National Martial Music and Songs, A Musical First

Abstract

Certain musical compositions, or collections of musical works, achieve a degree of importance, based not always on their quality or musical content, but on the fact that they are the first of their kind. Several well-known publications in the United States fall into this category: the ninth edition of the Bay Psalm Book' is the first book printed in the United States that contained music;2 Francis Hopkinson's My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free3 is the first known secular composition by an American-born composer; and the first orchestral score to be published in the United States is Death Song of an Indian Chief4 by Hans Gram, a Dane who settled in Boston about 1789. Even though later research may reveal earlier works in these categories, each has assumed a place in music history. A lesser known collection of six poems, two marches, and three songs, belongs also in this category of musical firsts for several reasons. It is not only the first extant publication in the United States to include a set of individual instrumental parts, but it is also the first compilation, albeit a small one, of music of a national character to be printed in America. collection, published in 1809, is the National Martial Music and Songs6 (figure 1). It includes six poems: The Goddess of Liberty,' Let the Drum Beat to Arms,' The Genius of Freedom, Independence Fourth of July, The American Star, and Columbia, Land of Liberty; two marches: Captain Rush's Quick Step and Captain Fotteral's Slow March; and three songs: The Praise of Columbia;' Freedom and Peace, and When Brazen Trumpets from Afar. (In this article, in the style of the title-page of National Martial