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Shining Shore: Music of Early America
Three Notch’d Road (The Virginia Baroque Ensemble)
rec. 2020, Sono Luminus Studios, Boyce, USA Private release [53]
As an Englishman, when I think of early American music what first comes
to mind is grand marches and military music, or else Civil War songs.
This album has few of the former, and none of the latter (indeed, all
the music predates the Civil War). The earliest music on the album is,
unsurprisingly, English – Thomas Ravenscroft, John Playford, Purcell
and Handel, whose works were popular at the time. English musical exports
continued well into the eighteenth century and are also heard on the
album, such as the cheery Ah Nanny!, first performed in 1773
at London’s Vauxhall Gardens. However, it is also in this century that
we hear a developing “Americanness” – the works become more patriotic
or devotional in subject, with strong and straightforward melodies.
The confident final work, Shining Shore, written in the middle
nineteenth-century, goes the furthest in this regard.
I don’t wish to give the wrong impression: this is not all, by any means,
sunny patriotism or quaint song. The ballad The Lady of York
builds gradually with guitar and cello accompaniment, then added eerie
vocal lines, as we the listener realise the horror of the tale: the
mother who has murdered her children and buried them in the woods. It
is very well done, and feels like the sort of thing that, one imagines,
would have been sung round a fire, late one evening in the seventeenth
century, in a New England forest.
The religious music tends to be more solemn than enthusiastic. The melancholy
Farewell Hymn will haunt you long after it is heard – a fine
reflection on death and the longing to meet Jesus. The better-known
I wonder as I wander, unlike Farewell Hymn, ends with
foreboding – the narrative anticipates the suffering of Christ. I like
the spare way it is performed – just voice and Baroque violin – ending
with voice alone.
Indeed, the accompaniments are usually spare. The intimacy is as I imagine
it would have felt hearing this music in people’s homes, but with the
refined capabilities of a modern early music ensemble. The arrangements
can be striking – the strange and unclassical voice-leading in Clamanda,
or the curious blended sound of cello and the metal-strung English guittar
(various diverse instruments are used, from clarinet to Appalachian
harp). The famous Dead March, for example, is played with quiet modesty.
One feels in the religious music in particular that there is a quiet
within the music – a space to reflect.
Sometimes, however, I felt that the interpretations were a bit on the
twee side – especially the more jolly pieces, which to me felt like
they needed some more umph. The performances are certainly pleasing,
but is it wrong of me to imagine that, perhaps, this music would have
been played with a bit more coarseness and rustic vigour in the New
World? There are some added effects – pizzicato and drones, for example
– and Peter Walker’s voice has a pleasing, gentle twang. But overall
the playing is very crisp and neat, in the usual early music style,
with some folk inflections. At times I would have rather the performances
had been a bit less genteel and a bit more, well, American.
One thing I did greatly appreciate was the clear enunciation of soprano
Michelle Pincombe and bass Peter Walker, especially as the booklet,
unfortunately, has no song texts. I have already mentioned Walker’s
characterful voice (who in addition to singing plays several instruments
on the album); Pincombe’s voice is the more skilled and delicate, and
here she sings in a tender folk-like manner.
This is a repertoire one seldom hears – a curious selection of music
from early America, with some particularly beautiful and poignant songs.
The recorded sound is excellent, and anyone interested in American early
music, or the more “popular” side of musical history, should give it
a try.
Steven Watson
Contents Henry Purcell
Hornpipe “Wells Humour” Jeremiah Ingalls
Behold a Lovely Vine George Frideric Handel
Dead March Anonymous
Liberty Tree Thomas Baltzar
John Come Kiss Me Thomas Ravenscoft & Ananias Davisson
Idumea: Remember, O thou man Oliver Shaw
Jefferson’s March Anonymous
The Lady of York Anonymous Broadside Ballad
A Voyage to Virginia Charles Thomas Carter
Ah nanny, wilt thou gang with me? Jeremiah Ingalls
Farewell Hymn William Walker
Garden Hymn Traditional Appalchian
I Wonder as I Wonder Anonymous
Drive the Cold Winter Away Jeremiah Ingalls
Jesus Christ the Appletree Jeremiah Ingalls
Clamanda George Frederick Root
Shining Shore
