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Sunday, November 16, 2014

Yankee Doodle Music






I am going out on a very long and shaky limb with this post. I have decided to add a bit of culture to my musings on the time of the American War for Independence, aka the time of the Yankee Doodle Spies. Music is a reflection of the society and culture from which it springs: aspirations, frustrations, and dreams all collide in a mix that is meant to inspire, influence, and sometimes just entertain. Whether music is composed for the concert hall, salon, church, or tavern, it has an effect on society and sometimes helps transform it. Since the American Revolution was one of the most transformative events in history, its music bears some attention. Because I happen to be listening to some of Haydn's string quartets as I write, I will focus on "serious" music during the time of the Yankee Doodle Spies in this post.




Mozart




Within the genre that we call "classical" music, the eighteenth century was a time of transition from the Baroque period actually called the Classical. In some ways, the transition mirrors the overall cultural shift during what is called the Age of Reason. During the eighteenth century, a new awakening to the study and appreciation of classical Greece and Rome led to a renewed interest in classical architecture, literature, arts, and history. The study of those once forgotten languages flourished. Oratory became an important part of education, as did mathematics and science. The evolution of music from the more formal and structured Baroque to the less formal and cleaner style of the classical period is a manifestation of this period of transition. Such music was still associated with court culture and absolutism, with its formality and emphasis on order and hierarchy. After all, these were the patrons, sponsors, and benefactors.  They paid the bills. But the new style was also "cleaner" - favoring clearer divisions between parts, starker contrasts, and simplicity rather than complexity. As the 18th century progressed, the nobility became the primary patrons of instrumental music, while public taste increasingly preferred comic opera. This led to changes in the way music was performed and written. The central figure of the last quarter of the century was, of course, Mozart. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's compositions characterized the music of the classical era.




Most gatherings included but a few instruments





Across the ocean, things followed, albeit more slowly. The period of Puritan domination (That is New England) was waning by the 1730s  and musical concerts began to spring up. The first public concert in America, of which we have a record, was held in Boston. This took place in 1731, at a time when the New England ban against secular music was gradually waning. The event, called "a Concert of Music on sundry Instruments," was held in "the great room" of a local dancing master, who was also a teacher, tradesman, and a tobacco trader. A few years later Fanueil Hall began to be used for musical concerts.  By 1754 there was a concert hall at the corner of Hanover and Court Streets in Boston. The next American city to have a public concert was Charleston, South Carolina. The upper classes already had their private recitals, dances, and such. Then came to New York. In 1736 there was advertised a "Consort of Musick, Vocal, and Instrumental," where various instruments were showcased. Philadelphia had its first public concert in 1757. But as the largest city in the American colonies, Philadelphia likely had private concerts previous to this as it had a vibrant culture of entertainment (despite the strong Quaker influences). By George Washington's time, the variety of musical instruments used in America was growing. As early as 1761,  Washington ordered a spinet from England. The harpsichord, and later the piano-forte, were found in many homes and were used at concerts. Violins and cellos were well-known, and the versatile German flute grew in popularity.





The concert programs of the day provide a glimpse of the instruments that were most used, for many of them announced the instrumentation of the orchestras that performed, as well as the instruments used by soloists. At least one concert in 1769 included solos on the violin, flute, clarinet, harpsichord, and the mandolino.  Other instruments used during the time of the Yankee Doodle Spies included the violin, the violas, flutes, and French horns. Trombones were in use too. According to one account one night in 1755 a number of trombonists at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania warded off an Indian attack by playing chorales. Trumpets were introduced in America by the early eighteenth century. Wood-winds such as the oboe and the bassoon were beginning to appear as well. All of these were in very small numbers and scattered nearer the more developed parts of the colonies. The point is this - by the mid-eighteenth century, the colonies were growing economically.  Cultural expansion followed and the tools (instruments) made their way across the ocean to fill the need.

The Snare Drum is one of the oldest military instruments



During the mid-eighteenth century, American church music also began to come into its own. So called Psalm Music was primarily vocal, as was most music in colonial America. Perhaps the great religious awakening of the mid-century spurred it on. Regardless, this was the harbinger of the unique relationship between church and secular that exists even today. It should be remembered that the same phenomena existed in Europe as well. Most musicians wrote for both audiences. The military also had an impact on musical appreciation as the American Revolution broke out. Military bands had both “field music,” primarily fife and drum to move troops around the battlefield as well as “bands of music.’ The latter were small ensembles hired by officers to play at balls, fetes, and sometimes for the public. These were the antecedents to the later 19th century bands that became popular in America and Europe and still perform public functions today. The music fifes and drums played can be identified from published tutors and from tune books written out by the players themselves.  Giles Gibbs's.  Book for the Fife (1777) represented all of the music needed for an army: military signals and marches, but also dances, songs, and hymns. It also includes the music to the song we know today as "Yankee Doodle."


Military bands came into their own during the
struggle for independence





In the fall of 1768 British troops landed in Boston to protect crown officials who were being harassed by local citizens and could not carry out their duties. The British regiments had bands of music attached to them. By 1769 these bands were participating in public concerts. The programs included symphonies, concertos, overtures, and songs—not military music, but typical eighteenth-century concert fare. Americans organized their military units along British lines, and military musicians were part of the plan. The Continental Army, consisting of one artillery and twenty-seven infantry regiments, was formed from the various state militias. Each regiment had eight companies of ninety officers and men, including two fifers and two drummers. Drum majors and fife majors were also appointed in many regiments to instruct and lead the field music. The organization thus provided positions quite a number of fifers and drummers alone—448 of each. Whether or not all fife and drum positions were filled, military music had a forcible impact on the atmosphere of American towns and cities after the outbreak of the war. Legend has it that at the surrender of General Cornwallis’s troops ending the siege of Yorktown, a British military band played a popular tune of the period as the British and Hessians grounded their arms: “The World Turned Upside Down.” There is no contemporary account of this (the story grew out of an early 19th-century memoir) but clearly, the very idea that a musical theme should accompany such a momentous occasion completes the cycle that made music a central part of American culture in the years following America's independence.


The World Turned Upside Down? Musically, politically...




The next look at music during the Revolutionary War will focus on the “pop music” of the day. Songs sung by the masses were used by both sides to rally support their causes. Out of that genre came the first composer born in America whom we shall meet next time.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Wizard Owl


As I studied the American War for Independence in preparing the Yankee Doodle Spies novels, the name of Andrew Pickens seemed to appear at pivotal moments in the Southern Campaign. Who was this person? When one thinks of the American Revolution in South Carolina, the names Francis Marion, William Moultrie, and Thomas Sumter readily come to mind.  I thought it was time to give Pickens his due.


General Andrew Pickens
 Frontiersman:  This little-known First Patriot was one of the foremost South Carolinians and Americans. He was a prominent frontiersman, successful farmer, and accomplished soldier who later went on to serve as a South Carolina representative in Congress. Andrew Pickens was born in Pennsylvania in 1739. The son of Scots-Irish immigrants, at thirteen, Pickens moved with his family to seek lands further south. They traveled the route of many other Scots-Irish of the time: down the Shenandoah Valley, where they settled for a while in Augusta County, Virginia. Eventually, they moved on to South Carolina, settling first near Waxhaws on the North-South Carolina border and finally in Abbeville County, near the Georgia line. The family settled in an area called the Long Canes. Here, Andrew  Pickens married. He farmed and raised cattle like many of the other settlers. The young Pickens became acquainted with his Indian neighbors and traded with them.



 Patriot:  As the American Revolution approached, political feelings were strong in the South - both ways. From the start, its inhabitants split between Patriots and Loyalists (or Whigs and Tories). Pickens was an ardent Patriot and soon emerged as a military leader, first in expeditions as a militia captain against the Cherokee, who had allied with the Loyalists in hopes of retaining their lands. In 1779, the British sent soldiers to South Carolina and North Georgia to encourage Loyalist support. The now Colonel Pickens led his three-hundred-man militia in efforts to aid the Patriot cause. He overtook and defeated a much larger force of over 700 men under Loyalist Colonel Boyd at Kettle Creek in North Georgia just south of the Long Canes.



Battle of Kettle Creek




 Warrior:  The victory at Kettle Creek slowed the recruitment of Loyalists on the frontier. But by 1780  the British had taken Charleston, captured the southern Continental Army, and marched inland from the Carolina coast. The situation was dire.  When Charleston fell in May of 1780, Pickens and other militia leaders surrendered to the British and, on oath, agreed to sit out the war under British protection. But the Loyalists destroyed his farm and frightened his family, providing Pickens the grounds to declare his parole broken and take the field once more. He called together his band of militia and began to wage guerrilla war in reprisal.  The war in the South was brutal. Pickens borrowed heavily from the Cherokee style of war and used those skills in partisan warfare.  He was courageous and brilliant in leading partisans.


Battle of the Cowpens




In January 1781, British Colonel Bastre Tarlton tried to destroy an American force under famed rifleman Daniel Morgan. Pickens was a leader of militias in the engagement and played a key role in defeating British Colonel Tarleton. American commander Daniel Morgan had decided to use the reputation of the militia as a rabble who wouldn't stand against a disciplined British attack to bait the British.  As they waited for the enemy, Morgan asked them for "just two volleys and then retreat." Easier said than done in most cases.  But with Pickens commanding the militia, they did just as Morgan asked. When the British saw the militia retreat they thought they had the victory won and advanced straight into Morgan's trap. Pickens's men rallied behind the Continentals and took part in the victory, which came at a crucial time for the Patriots in the south. Until then, they had been repeatedly forced to retreat before British forces. For his "spirited conduct" at Cowpens, the Continental Congress presented Pickens with a sword, and the State of South Carolina promoted him to Brigadier-General in the state militia. Pickens seemed to be at all the key engagements in the South. Besides Cowpens, Charleston, and Savannah, he was at Augusta (Georgia) when it fell. Pickens was at Ninety-Six for more than one of its many engagements. In numerous skirmishes, he leveraged his knowledge of the Cherokee way of war to flush out the many Tories in their midst.





Pickens later served in Congress
 Citizen:  After the Revolution, Pickens acquired land in frontier South Carolina on the banks of the Keowee River, across from the old Cherokee town of Seneca. There, he built a house named "Hopewell" and became a backcountry gentleman. He served as a political middleman between the Cherokees and the new American nation. Although  Pickens had begun his military career by fighting the Cherokee in the Anglo-Cherokee War, he was well-respected by tribal leaders. They called him "Skyagunsta" – or Wizard Owl. In his later years, he sympathized with Indian causes.  Among the whites, he was sometimes known as "The Fighting Elder" because of his Presbyterian beliefs. Like many frontier settlers, Pickens was a family man. He married Rebecca Floride Calhoun in 1765. They had 12 children. Pickens served as A US Congressman. His son, Andrew Pickens Jr., was governor of South Carolina from 1817-1819, and Ezekiel Pickens became a lieutenant governor of South Carolina from 1802-1804. A grandson, Francis Wilkinson Pickens, was also a governor of South Carolina from 1860-1862.  Andrew Pickens died near Tamassee, South Carolina, in Oconee County, on Aug. 11, 1817. He is buried at Old Stone Church Cemetery in Clemson, South Carolina. On a final note, It is said that Pickens's war experiences helped provide the basis for the Mel Gibson film The Patriot. And there are certainly some overlaps indicating they drew somewhat from it. Clearly, if the writers had stayed truer to Pickens's remarkable life, the film would have been all the better for it. Certainly, our nation is all the better for it.



General Andrew Pickens' Grave at Clemson