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William Billings: A Land of Pure Delight 53:36
His Majestie's Clerkes
with
Paul Hillier, dir.
Anthems and Fuging Tunes
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![[harmonia mundi]](../../../images/icons/hm2.gif){kind=icon}
Album Notes
The critically acclaimed Chicago-based ensemble HIS MAJESTIE'S CLERKES
is one of the few choirs in America that specializes in historically
informed performances of Renaissance masterworks, yet has the versatility
to present 19th- and 20th-century music in convincing performances. Since
its debut in 1982, the ensemble has expanded its repertory and won itself
a steadily growing audience. Distinguished guest conductors who have led
the group include Sir David Willcocks, Simon Preston, and Paul Hillier,
who in 1990 chose His Majestic's Clerkes to join with The Hilliard Ensemble
in the first American performances of Arvo Part's St. John Passion.
William Billings (1746-1800), a Boston tanner and singing master apparently
self-taught as a composer, was the foremost of a group of New England
Psalmodists who flourished in the early years of American political
independence. Bv 1770, when his first tunebook, The New-England Psalm-Singer,
appeared in print, Billings had already mastered both small- and large-scale
forms. No piece by Billings was more often reprinted in his own day than
the one-stanza plain-tune BROOKFIELD. At the same time, the fledgling
composer's responsiveness to shifting moods and his unashamed delight in
repetition give the anthem "As the Hart panteth" the unique blend of
sweep and solidity found in many of his longer pieces. "Hear my Pray'r",
EMMAUS, and David's Lamentation, all from Billings' most successful
tunebook, The Singing Master's Assistant (1788; 3 later editions), show
his command of somber concision, the latter setting the Old Testament
elegy with impressive weight and dignity. But in the tuneful Africa and
the anthems "Is any afflicted" and "I am the Rose of Sharon", Billings'
exuberant, romping side comes to the fore. The second's threefold
repetitions of "singing and making Melody" and "teaching and admonishing"
show psalm-singing as a lighthearted pastime - not so far in spirit from
the profane love the third celebrates. (Repeating verbal phrases in threes
is a favorite trick of Billings in prose settings.)
As much as any piece by Billings, RUTLAND, from The Psalm Singer's Amusement
(1781), approaches madrigalesque word-painting in its opening measures.
The seafaring anthem EUROCLYDDON follows a similar path, with fierce winds,
turbulent waves, terrified sailors, the calming of the storm, and a joyful
homecoming all evocatively sketched by the music. Among several occasional
pieces in The Suffolk Harmony (1786) are SHILOH - Billings versified the
Christmas story as a colloquy between shepherds and angels - and "Samuel
the Priest", sung at the funeral of the Reverend Samuel Cooper of Boston
in 1784. In JORDAN, a prominent "hit" tune in the composer's own time,
Billings explores a melodic structure (aaba; statement-restatement-contrast-
altered return) and mode of text declamation (decorated duple) distinctly
modern for New England in the 1780s. "The Lord is ris ' n indeed", the most
widely printed and beloved of all Yankee anthems, appeared in an independent
publication of 1787. Rather than a narrative, this Easter Anthem delivers
a series of assertions and questions about Jesus' resurrection, each with
its own response. Here Billings also evokes the miracle of sinful man's
redemption in one wholly unexpected, compressed burst of repeated
eighth-notes ("Then first Humanity triumphant...")
The Continental Harmony (1794), published as an act of charity to the
then-impoverished Billings, reveals no flagging of his powers. Creation,
an exuberant fuging-tune, changes meter to marked effect, ending with an
unusually long, unrepeated fuging section. In "0 praise the Lord of Heaven,"
text declamation gradually accelerates - from iambic movement, to duple
quarter-notes, then eighths - as if God's many glorifiers were passing by
in quickening procession. Here as throughout his career, Billings Sought
to capture in a fusion of word, sound, and time, the essence of the
spiritual texts he set to music.
- Richard Crawford, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor March, 1991
A note on the performance of the music of William Billings - Billings
is part of a musical tradition whose roots sprang up several centuries
ago in England, were transplanted to New England and, having migrated
southwards, are still being cultivated today However, to attempt to
create a replica of what Billings himself actually heard would be false
to Billings and might serve to perpetuate the myth that this is a clumsy,
"primitive" style of composition; one senses from his writings that
Billings prized a subtle and sensitive response to his music. Obviously
we are obligated to learn what we can from evidence about performance
practice (in Billings' day and since), but after a certain point we must
accept the fact that we are on our own, with a responsibility to bring
along something of ourselves to the performance (and so genuinely
"authenticate" the occasion), thereby contributing to the music's
living continuity. We become indeed a part of the tradition itself.
Ultimately, of course, this is what all "early music" is (or should be)
about.
- Paul Hillier, Davis, California
PAUL HILLIER, singer and conductor, and formerly music director of
The Hilliard Ensemble, now lives in California where he directs The
Theatre of Voices and teaches at the University of California at Davis.
Many of his recordings have received prestigious prizes, including
the Edison Prize (twice) and Gramophone Early Music Record of the Year.
Oxford University Press has published several of his collections of
catches and English partsongs, and he recently became general editor
of Eazer Editions of Early Music in Helsinki. Paul Hillier is also
known as an ardent champion of the music of Arvo Part, whose works
he has premiered in Europe, Japan, and the USA.
harmonia mundi usa, 3364 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90034 (p)(c) 1992
Recording: March 22-24, 1991, Joseph Bond Chapel, University of Chicago
Executive Producer: Robina G. Young
Producer: Paul F. Witt
Engineer: Lawrence L. Rock
Editing: Hugh B. Davies, Willy Levins and Paul F. Witt
Artwork: The Peaceable Kingdom (detail) by Edward Hicks (1780-1849);
Cliche: Art Resource, N.Y.;
Design: Zenn Graphic Design;
Recorded and Produced in the USA
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