Sincerely,
Antonio J. Higgins

rl_v...@yahoo.com

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May 30, 2025, 9:47:19 PMMay 30
to Fasola Discussions, Antonio James Higgins
Is this the same HATFIELD that was in The Sacred Harp? Check page 327 in the 1911 James Book.

https://archive.org/details/11394316.4428.emory.edu/page/326/mode/1up

Robert Vaughn 
Mount Enterprise, TX
http://baptistsearch.blogspot.com 
Ask for the old paths, where is the good way
http://mtcarmelbaptist.blogspot.com 
For ask now of the days that are past...
http://oldredland.blogspot.com 
Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land.


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Antonio James Higgins

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May 31, 2025, 3:10:49 AMMay 31
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Thank you! It is the same melody, but with a different arrangement and text. From what I can tell about the tune's history, it seems to be an adaptation of a William Billings tune by the same name, and the closest I've found to the version sung by the Boston Camerata is the arrangement from Amzi Chapin (#29 in the Shenandoah Harmony), which includes the dissonance between tenor and treble in m. 11, yet the treble in the Camerata recording is slightly different. The treble varies from version to version, it seems. 

It is possible that the treble was changed by the editors of the Shenandoah Harmony or the Boston Camerata. These are Cohen's program notes: "From an eighteenth-century manuscript preserved at the public library of Newburyport, Massachusetts. This setting was praised by the American Vocalist's compiler D.H. Mansfield, a man who fought the genteel, "reforming" style, as one of the best of the old tunes:  "Hatfield..will make them weep, while modern compositions produce little or no effect." What will have to be narrowed down is simply finding the source Cohen used.

Sincerely,
A. J. Higgins

Wade Kotter

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May 31, 2025, 3:11:10 AMMay 31
to Fasola Discussions, Antonio James Higgins, rl_v...@yahoo.com
Robert, I believe this is the link you meant to give:

https://archive.org/details/11394316.4428.emory.edu/page/327/mode/1up

It's not the same as HATFIELD in The American Vocalist


Wade

Dr. Wade Kotter
Retired Librarian
Independent Hymnologist and Unrestrained Loud Treble
South Ogden, UT
"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord" 



Barry Johnston

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May 31, 2025, 11:46:18 AMMay 31
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Please see https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Hatfield_(William_Billings) for a bit more history and a transcription from the 1780 manuscript.

Barry Johnston
Gunnison, Colorado

Wade Kotter

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May 31, 2025, 12:39:38 PMMay 31
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Did anyone else notice that Mansfield attributes his version of HATFIELD in the American Vocalist to Maxim, presumably Abraham Maxim?  According to the Hymn Tune Index, there are several different tunes named HATFIELD; one of them (HTI #12567a), which appears to me to match Manfield's version based on the incipit, first appeared unattributed in the 1808 2nd ed. of Maxim's Northern Harmony. Maxim published a truncated version (HTI #12567b) in the 1816 4th edition of his Northern Harmony. This truncated version later appeared in the first (1818) and second (1820) editions of Washburn's The Temple Harmony; in this case, Washburn attributes them to Maxim. Does anyone have access to the Northern Harmony and/or The Temple Harmony?

Dr. Wade Kotter
Retired Librarian
Independent Hymnologist and Unrestrained Loud Treble
South Ogden, UT
"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord" 

David Warren Steel

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May 31, 2025, 3:07:15 PMMay 31
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The tune HATFIELD as sung by the Boston Camerata is the one found in the 1850 Sacred Harp, p. 327. It first appears in Sukey Heath's manuscript book of 1782. This MS contains eleven tunes attributed to Billings, though some were never published by him, including HATFIELD, here dated 1780. It was published by Andrew Law, Rudiments of Music, 2d. ed., and in Ingalls, Christian Harmony (1805) as TRUE PENITENT, attributed to Billings. The versions in the Heath MS, Ingalls, and the Sacred Harp are nearly identical, in three voices. The version in Shenandoah Harmony, from an Amzi Chapin manuscript, is also nearly identical, other than the addition of an alto part.
The tune HATFIELD by Maxim is entirely different. Perhaps this is the one cited by Mansfield in his preface. Later he cites other old New England favorites as "moving the hearts of good men if it does not tickle the fastidious fancy of infidels." Mansfield certainly had a way with words, as in "the scientific gingling of imported discord."
-- 
Warren Steel                              mu...@olemiss.edu
Professor of Music Emeritus      University of Mississippi
              http://home.olemiss.edu/~mudws/

Robert Vaughn

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May 31, 2025, 6:24:57 PMMay 31
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HATFIELD remains in the 2012 Cooper Edition of The Sacred Harp -- still on page 327 -- with an alto by J. M. C. Shaw. When I replied yesterday, I was not at home to verify whether it was still on the same page (plus I was trying to point you to a digital score).

Sincerely,
Robert Vaughn 
Mount Enterprise, TX
Ask for the old paths, where is the good way
For ask now of the days that are past...
Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land.

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