WALNUT - Shape-Note Score with Demo Solo-Quartet Recording

The text for this shape-note tune WALNUT is from William Billings' Lamentation Over Boston. Billings was the first American composer to publish American music in America, & hung out with the likes of Paul Revere & the Adamses. His Lamentation echoes Psalm 137 (By the waters of Babylon...) but about the Revolutionary War, & it ends with this lovely bit about dissonance & consonance. Around this time, Billings also published a dissonant composition called "Jargon", in rebellion from his critics who claimed his American harmonies were breaking the rules. "Walnut" doesn't break too many rules, not that there are any left to break, but it does have a couple of nice Billings-esque parallel motion moments. Here's a demo mp3 of the harmonies, which you could download here.


The text as I use it: (& I apologize, the second word should be "horrid" in the score & recording, & will be fixed next time around.)

Let horrid Jargon split the Air and rive my nerves asunder.
Let hateful discord greet my ear as terrible as Thunder.

If I forget thee, yea, if I do not remember thee,
Then let my numbers cease to flow, Then be my Muse unkind,
Then let my Tongue forget to move and ever be confin'd.

Let harmony be banish'd hence and Consonance depart;
Let dissonance erect her throne and reign within my Heart.

If I forget thee, yea, if I do not remember thee,
Then let my numbers cease to flow, Then be my Muse unkind,
Then let my Tongue forget to move and ever be confin'd.

(The full poem is here.)