This past Sunday the Kenwood Players provided music for an event at James Madison's Montpelier. This is the program (slightly edited) I wrote up for the portion of the evening we played music of the Madison era.
Music for
James and Dolley Madison's Montpelier
Sunday July 15, 2012
Summer Family Barbecue and Picnic
The Kenwood Players
Hayley Parrish - Flute
Dick & Maggie Stageberg - Trumpet & Clarinet
Bill Burnside - Alto & Tenor Sax
Crawford Harmon - Tuba
Bill Chapman - Tuba & Mouth Harp
Judy Peterson - Percussion
Lyle Sanford - Alto Flute, French Horn, Banjo & Guitar
Bob & Don Davies - additional vocals
Ed Harvey - audio engineer
Music of the Madison Era
Introduction
Mr. Madison's March & Mrs. Madison's Minuet
Mrs. Madison's Waltz
This Great World is a Trouble
Four Tunes from The Beggar's Opera
The Richmond Ball
Corelli and Handel
Chester, by William Billings
Introduction
This is a collection of tunes that were popular during the time of James and Dolley Madison, a few of which we can be fairly certain they heard performed.
The arrangements are simply transpositions of the originals into keys friendlier to our instrumentation. Guitar chords have been added, which fills out the harmonies, and the scoring for the wind instruments fills out some harmonies as well. Otherwise the music is as originally published.
The addition of guitar chords makes improvisation easier. Back in the early 19th century it was still expected that musicians would be improvising from time to time.
We are not trying to replicate the music of the era in the way in which it would have then been played (Historically Informed Performance). We are, however, trying to bring it alive with our modern instruments.
In this music's heyday it would have most often been heard when friends gathered to make it themselves, either in the tavern or at home. Perhaps in part for that reason, we've found this music a lot of fun to play.
We're playing this music as background during the Open House and the picnic, as that's most likely the way it would have been presented in the early 1800's. The notion audiences should sit quietly in the dark had not yet taken hold. Even at operas of the day, the house was fully lit and the audiences socialized, flirted, hobnobbed and politicked throughout the performances.
The Kenwood Players enjoy playing and performing music in a wide variety of styles, including classical chamber music, 60's rock, Dixieland jazz, big band tunes, country, folk, blues, spirituals and hymns.
Lyle Sanford,
Registered Music Therapist
Mr. Madison's March & Mrs. Madison's Minuet
Two Pieces Written Expressly for the Madisons
Alexander Reinagle (1756-1809) was an English-born musician who spent his formative years in Scotland. A teacher, composer and theater and concert entrepreneur, Reinagle's performances and compositions introduced the piano-forte to American audiences.
He emigrated to New York but soon moved to Philadelphia where his talents were quickly recognized. He organized concert series, performed frequently on keyboard and violin and was in demand as an instructor.
In 1792 he joined with Thomas Wignell to build a large 2,000 seat theater that opened in 1794 as the New Theatre. Wignell recruited and managed the players; Reinagle directed the orchestra from the pit and arranged or wrote most of the music for these performances. Over the next ten years the two produced nearly 500 operas, pantomimes, and plays with incidental music. . .
These two pieces were probably written for a specific performance to which the Madisons were expected to be in attendance. The orchestra would play “Mr. Madison’s March” when Madisons entered the theater and Mrs. Green and Mr. Francis might dance the minuet as an entr’acte or integrate it into one of the two pieces on the bill of the evening.
According to the New York Gazette (June 2, 1809), Francis’s ”Mrs. Madison’s Minuet” was the “favorite dance at Washington” in the spring of 1809.
- Music of the War of 1812 in America; Dances, Marches & a Love Song; Set II
www.1812music.org (The Colonial Music Institute)
Mrs. Madison's Waltz
The proprietor of the
1812 Music website tells me this is a pirated waltz by Muzio Clementi. It was published in Philapelphia with no composer attribution by "G. Willig", the publisher of "Mr. Madison's March" and "Mrs. Madison's Minuet".
Clementi wrote music expressly for, and in later life manufactured and sold, the pianos which were replacing the harpsichord in the early 1800's. Reinagle, the composer of "Mr. Madison's March" and "Mrs. Madison's Minuet", helped popularize the piano in America.
This Great World is a Trouble.
Sung by Mr. D'Legard in Jupiter and Europa.
Music by Leveridge. London 1723
- British Union Catalogue of Early Music Printed Before 1800
Richard Leveridge was a basso whose life (1670-1758) spanned the period from Henry Purcell to Handel: he sang for both men. The incidental music he composed for the stage was heard in the colonies in
The Recruiting Officer, The Constant Couple, and
Love and a Bottle. The first two are known to have been performed in Williamsburg, and Leveridge's music was also known in the colonies through the Bockham, Watts, and his own two volumes.
William Byrd II's diary shows that he, and probably other Virginians, were patrons of a coffeehouse kept by Leveridge in London about 1718, at the same period they were attending the theater where he was a featured actor and singer. Like other tavern keepers, Leveridge probably kept instruments available for the use of his patrons. Williamsburg tavern owners maintained the tradition, as the inventories of several of them prove.
- A Williamsburg Songbook, John Edmonds, first edition 1964
Four Tunes from The Beggar's Opera
As early as 1732, four years after the premiere,
The Beggar's Opera was well known to Virginians both through performances and through printed texts of the music. In modern terminology a "musical comedy", it enjoyed unprecedented popularity.
- A Williamsburg Songbook, John Edmonds, first edition 1964
Its nature is that of a spoken play of low life, with songs interspersed, set to popular tunes of the day - English and Scottish folk-song and folk-dance tunes, London street tunes, a few French airs, and a touch of Purcell and Handel.
- The Oxford Companion to Music, Percy A. Scholes, Tenth Edition 1970
Fill Ev'ry Glass
Air # 19, The Beggar's Opera by John Gay 1728
Fill ev'ry glass, for Wine inspires us,
And fires us With courage, love and joy.
Women and wine should life employ,
Is there ought else on earth desirous?
Packington's Pound
Air # 43, The Beggar's Opera by John Gay 1728
The Gamesters united in friendship are found
Tho they know that their industry all is a cheat;
They flock to their prey at the Dice-box's sound,
And join to promote one another's deceit.
But if by mishap, They fail of a chap,
To keep in their hands, They each other entrap.
Like Pikes, land with hunger, who miss of their ends,
They bite their companions, and prey on their friends.
"Packington's Pound" is an example of an earlier, traditional tune that goes back at least to 1596, and is supposed to have arisen from an incident concerning Sir John Packington (1559 -1635).
He constructed a pound (pond; "pound" is now dialect). When it encroached upon a public highway, he impetuously cut the embankment and let the water stream over the countryside; this gave rise to a satirical ditty sung to this air.
- A Williamsburg Songbook, John Edmonds, first edition 1964
Lillibulero
Air # 44, The Beggar's Opera by John Gay 1728
Sir, modes of the Court so common are grown,
That a true friend can hardly be met;
Friendship for interest is but a loan,
Which they let out for what they can get.
'Tis true you find Some friends so kind,
Who'll give you good counsel themselves to defend.
In sorrowful ditty, They Promise, they pity,
But shift you for money, from friend to friend.
It is thought that Purcell may be the author (of the tune) as, in 1689, in John Playford's
Music's Handmaid, it appears, with Purcell's name attached, under the title "A New Irish Tune", as a tiny piece for the harpsichord: Purcell also used it as a ground bass in music for a play,
The Gordian Knot unty'd, in 1691. The probability seems to be that Purcell was simply using a popular air of the day.
- The Oxford Companion to Music, Percy A. Scholes, Tenth Edition 1970
Lumps of Pudding
Air # 69, The Beggar's Opera by John Gay 1728
A Dance - the finale of The Beggar's Opera
The Richmond Ball
Henry Playford, The Dancing Master, 10th ed.(London, 1698)
The Dancing Master was issued in 18 editions, beginning in 1650 and ending in 1728. Ultimately the collection was issued in three volumes. The inventory of Robert Beverly, Newland, Spotsylvania County, listed the second volume in 1733.
- A Williamsburg Songbook, John Edmonds, first edition 1964
Arcangelo Corelli
(1653-1713)
In his day the violin was superceding the viol and he became one of the first great violinists, violin teachers, and violin composers, enjoying in all these capacities universal fame. Monarchs sought him out, pupils came from all countries, and his music was everywhere played. . . . When he died he was found to have amassed a large fortune, in addition to a valuable collection of pictures. . . . Corelli's name ranks very high in the roll of those who laid the foundations of the present art of instrumental composition and performance, yet his works never range beyond his instrument's third position.
- The Oxford Companion to Music, Percy A. Scholes, Tenth Edition 1970
George Frideric Handel
(1685-1759)
Handel's art has not the concentration of Bach's; he is not so thorough. He has been called a 'magnificent opportunist'. Yet there is a nobility in his music, as there was in his presence, and though facile, never trivial. Beethoven has said of Handel, 'Go and learn of him how to achieve great effects with simple means', and Haydn, hearing the 'Hallelujah Chorus' in Westminster Abbey, rose to his feet with the crowd, wept, and exclaimed, 'He is the master of us all'.
- The Oxford Companion to Music, Percy A. Scholes, Tenth Edition 1970
Thomas Jefferson's inventory of his music library contains many works by Corelli, as well as a few by Handel.
Chester
William Billings was a New Englander who wrote a number of songs that were extremely popular in the Revolutionary era. This tune is said to have been more popular than even "Yankee Doodle" during that time.
When God inspir'd us for the fight,
Their ranks were broke, their lines were forced.
Their ships were Shater'd in our sight.
Or driven from our coast.
Howe and Burgoyne and Clinton too,
With Prescot and, Cornwallis join'd
Together plot our Overthrow
In one infernal league combin'd.
The foe comes on with haughty stride;
Our troops advance with martial noise,
Their veterans flee before our Youth,
And generals yield to beardless Boys.
What grateful Off'ring shall we bring?
What shall we render to the Lord?
Loud Halleluias let us sing.
And praise His name on ev'ry chord.
