M usicalOferings Spring2026 Volum e17,Num ber1
Musical Offerings Soli Deo Gloria An Undergraduate Journal of Musicology Spring 2026 Volume 17, Number 1
Editor-in-Chief Sandra S. Yang, Ph.D. Professor of Music History, Cedarville University Associate Editors Kathryn P. Carnegis, M.B.A. Digital Services Director, Cedarville University Phillipa Burgess, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor, Sinclair Community College and Cedarville University Managing Editor Tricia Clark, B.A. Digital Services Specialist, Cedarville University Consulting Editor Allison Renner B.M. Keyboard Pedagogy, Cedarville University Student Editor Jayda Archer B.M.E. Student, Multi-Age Music Education, Instrumental Concentration, Cedarville University On the cover: postcard view of “Italian Headquarters” in New Orleans, referring to the informal name given to Madison Street looking lakeward from Decatur towards Charles. The nickname referred to this area as “Italian Headquarters” because of its dense Sicilian immigrant population. This image is part of the public domain. Musical Offerings is an online, open-access journal published by the Cedarville University Department of Music and Worship. Since 2010, it has published articles in the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, music history, and church music history. This journal is available in print as well as electronically through Cedarville’s institutional repository, DigitalCommons@Cedarville. ISSN 2167-3799 (Online) ISSN 2330-8206 (Print) https://cedarville.tind.io/search?c=Musical+Offerings&cc=Musical+Offering s&ln=en
Contents Spring 2026 Volume 17, Number 1 To Keep in Tune So Long: “Worship Wars” in the Development of Anglo-American Psalmody, 1560–1800 1 Antonio J. Higgins A Man Without a Nation: An Examination of Chopin’s Polish Sympathies in His Life and Music 19 Madelyn Mowery Louis Prima and the Tarantella: From Taboo Folk Dance to Stereotypical Icon 33 Vincent Vaccaro
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 1 Musical Offerings 17, no. 1 (2026): 1–17 ISSN 2330-8206 (print); ISSN 2167-3799 (online) © 2026, Antonio J. Higgins, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) To Keep in Tune So Long: “Worship Wars” in the Development of Anglo-American Psalmody, 1560–1800 Antonio J. Higgins Cedarville University ontentions regarding congregational music in the Protestant Church have existed since the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Famously, Martin Luther wrote in the vernacular, which was in opposition to the Latin prevalent in the liturgy of his time, and the basis for Calvinistic song was the poetry of Clément Marot, who wrote scandalous poetry for the elite class before he published his more pious metrical psalms.1 Both took opposite approaches in how they elevated the role music had in the liturgy, and their decisions have impacted the music in the Reformed and Lutheran churches to the modern age.2 In the present day, the term “worship wars” is used to describe these divergences and disagreements between traditions of church music in matters of textual critique, musical analysis, and market study. In modern Evangelical circles, this term has been used to describe the often hostile divide between churches that use traditional hymnody or Southern gospel, and those that use Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). Some thinkers, such as poet-author Douglas Bond, say, “If it is a war, the entertainment model [CCM] believes that the war is decisively over and that they long ago came out on top.” 3 In historically English-speaking cultures, the so-called “worship wars” are no different. In eighteenthcentury America, cultural divides between the Boston socialites and the rural farm boy led to criticism and vitriol regarding different styles of singing psalmody (which developed into the modern English hymn).4 The development of Anglo-American psalmody coincided with cultural and political shifts in the social milieu of England and colonial America 1 Macdougall, 5. 2 Marini, 180. 3 Bond, God Sings, 31. 4 Turner, 31–32. C
2 Higgins ⦁ Anglo-American Psalmody between 1560–1800. Psalmody impacted the relationship between the working and the middle class, the way we view congregational singing even now, and contributed to the ongoing wars due to its impact on shifting musical styles and perspectives. Psalmody played an important role in English Protestant circles even before the 1560s. Miles Coverdale first published his Goostly Psalmes in 1535. Coverdale stated his reasoning in his preface, reacting against the prevalence of the “fantasies” of the madrigal and urging his audience to sing songs of a higher, spiritual pedigree.5 Lutheran chorales heavily inspired the creation of this psalter.6 Another psalter was Robert Crowley’s The Psalter of David, published in 1549. Crowley was himself inspired by the psalm versification of Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins, which would be compiled together as Al such Psalmes of Dauid that same year.7 This collection of psalms used the English ballad meter or common meter, where a four-lined stanza was made up of alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter (8.6.8.6). The Sternhold and Hopkins psalter would become known as the most influential of the pre-Genevan psalters and formed the foundation of what became known as the “Old Version,” a canon of accepted metrical paraphrases of the psalms.8 Based on that work, a definite direction in style grew from English Protestants exiled in Geneva, Switzerland. According to Timothy Duguid, the formation of the “Old Version” truly began here, with the work of reformers and poets such as William Whittingham, William Kethe, and John Pulleyne.9 Two editions of Forme of prayers, a revised version of the Sternhold and Hopkins psalter, were published in 1556 and then in 1558. This work aimed to create a unified and complete edition of the Psalter, as that had yet to have been done. Additions included revisions of the older paraphrases, new texts of previously unversified psalms, and new monophonic tunes10 to accompany them. All in all, sixty-two psalm texts were presented in Forme of prayers, as well as other biblical songs.11 5 Duguid, 1. 6 Macdougall, 3. 7 Duguid, 2–5. 8 Macdougall, 8–9. 9 Duguid, 19. 10 Duguid, 42. 11 Duguid, 34.
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 3 The musical context for this point in England was one of drastic simplification in musical texture, where the “likes of Taverner’s Masses or the Eton Choirbook’s florid Marian antiphons would now give way to simpler settings of English texts.” 12 We can extrapolate from this context and from the data that psalmody was in high demand. Although it was never made a part of the Anglican liturgy, “over a million copies [of various psalters] had been sold” from 1562 to 1640.13 Duguid noted that several streams of tradition began to emerge at this time, associated with either Anglican or Reformed traditions.14 The Reformed (also known as non-conformist) tradition carried the legacy of the Genevan Psalter to an English audience, setting the Genevan psalm tunes to new English texts. The Anglican tradition developed out of the Tudor style of the late English Renaissance, mixing elements of the madrigal with the Genevan style. This Anglican style can be seen as early as the Hamond Partbooks, a collection of manuscripts collected around 1560–1590.15 In “Purge Me, O Lord” by Thomas Tallis, we can see a prototype for what would be a key form of metrical psalmody going forward, the fuging tune. This featured fuging imitation, in which a singular voice starts a certain interval pattern which the other voices imitate before continuing into free counterpoint.16 In Tallis, we can see this fuging imitation in mm. 3–5, where the alto begins the pattern on an ascending minor third interval (see Example 1). This would have been accessible to a church choir, and there is some evidence that it was included in the Hammond Partbooks for such a purpose.17 The form is interesting since the B section repeats instead of the A, a practice that would be seen in future fuging tunes of the 1700s, a genre of psalmody that would maintain hold of the style until the end of the century. 12 Atlas, 545. 13 Duguid, 105. 14 Duguid, 105. 15 Butler, 29. 16 Temperley, 1. 17 Butler, 43.
4 Higgins ⦁ Anglo-American Psalmody Example 1: Tallis, “Purge Me, O Lord,” mm. 1–8.18 Also included in the Partbooks is Christopher Tye’s “My Trust, O Lord, in Thee Is Grounded,” stylistically more comparable to the Catholic motet with their similar florid settings of the text.19 Compared to the Tallis piece, the text is a non-strophic paraphrase of a psalm (though rhyme is still an important aspect). The music begins polyphonically and stays in that space, unlike “Purge Me,” which uses sections of polyphony and homophony somewhat equally. The counterpoint still relies on canonic imitation, yet the rhythmic flow matches well with the continental style of the motet rather than the fuging style of Tallis. However, the text setting is mostly syllabic like Tallis, which led Allan W. Atlas to comment that Tye’s work “illustrates the change in style that gradually took place in English liturgical polyphony.”20 In 1579, William Daman published The Psalmes of David in English Metre, featuring similar levels of contrapuntal imitation to Tye. However, by the time William Leighton published The Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowfull Soule in 1614, this highly polyphonic tradition began to fade from churches, as composers adapted to the more popular, homophonic style.21 This is seen in the fact that some of Leighton’s metrical psalms were written to be performed as consort songs, rather than in a liturgical 18 Tallis, “Purge Me, O Lord.” 19 Tye, “My Trust, O Lord, In Thee Is Grounded.” 20 Atlas, 549. 21 Duguid, 122.
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 5 setting.22 The more homophonic tradition was becoming more preferred, winning support in the eyes of the people and the publishers. In the early Baroque, psalmody became more codified in its presentation, with various publishers printing their own competing psalm books that were meant to represent how people actually sang the psalms in churches.23 People would sing psalms at work, sometimes for the simple reason of enjoying the way the harmonies sounded.24 The centrality of local tradition caused psalm singing to be codified in different ways for various audiences, and this diversification between different styles caused one family of printers, the Day family, to battle over publication rights over different editions of a collection called The Whole Booke of Psalmes. This resulted in melodic variation between psalm tunes and different tune pairings for certain psalms based on competing traditions of how they were to be sung.25 The desire for a codification of styles culminated under the direction of two publishers: Thomas Este and Thomas Ravenscroft. Unlike Day and his son, Este in his The Whole Booke of Psalmes (1592) provided a polyphonic tune with every psalm and hymn in his book, duplicating tunes where necessary to fill the whole book. The harmonic language of the tunes in the book fits closely with the style of Byrd and Tallis, which follows from the close relationship Este had with these composers.26 Parallel fifths were not considered proper counterpoint, and the only dissonances that seemed to be considered appropriate were the dominant seventh chord.27 Madrigal composers such as John Dowland and John Farmer arranged and harmonized the tunes in the Este book, showing the relationship psalmody had to the broader culture at the time.28 We can compare the work of Este with works from later compilers such as James Lyon’s Urania or William Tattersall’s Improved Psalmody, who sought to take the popular melodies and popular composers of the time as leverage for marketing their psalm books. 22 William Leighton, The Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowfull Soule, image 21. 23 Duguid, 194. 24 Duguid, 182. 25 Duguid, 111–112. 26 Duguid, 121. 27 Macdougall, 14. 28 Duguid, 122.
6 Higgins ⦁ Anglo-American Psalmody Thomas Ravenscroft, in his 1621 The Whole Booke of Psalmes, was no exception, using tunes from previous composers like Tallis and Dowland, but also including many tunes of his own creation,29 setting the standard for later American composers to publish tune books of their compositions. We also see in Ravenscroft’s Whole Booke more musica ficta than what was included in Este (which already included examples of musica ficta), demonstrating that Ravenscroft was already responding to the new Baroque sound developing in his day, based on harmonic tension and resolution.30 One unique element of dissonance that Ravenscroft included was the “split third” chord or a “false relation,” wherein a dominant chord in a cadential figure would contain both the major third and the minor third.31 This can be seen in “Cambridge Tune,” which has a false relation on the word “tumult,” between the E and Eflat (see Example 2). Ravenscroft also pioneered the innovation of tune names based on towns or other regional markers (e.g. “Cambridge,” “High Dutch Tune, or “Winchester”),32 which truly cemented these tunes as the “common tunes” for these psalms until the end of the century, as they became easily identifiable and able to be cataloged.33 Ravenscroft’s tunes were so influential that they were still used in 1689 in the Puritan colonies of America.34 Example 2: Ravenscroft, “Cambridge Tune,” from The Whole Booke of Psalmes (1621).35 29 Ravenscroft, 2. 30 Duguid, 134–135. 31 Ravenscroft, 26–27. 32 Ravenscroft, index. 33 Duguid, 123. 34 Macdougall, 26. 35 Ravenscroft, “Cambridge Tune,” 27.
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 7 The ways in which the psalms were taught also varied from region to region, which became a cause of controversy in the eighteenth century. Around 1630, the lining-out method found prominence in England, where a song leader would sing out a melody line followed by the congregation singing in unison,36 and this found success in smaller, rural churches.37 The singing school developed around this time as a way to unify the collective musical culture of the time and simplify how the music was taught.38 With roots beginning in Scotland,39 churches included a “rigorous programme” that included music education and psalmody, teaching mostly the common and illiterate.40 One surprising aspect of this development was the expectation to sing in four-part counterpoint,41which would continue even in the colonial period, where the singing school developed into a marketplace for innovation in psalmody.42 Elements of music theory and pedagogy were disseminated in the “rudiments” or “grounds” of music, often attached to the preface of tune books starting around 1698.43 The idea of a county church choir was developing at this time as well, with psalm tunes written less for congregational singing and more for the strengths of the choir (yet still capable of being sung congregationally).44 By the eighteenth century, psalmody was seen as a status symbol. There was a massive growth in the selling and publishing of psalm books,45 similar to the boom in the 1560s, as the middle class flocked to learning polyphonic psalmody to show a sense of modernity and progress, showing the divide between those who wanted a more permanent tradition, and those that wanted to achieve a sense of superiority through novelty.46 The rural class became noted by “antiquated manners and old ceremonies of worship including, of course, old-style psalmody,” resulting in methods such as lining-out being sidelined and criticized by 36 Duguid, 195. 37 Turner, 27. 38 Macdougall, 100. 39 Macdougall, 101. 40 Duguid, 207. 41 Duguid, 223. 42 Richard A. Crawford, ed, The Core Repertory, x. 43 Macdougall, 103. 44 Temerpley, 2. 45 Crawford, The Core Repertory, x. 46 Turner, 37, 40.
8 Higgins ⦁ Anglo-American Psalmody the New England socialite.47 Even when rural musicians blended their traditional style with the modern style, they were criticized for creating an artificial, even plastic, form of psalmody.48 The dominant composers of this era were diverse—a mix of farmers, tradesmen, and musicians— showing that more people were willing to engage and place their mark on the style.49 The poetry, too, was put under contention. Isaac Watts, a poet and pastor, called for a reform in the lyrical quality of psalmody at the time, commenting on the “dullness…of expression” and “ugly hymns.”50 Watts published his Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1706) and The Psalms of David (1719) as remedies to this, and many Reformed Christians in England and America received his hymnody and incorporated it into their congregations.51 However, the works of older poets and other contemporaries still held a large sway over the general population, as Watts’s hymns competed for space in the tune books of composers and publishers.52 Watts was not the only poet to decry the poetry of Sternhold and Hopkins, as Nahum Tate called the Old Version “barbar[ic]” and out-of-fashion in its style.53 Tate’s paraphrase of the Psalter was therefore heralded as a “New Version” of the Psalms.54 Alongside of this, the eighteenth century was fraught with contention, both culturally and politically. The dominant religious factions in England were Catholics, Anglicans, and nonconformists of different Reformed strands from which Watts and other psalmodists hailed. These factions constantly vied for power and ruled over Great Britain at various times, causing religious instability. This led to men such as Isaac Watts’s father being imprisoned for nonconformist beliefs, and Watts himself declining an invitation to join an Anglican university.55 Many nonconformists, such as the Puritans, set their courses to the New World and brought with them their cultural experiences. In 47 Turner, 31–32. 48 Marini, 184–185. 49 Macdougall, 68–89. 50 Bond, Poetic Wonder, 15. 51Bond, Poetic Wonder, 58. 52 Crawford, “Watts for Singing,” 142. 53 Marini, 180. 54 Macdougall, 28. 55 Bond, Poetic Wonder, 4–11.
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 9 Massachusetts, an effort to have a brand new paraphrase of the Psalms culminated in the publishing of The Whole Booke of Psalmes, more commonly known as The Bay Psalm Book, in 1640.56 The ninth edition of this psalm book included the subscripts “f,” “s,” “l,” and “m,” representing the unique, four solmization syllables in Anglo-American Psalmody (fa, sol, la, and mi). These syllables were taken from the medieval era gamut of Guido d’Arrezzo (see Figure 1),57 and were used in tune books such as James Lyon’s Urania (1761), the first publication to include compositions from American composers (Lyon himself and Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence).58 This new American voice would become a key component of the style as it progressed, and it shows that psalmody truly became something more than the music of the antiquated farmer and the elite Renaissance composer, but music to which the common man could have a direct say in its development. This created an incentive for many composers to write music that appealed to regional qualities and distinctives, while others strove to create a continental style that incorporated elements from Britain and America. Figure 1: The Gamut, as illustrated in James Lyon’s Urania (1761).59 Those that were more regional were still concentrated in more rural areas, such as The Cashaway Psalmody of Durham Hills, a late 1760s 56 Macdougall, 31. 57 William Billings, The Continental Harmony, xii. 58 James Lyon, xix. 59 Lyon, I.
10 Higgins ⦁ Anglo-American Psalmody manuscript collection that appeared in South Carolina.60 It contains unique, folk-like variations of psalm tunes, and a blend of the English style with a newer, Carolinian approach.61 Supply Belcher followed suit and titled his tune book The Harmony of Maine (1794), indicating a preference for the locality of his music.62 Others, such as William Billings, appealed to a broader population. In The New England PsalmSinger (1770), Billings entitled several tunes with patriotic themes, such as “America,”63 and “Liberty,”64 and included semi-political pieces supporting the American Revolution, such as “Chester.”65 One curious note is that Paul Revere illustrated the first page of The New England Psalm-Singer, further proving Billings’s allegiance to the efforts of the Continental Congress, and the “worship wars” became more than just a church-exclusive issue.66 Billings, by including “continental” in his title of The Continental Harmony (1794), seems to proclaim that the unification of America can be declared through a distinct musical character.67 Billings, then, is less of a “milestone” in American music,68 but rather highlights the message that was endearing the colonists of his day. These political messages had to have had some effect on the general population, as Bond highlights one anecdote about the ways psalm books themselves were used in the American War of Independence: [A]t the Battle of Springfield in New Jersey…when one of the patriot companies ran out of wadding for their muskets, Presbyterian pastor, James Caldwell, whose wife had been shot and killed by the British a few weeks before, ran to the Presbyterian church nearby. He returned with his arms loaded with hymnals. “Fill the British with doctrine from the hymnals,” he cried. “Give ‘em Watts, boys! Put Watts into ‘em, boys!”69 In general, these two approaches to psalm book marketing can be seen as complementing the competing ideas of Federalism and Anti- 60 Marini, 171. 61 Marini, 214–215. 62 Belcher, The Harmony of Maine. 63 Billings, The New England Psalm-Singer, 1. 64 Billings, The New England Psalm-Singer, 9. 65 Billings, The New England Psalm-Singer, 91. 66 Macdougall, 47. 67 Billings, The Continental Harmony. 68 Steel and Hulan, 42. 69 Bond, Poetic Wonder, 124–125.
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 11 Federalism, essentially the debate between unity in government and regionalism in government. Interestingly, both Belcher’s and Billings’s works were published by the same company, showing how political culture was a key factor in the Christian music scene of the day. By 1799, Amos Pilsbury’s The United States Sacred Harmony showed that this Federalist stability had been won and achieved.70 This is not to say that it was all political. The fuging tune became one of the dominant forms of Enlightenment-era psalmody in America, originally developing in Southern England in the 1730s (though pieces such as “Purge Me, O Lord” may have been prefiguring this form).71 James Lyon in his Urania includes some of these fuging tunes.72 However, American composers developed and ran with the form differently from their English counterparts. An example of this is “Creation,” by William Billings. One difference in this fuging tune is that a full strophic hymn precedes the fuging section. In “Creation,” Billings sets two verses of two different Isaac Watts poems in a poetic collage. Beginning with “When I with pleasing wonder stand,” Billings sets up his main tune in 3/2 time, before transitioning by a 3/4 diminution of the last phrase to the second verse, “Our life contains a thousand springs.” However, Billings does not continue the strophic tune but breaks into free imitation based on a descending minor third interval pattern. Billings demonstrates a remarkable sense of text declamation for an untrained composer in this piece by using melisma (setting a word over multiple notes) in the word “long” in the alto and in the tenor and soprano to a group of three accented, continuous quarter notes with some ornamentation, moving melodically at a steady rate (see Example 3). The overall length of this fuging section also adds to a sense of wonder at the idea that “Strange that a harp of thousand strings / Should keep in tune so long,” with the flowing eighth notes in the phrase’s opening giving some indication as to the harp-like quality of this section.73 This unashamed, creative output again shows the New England desire to appear as modern and progressive in musical expression as possible.74 At this point in metrical psalmody, nothing was out of bounds, for in “adopting fuging tunes…American composers gained rhythmic flexibility and more varied textures…In short, music became once again 70 Pilsbury, The United States Sacred Harmony. 71 Temperley, 3–7. 72 Lyon, 42–43. 73 Billings, The Continental Harmony, 52–54. 74 Turner, 37, 40.
12 Higgins ⦁ Anglo-American Psalmody an art and gradually surpassed the bounds of [parish] psalmody,” and a piece such as “Creation” represented this short and fleeting moment in American church music.75 Example 3: Billings, “Creation” from The Continental Harmony (1794), mm. 42–60.76 Ironically, a divided musical culture began to emerge around the time that Pilsbury published The United States Sacred Harmony, and a new sound centered on the oratorios of Handel and the psalm began to emerge, causing yet another worship war that would last long after the 1790s.77 This may have been due to the resurgence in the idea of music as art, as “by 1810, the American religious establishment…had adopted an ideology that favored solemn, dignified, and even bland music from European sources,” disregarding the work of composers of the previous decades.78 In the United Kingdom, psalmody also shifted to a galant style, as William Tattersall’s Improved Psalmody (1794) included tunes written by Franz Joseph Haydn.79 The Classical era style would later dominate hymnody in the 1800s.80 Though this style of psalmody would never truly fade away from church music, its impact on middle-class 75 Steel and Hulan, 44. 76 Billings, The Continental Harmony, 54. 77 Cooke, xvi. 78 Steel and Hulan, 45. 79 Tattersall, Improved Psalmody, 96, 119, 176, 211, 252, 300. 80 Macdougall, 148–149.
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 13 culture would slowly fade away. These quick, stylistic changes were due to the prevailing cultural ideas. Turner noted that the middle-class reformers of psalmody “associated the new style with a new cultural mosaic that made material dominance (time) the arbiter of taste.”81 In other words, trends (whether American or European) determined the sound that psalmody would take. These developments in the “worship wars” near the turn of the century led American composers to innovate to keep their particular form of church music alive. The result was more harmonic experimentation and chromaticism.82 This can be seen in the works of Daniel Belknap, Amos Pilsbury, and others, who added chromaticism to intensify the word painting of various texts sung. In The Harmonist’s Companion (1797), Belknap introduces augmented harmony in his tune “Pine-Hill,” as a way to emphasize the phrases “In the full choir a broken string” in measure 3 and “The rest in silence mourn their King” in m. 10.83 In m. 3, we also see an example of a false relation between the A and the A-sharp, reminiscent of English psalmody since the time of Ravenscroft (see Example 4). Amos Pilsbury introduces more chromaticism and dissonance in his tune “Kedron,” a setting of the hymn “Thou man of griefs, remember me,” with the incorporation of the Phrygian flat-2 scale degree in m. 5, a false relation between C and C-sharp in m. 6, and a dominant chord with a substitute sixth in the final measure (see Example 5). These stark musical examples show how far these composers were willing to go to keep their music in vogue with the people amid the shifting musical opinions that would become mainstream and represent the final stretch of development that Anglo-American Psalmody took before it migrated to regions such as the Miami Valley and Antebellum South the 1800s.84 81 Turner, 30. 82 Macdougall, 86. 83 Belknap, “Pine-Hill.” 84 Steel and Hulan, 45.
14 Higgins ⦁ Anglo-American Psalmody Example 4: Belknap, “Pine-Hill” from The Harmonist’s Companion (1797), mm. 1–4.85 Example 5: Pilsbury, “Kedron,” from The United States Sacred Harmony (1799).86 Concerning how these discussions impact the present day, Douglas Bond uses language such as “entertainment ethos,”87 “sentimental dishonesty,” and “cheap-perfume variety” to discuss the conditions of Christian worship music since the late 1990s.88 His argument that CCM takes “a theologically reductionist path…[to] bow to commercial interests” 89 may be compared to how the liturgical qualities of the Catholic church were replaced with “simpler settings of English texts”90 or to the revitalization of church music under the direction of Isaac Watts and his followers, opposing the work of Sternhold and Hopkins. The use of the word “entertainment” follows with an implicit understanding that CCM 85 Belknap, “Pine-Hill.” 86 Pilsbury, The United States Sacred Harmony, 67. 87 Bond, God Sings, 31. 88 Bond, God Sings, 109. 89 Bond, God Sings, 114. 90 Atlas, 545.
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 15 is heavily influenced by market trends in popular music today. Yet the publications of Day, Este, and Ravenscroft show how the market and politics significantly impacted the distribution of psalmody in early Baroque England. Bond’s idea that the hymnwriter should understand masterful subtleties in literature and be proficient in teaching it before caring about the music is an admirable aspiration,91 yet a reflection of American psalmody shows that the farmer and the tanner with little literary and musical training could derive beautiful works regardless of academic background. In the tunes of the farmer-composer, musical depictions of “the twinkling stars of ‘Newburgh,’...the thirsty pilgrims of ‘Montgomery,’... or the leaping lover of ‘Swanton’” 92 would surely be recognized by someone such as Douglas Bond as being crafted with special care to the text. Even the “bland,” “musical reform and European music” that captivated the middle class of New England, competing with the traditionalists with their psalm tunes and fuging tunes93 prefigures the current debate over repetitious, “so very little to say” CCM, and the “content and structure” of modern hymnody.94 These discussions prove King Solomon’s adage, “What has been is the same as what will be, and what has been done is the same as what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9, MEV). The resolve of the people involved with English and American metrical psalmody is clearly shown, whether the early publishers who pioneered aspects of the genre that lasted into the 1700s, the madrigalists and the merchants who wrote tunes that defined musical characteristics, and the common men who received this music into their homes and singing schools, amid political changes in England, an uprising in America, and an ever-evolving cultural taste. Even today, with modern debates over Protestant music and America, we can wonder the same thought as Isaac Watts over our own music, “Strange that a harp of thousand strings / Should keep in tune so long.” 91 Bond, God Sings, 62–63. 92 Steel and Hulan, 44. 93 Steel and Hulan, 45. 94 Bond, God Sings, 60.
16 Higgins ⦁ Anglo-American Psalmody Bibliography Atlas, Allan W. “Early Tudor England.” Renaissance Music: Music in Western Music, 1400–1600. W. W. Norton, 1998, 528–551. Belcher, Supply. The Harmony of Maine. Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1794. https://imslp.org/wiki/The_Harmony_of_Maine_(Belcher,_Sup ply). Belknap, Daniel. “Pine-Hill.” The Harmonist’s Companion. Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1797. Edited by Barry Johnston and reformatted by Antonio J. Higgins, 2024. https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/PineHill_(Daniel_Belknap). Billings, William. The New England Psalm-Singer. Edes and Gill, 1770. https://imslp.org/wiki/The_New_England_PsalmSinger_(Billings%2C_William). ———. The Continental Harmony. Boston, MA: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1794. https://imslp.org/wiki/The_Continental_Harmony_(Billings%2 C_William). Bond, Douglas. God Sings! (And Ways We Think He Ought To). Scriptorium Press, 2020. ———. The Poetic Wonder of Isaac Watts. Ligonier Ministries, 2013. Butler, Katherine. “From Liturgy and the Education of Choirboys to Protestant Domestic Music-Making: The History of the ‘Hamond’ Partbooks (GB-Lbl: Add. MSS 30480–4).” Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 50, no. 1 (2019): 29– 93. https://doi.org/10.1080/14723808.2018.1546477. Cooke, Nym, comp. American Harmony. Vol. 1. David R. Godine, 2017. Crawford, Richard. “Watts for Singing: Metrical Poetry in American Sacred Tunebooks, 1761–1785.” Early American Literature 11, no. 2 (1976): 139–146. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25070773. ———, ed. The Core Repertory of Early American Psalmody. A-R Editions, 1984. Duguid, Timothy. Metrical Psalmody in Print and Practice: English ‘Singing Psalms’ and Scottish ‘Psalms Buiks’, c. 1547–1640. Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014. Holy Bible. Modern English Version. Military Bible Association, 2014. Leighton, William. The Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowfull Soule. William Stansby, 1614.
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 17 https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/464d4850-d97b-013c98c1-0242ac110003. Lyon, James. Urania: A Choice Collection of Psalm-Tunes, Anthems, and Hymns. Da Capo Press, 1974. MacDougall, Hamilton C. Early New England Psalmody: An Historical Appreciation, 1620–1820. Stephen Daye Press, 1940. Marini, Stephen A. The Cashaway Psalmody: Transatlantic Religion and Music in Colonial Carolina. University of Illinois Press, 2020. Pilsbury, Amos. The United States Sacred Harmony. Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1799. https://imslp.org/wiki/The_United_States_Sacred_Harmony_(P ilsbury,_Amos). Ravenscroft, Thomas, comp. The Whole Booke of Psalmes. The Company of Stationers, 1621. Edited by Christian Mondrup and Martin Quartier, 2011. https://imslp.org/wiki/The_Whole_Booke_of_Psalmes_(Raven scroft,_Thomas). Steel, David Warren, and Richard H. Hulan. The Makers of the Sacred Harp. University of Illinois Press, 2010. Tallis, Thomas. “Purge Me, O Lord, From All My Sin.” Edited by James Gibb and reformatted by Antonio J. Higgins, 2024. https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Purge_me,_O_Lord,_fro m_all_my_sin_(Thomas_Tallis). Tattersall, William. Improved Psalmody. T. Skillern, 1794. https://imslp.org/wiki/Improved_Psalmody_(Tattersall,_Willia m_de_Chair). Temperley, Nicholas. “The Origins of the Fuging Tune.” Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 17, no. 1 (1981): 1– 32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25099364. Turner, Eldon R. “Earwitnesses to Resonance in Space: An Interpretation of Puritan Psalmody in Early 18th-Century New England.” American Studies 25, no. 1 (1984): 25–47. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40641829. Tye, Christopher. “My Trust, O Lord, In Thee Is Grounded.” Edited by Jason Smart, 2021. https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/My_trust_O_Lord_in_the e_is_grounded_(Christopher_Tye).
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 19 Musical Offerings 17, no. 1 (2026): 19–32 ISSN 2330-8206 (print); ISSN 2167-3799 (online) © 2026, Madelyn Mowery, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND (https://cedarville.tind.io/search?c=Musical+Offerings&cc=Musical+Offerings &ln=en). A Man Without a Nation: An Examination of Chopin’s Polish Sympathies in His Life and Music Madelyn Mowery Cedarville University rédéric Chopin is well known today for his expressive melodies and virtuosic piano solos, but his music was more than mere art. Chopin wanted to honor his own people of Poland, who were struggling under an oppressive rule. Although he left Poland as a young man, he wrote numerous music compositions throughout his musical career with Polish musical influences or Polish tunes, which showed that he never forgot his people. Critics debate whether Chopin’s Polish music falls into the realm of nationalism, exoticism, or simply universal music. Although it is true that Chopin’s Polish music was universally applicable, his words, actions and music express the idea of nostalgic nationalism because Chopin composed his pieces to remember a land that was not independent and a people who were not free. By the time of Chopin’s birth, Poland had been through many political upheavals. In 1762, Catherine the Great became Tsarina of Russia, and with her new power she strove to gain territory to the west of Russia, attacking the Ottoman empire as she did so. Alarmed at her invasion, the Ottoman Empire turned to Prussia for help against Russia. Although they were not directly attacked, the Austrian empire was also concerned about Russia’s invasion. Austria, Prussia and Russia resorted to bargaining, and the result was that Russia surrendered any part of the Danube, and they were given Polish territory in return. The Polish government was too weak to resist, so their land was partitioned into different territories by Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1772. Eventually this led to the termination of Poland’s existence as a separative, sovereign nation. In 1815, the Congress in Vienna redrew European borders, giving the Duchy of Warsaw to Tsar Alexander of Russia. This became known as F
20 Mowery ⦁ Chopin Polish Sympathies the Kingdom of Poland and it was given some liberties, even though they were still not independent. However, by 1819, Russia removed most of these freedoms. Many Poles resisted Russian rule, resulting in rebellion known as the November Uprising in 1830, but eventually Russia won the conflict due to its greater numbers. Frédéric Chopin had grown up in Poland, but his personal response to the events that were going on in his country was complex. While he was young, he moved in important Russian circles, reportedly playing for Tsar Alexander in 1825.1 He was also a frequent guest at the Grand Duke Constantine’s place in Belweder in the 1820’s. 2 The Duke was the younger brother of Tsar Alexander and the viceroy of Poland. Late in 1830, Chopin left Warsaw to go to Vienna, Austria; and just weeks after he left, the November Uprising began. 3 Ironically, Chopin’s letters, especially the ones addressed to his family, do not directly mention the political events happening in Poland, but since his letters would be censored, he had to choose his words carefully.4 Chopin could have gone back to support his people, but perhaps he thought he could do more for them from afar. He stayed in Paris, and while he was there, he played benefit concerts for Polish emigrants.5 From his diary he kept from 1829 to 1831, it is evident that he cared deeply about what was happening to his people. After learning about the fall of Warsaw, he expressed his distress regarding the Moscovians (people of Moscow) in his diary, saying “Maybe my sisters have succumbed to the fury of the unleashed Moscovian trash! The Moscovian dominates over the world?….Ah, why couldn’t I have killed at least one Moscovian?…and I am here inactive, with bare hands, sometimes sighing….I suffer at the piano, I am desperate.”6 His words demonstrate the deep anger he held against the Russians, along with his feeling of utter helplessness. Even so, his public actions were not strongly aligned with Polish nationalists, and he did not directly antagonize the Russians. In Paris he was not a political activist, and he was not eager to be associated with the extremist Polish emigrants in Paris. 7 He chose not to frequent 1 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 70. 2 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 70. 3 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 71. 4 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 71. 5 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 72. 6 Szulc, Chopin in Paris, 47–48. 7 Pekacz, “Deconstructing a ‘National Composer,’” 168.
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 21 political events often, such as when there was a reception in 1832 for General Józef Dwernicki, a leader in the November Uprising. 8 He apparently did not attend, even though many other important Poles did. Possibly it was because he preferred to socialize with the aristocracy, but also “political divisions and discords among the Polish emigrants probably made him deliberately steer clear of these polarized factions.”9 As a musician, it would not have been helpful for him to make enemies especially in a foreign country on his own. Besides, being involved in politics was not attractive to him. Jolanta Pekacz sheds light on this dichotomy, saying that “although sympathetic to the Polish cause in a generalized sense, Chopin seemed to have a distaste for strong political convictions, much less for extreme political orientations.”10 Practically, he could not afford to make trouble with the powerful Russians, and he still kept up an amicable relationship with the Russian embassy. 11 Chopin was faced with the dilemma of wanting to help his people and wanting to avoid unpleasant situations. Some may see this as disloyalty to his country, but it is understandable that he would want to maintain his career and preserve his life even while he privately held enmity against the Russians. Chopin wanted to genuinely express his love for his people and sympathy for their plight, but the chief way he chose to do this was through composing music. In his Fantasy on Polish Airs, Op. 13, he included the Polish tune “Już miesiąc zaszedł,” a song written by Karol Kazimierz Kurpiński. The beginning of the Fantasy also has a melody harmonized with open fourths, reflecting the sound of Polish popular music.12 Chopin’s teacher in Poland, Józef Elsner, influenced him in the writing of Polish music, but not exactly in the way that Elsner expected. Chopin wrote ten of his nineteen songs while he was still living in Warsaw,13 but even when he moved to Paris, he kept writing Polish art songs.14 This shows how he still cared about his Polish heritage even in a foreign country. However, Elsner wanted him to write an opera honoring Poland’s history, and Chopin did not pursue the idea. This was not out of a lack of care for Poland but rather an artistic choice. He wrote 8 Pekacz, “Deconstructing a ‘National Composer,’” 168. 9 Pekacz, “Deconstructing a ‘National Composer,’” 168. 10 Pekacz, “Deconstructing a ‘National Composer,’” 172. 11 Szulc, Chopin in Paris, 48–49. 12 Bakst, “Polish National Influences in Chopin’s Music,” 59. 13 Swartz, “Elsner, Chopin, and Musical Narrative,” 449. 14 Swartz, “Elsner, Chopin, and Musical Narrative,” 453.
22 Mowery ⦁ Chopin Polish Sympathies to Elsner regarding the idea, saying that he must “postpone for some time the higher artistic vistas that you so wisely set forth in your letter to me” and that he would “create a new world for myself.”15 It appears that Chopin simply wanted to go in a different direction musically. Chopin chose to compose short Polish dances, called mazurkas, as the primary expression of support for his people. He started writing mazurkas as a teenager in the 1820’s and kept writing them throughout his whole life. It is uncertain how many he wrote; perhaps up to seventy, but there is disagreement.16 Fifty-eight have been published; forty-five were published while he was alive, and the rest were published posthumously. He focused on writing more mazurkas after the November Uprising in 1830, 17 which may demonstrate his desire to sympathize with his people even as he was not with them. Chopin’s mazurkas were not strict reproductions of folk dances, but he used the dances as inspiration for his own unique creations. He did not use original mazurka tunes for his mazurkas, but he “preferred to create new tunes from whole cloth, rather than reworking established folk tunes.”18 He also did not bother with keeping a strict form that someone could actually dance to, so he would adjust the length of the sections of his mazurkas to fit his own musical ideas.19 He sometimes wrote “in modes that included slight variations to the major and minor keys that make up the bulk of Western music,” which gave the pieces a more Polish musical style.20 The mazurka is a broader term for a group of Polish dances, which include the mazur, the kujawiak and the oberek. All of these are in triple meter with strong accents. The mazurka is a diverse dance, “able to convey many disparate moods from elation to melancholy,”21 and so it was a perfect vehicle for Chopin’s musical expression. The mazurka is known for its unique use of accents on parts of the beat that may seem unexpected. In fact, it can be described as full of “jerky movements and without smooth rhythmical melodic aspects.”22 15 Szulc, Chopin in Paris, 62. 16 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 74. 17 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 74. 18 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 73. 19 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 73. 20 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 75. 21 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 73. 22 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 57.
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 23 The mazur was commonly danced by the nobility, and it was “probably adopted in 1596 during the reign of Sigismund III.”23 However, it was also a favorite as a village dance as well.24 The moves of the village mazur were improvised in the moment by the dancers rather than being planned beforehand.25 Example 1: Basic rhythmic pattern of a mazur. The music for the dance had a basic rhythmic figure of two sixteenth notes and two eighth notes in a 3/8 meter, or a figure of two eighth notes and two quarter notes in a 3/4 meter (see Example 1). This rhythm would return throughout the dance, but it could be varied with other rhythmic figures.26 The structure of a mazur comes from putting together phrases of two or four measures, although three-measure or even one-measure phrases can be used as well.27 Chopin used the mazur in his own pieces, such as in his Mazurka in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 30, no. 4. In section C of this mazurka there is a shift to a faster tempo and a change to the major mode. Although the accents generally fall on the first beats, by measures 74 and 76, they fall on the second beat, perhaps indicating a mazur or perhaps a waltz that eventually transforms into a mazur.28 The kujawiak is another subcategory of the mazurka. This was a couples’ dance from the Kujawy region, usually led by a married peasant. 29 23 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 55. 24 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 55. 25 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 55. 26 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 56–57. 27 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 57. 28 Klein, “Chopin Dreams,” 241. 29 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 56.
24 Mowery ⦁ Chopin Polish Sympathies Unlike the mazurka, “the kujawiak is symmetrical in structure and accents,” and not as rhythmically complicated as the mazurka.30 The dance was also not as abrasive-sounding as a mazur could be. According to James Bakst, it was a faster dance in general, and it sometimes had a melancholy sound to it.31 However, Michael Klein refers to a kujawiak as “the slowest and most expressive melodically.”32 Even though the definitions can be debated, it appears that the kujawiak is generally more of a steady and sober dance. Because of the differences in rhythmic style, kujawiak tunes cannot be danced in the same style as one would dance a mazur; however, “mazurs with stable accents can be danced as waltzlike kujawiaks.”33 Unlike the German waltz, where the accent is always on the first beat, the accent can fall on any of the beats, “provided the rhythmical patterns are sustained.”34 In Chopin’s Fantasy on Polish Airs Op. 13, published in 1834, the fourth movement is called Kujawiak. This movement employs accents on beat two of each measure, which falls right in line with the style. In Chopin’s Mazurka in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 30, no. 4, the B section (see Example 2) also seems to be a kujawiak, and this is clearer to see than in any other section, “with its dotted rhythm on the first beat in the left hand of every measure,” which creates an emphasis on beat two just like the Fantasy. 35 The lyrical melody, relatively slow tempo and melancholy sound create a sense of solemnity and steadiness, characteristic of the kujawiak dance.36 The A section of this piece also has elements of the kujawiak with its minor mode, wistful tune, irregular accents and drone-like sound, but it has rolled chords which makes it sound more balladic and less like a mazurka.37 30 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 57. 31 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 56. 32 Michael Klein, “Chopin Dreams,” 238. 33 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 57. 34 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 57. 35 Klein, “Chopin Dreams,” 241. 36 Klein, “Chopin Dreams,” 241. 37 Klein, “Chopin Dreams,” 241.
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 25 Example 2: Section B of Mazurka in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 30, no. 4, mm. 31–41.38 The oberek is the last example of the mazurka, and it is generally more upbeat in tempo than the kujawiak or the mazur, and the dancers “spin and jump, sometimes in couples, sometimes in a circle.”39 The oberek appears to be “the most joyful and playful” of the dances.40 This dance provides a refreshing contrast to some of the more serious Polish dances. Chopin used the oberek in the middle section of his Mazurka in F major, Op. 68, no. 3. 41 Not surprisingly, this section sounds very light and upbeat. The melody is also in the Lydian mode, which contributes to its cheerful folk sound.42 38 Chopin, Complete Works Vol. X, 58. 39 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 73. 40 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 73. 41 Klein, “Chopin Dreams,” 238–239. 42 Klein, “Chopin Dreams,” 238.
26 Mowery ⦁ Chopin Polish Sympathies Example 3: Excerpt from Polonaise no. 1, Op. 26, m. 5.43 The polonaise is another example of Polish dances, one of the oldest ones, and it was “originally called the great, or pedestrian, dance,” and later it was called the polski and then the polonaise.44 It is in triple meter, and usually its rhythm pattern is of one long rhythm followed by two shorter rhythms, then four long rhythms. This simple rhythmic pattern allowed for much variety for composers who worked with it. There are two kinds of polonaises, the country polonaise and the salon-concert polonaise which “probably originated with the festive procession of Polish nobility at the celebration of Cracow in 1574” when Henri de Valois became the Polish king.45 The polonaise was generally danced “at carnival parties and at student dances.”46 In fact, the polonaise is still danced even today in modern Poland. Chopin notably wrote sixteen polonaises for piano, along with a chamber polonaise and an orchestral polonaise. His Polonaise no. 1 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 26 (see Example 3) features the distinctive rhythmic pattern in the fifth measure in the left hand with a 43 Chopin, Polonaises, 13. 44 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 55. 45 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 55. 46 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 75.
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