Program Notes by Martin Pearlman

If a traveller to America in the 18th or early 19th century wanted to find the best music performed and written in the European tradition, he might well have been advised to go not to Philadelphia, Boston or New York, but to the wilderness of North Carolina or Pennsylvania.  There, in the churches and settlements of the Moravians, he could hear Haydn's latest symphonies, Haydn's Creation, or works of Mozart, Handel and others, often decades before that music would be heard in the rest of the country.  There too he would hear the works for chorus, orchestra and soloists that the Moravian composers, both American and European, were writing for their own communities.  He would learn that Johann Friedrich Peter, his brother Simon Peter, Johannes Herbst, John Antes, and Jeremiah Dencke were some of the best composers in America at the time.

The Moravians have given us a fascinating body of music and are an important part of America's musical heritage, but surprisingly, the music is little known among the general public today.  Outsiders who went to visit at the time--including Benjamin Franklin--had high praise for both the music and the performers, but then, as now, not much of the music was known outside the Moravian communities.

In contrast to some religious views of the time, which discouraged music as frivolous, the Moravian Church built an extraordinary musical culture and placed it at the very core of religious life.  There were choirs and instrumental ensembles, playing both sacred and secular music.  Music was considered appropriate to every occasion.  A choir of trombones in a church tower would announce a birth, death or other important event, and, by the hymns being played, one could tell much about the person and the event being described.

The Moravian Church, originally called the United Brethren or Unitas Fratrum, was founded by followers of the Czech religious reformer John Huss (Jan Hus), who was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1415, a century before Martin Luther's reforms.  Persecuted in their homeland, the denomination was almost annihilated during the Thirty Years' War.  But in the 1720's, the remnants of the community found a refuge in Germany, where they established the settlement of Herrnhut on the estate of Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf.  Zinzendorf, who grew up in Pietist circles, led and reshaped the church, bringing the musical life of Germany into its worship.  The Renewed Moravian Church experienced a rapid growth and began sending missionaries overseas.  Today Herrnhut is the worldwide center for some 600,000 Moravians in more than twenty-five countries.

In the New World, Moravians established settlements in Pennsylvania (centered around Bethlehem) and in North Carolina, where they bought 100,000 acres in the wilderness and founded Salem.  Today there are many Moravian churches in these areas, as well as in midwestern states, such as Ohio and Wisconsin.

The Music and Sources

Between its collections in Bethlehem and Winston-Salem, the Moravian Music Foundation houses over 10,000 manuscript scores of Moravian music, as well as some non-Moravian scores which were brought from Europe.  Relatively little of this music has been published or performed in our time.  Through the kindness of the Foundation, I was able to look through manuscripts and make copies of pieces that were of special interest.

The music was written for talented amateurs and is thus relatively simple and without ostentation, but it has a distinctive character.  In their simplicity, some of the pieces, such as Antes' Loveliest Immanuel, are miniature gems, and all are attractive in their directness of expression.  The instrumentation typically calls for a small instrumental ensemble of strings and organ, with the occasional addition of a few wind instruments.  The choruses consist sometimes of the traditional soprano-alto-tenor-bass, but we often find soprano 1-soprano 2-alto-bass.  (It seems that they may have had trouble finding good tenors!)

There is surprisingly little purely instrumental music by Moravian composers--   just a small amount of chamber music, and a few piano pieces, which are mostly anonymous and intended for instructional purposes.  Trombone choirs, which were common, appear to have played hymns almost exclusively, as they do on this recording.

The words to the anthems come from a variety of sources, but most often from the bible.  Since the eighteenth century, it has been a tradition among the Moravians to select short scriptural readings, called "watchwords" (Losungen), to use as devotional guides for each day of the year, and a composer would often take a daily watchword and set it to music for a particular day's service.

Of the composers represented on this recording, some lived and wrote in America and some are European Moravians whose music was frequently performed here.  Some were pastors or even bishops of the church, and most of them moved among different posts in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Europe.  Johann Schulz was not himself a Moravian, but his music was very popular in the church.

The principal language of the early American Moravians was German, and, for that reason, most of this music is sung in German.  However, some of the pieces are in English:  certain composers, particularly of the younger generation, wrote in English, and some pieces came from the Moravian community in England.

The lovefeast

Because Moravian pieces are generally quite short--often between one and three minutes in length--it seemed best to create a context for them and group them into larger units.  For that reason, I have combined them with Moravian hymns and organized the music into sets of a typically Moravian form, the lovefeast.

The lovefeast, or Liebesmahl, is a service that is almost exclusively musical.  Beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing to the present day, it includes, as we do here, performances of both anthems and hymns.  In the course of the service, celebrants share simple food and drink for the sake of fellowship.  Lovefeasts are held on a number of occasions during the church year, including major religious festivals, but they could also mark special occasions, such as wedding anniversaries, funerals, ground-breakings for new buildings, or even political events.  With the lovefeast of July 4, 1783, the Moravians held the first organized celebration of American independence.

The lovefeasts which I have assembled for this recording are assigned to specific occasions, suggested by both the texts and the music.  In doing this, I have not tried to recreate particular historical events but have attempted to remain true to the spirit of the service.  Following a common practice within the church, I have sometimes taken an anthem written for one festival and used it in a lovefeast for a completely different holiday, provided the words suited the occasion.

Composers

John Antes (1740-1811) was one of the earliest Moravian composers born in America, and the violin, viola and cello which he built are possibly the first to be made in the colonies.  In 1769, he was ordained as minister and sent as a missionary to Egypt, where he remained for ten years.  After he was captured and tortured in an attempt to extort money, he was sent to England, where he remained for the rest of his life.  He nonetheless considered himself an American and maintained close ties with his native land.  In addition to his sacred music, he wrote three string trios, which are some of the earliest chamber music by an American composer.

Johann Christian Bechler (1784-1857), composer of the tune to the popular hymn "Sing Hallelujah," came to America in 1806.  During his thirty-year stay, he was a teacher and minister in Moravian communities in Pennsylvania, in Staten Island, New York, and in Salem, North Carolina.  In 1836, he was consecrated as bishop and sent to a Moravian community in Russia.  He retired to Herrnhut, Germany in 1849.

Jeremiah Dencke (1725-1795) was an organist in German Moravian communities, including the central one at Herrnhut, before coming to America in 1761.  Among his compositions are a piece for chorus, strings and organ, which is thought to be the first Moravian ensemble music composed in America.

John Gambold, Jr. (1760-1795) was born in London, the son of a Moravian bishop.  Following his education in Germany, the church assigned him to spend most of his life teaching in German Moravian schools.  He composed twenty-six vocal works and published six piano sonatas.  The charming Rondo recorded here is attributed to him in a manuscript copy book.

Although Johann Christian Geisler (1729-1815) himself never came to America, most of his several hundred compositions can be found in American Moravian collections.  He was a member of the chief governing board of the Moravian Church at Herrnhut.

Christian Gregor (1723-1801) was one of the most influential musicians of the Moravian Church.  A prolific composer, as well as organist, minister and eventually bishop, he edited the important chorale book of 1784.  Although he only visited the Pennsylvania and North Carolina communities in 1770-72, he was well known in America, and more than 1100 of his compositions are in American collections.  His very short choral piece Das ist ein Tag, was excerpted from a slightly longer work and included in the Moravians' 1783 Psalm of Joy, celebrating American independence.

The German-born composer Johannes Herbst (1735-1812) came to America in 1785, where he served as pastor in Pennsylvania and, for the last year of his life, as bishop in North Carolina.  In addition to composing hundreds of his own works, he meticulously copied out well over 1000 works by other composers.  His manuscript copies form an important collection at the Moravian Music Foundation in Winston-Salem and are the basis of a number of the performances on this recording.

The Johann Peter Kellner/ Christian Gregor chorale, Ach Schönster unter allen, is an arrangement of an organ chorale prelude by Johann Peter Kellner (1705-1772), a non-Moravian German organist and composer, who is associated with J. S. Bach and his circle.  It was arranged for voices, strings and organ by the Moravian composer Christian Gregor.  The prelude, as it is arranged here, was a part of the July 4, 1783 Psalm of Joy, the lovefeast with which the Moravians held the first organized celebration of American independence.

Born in Germany, David Moritz Michael (1751-1827) joined the Moravian Church at the age of 30 and became an important music teacher and administrator in several Moravian communities in Pennsylvania.  As director of the Collegium Musicum in Bethlehem, he was involved with instrumental, as well as sacred vocal music.  In 1811, he directed what is thought to have been the American premiere of Haydn's Creation.  His two Water Music suites were written for excursions on the Lehigh River in Pennsylvania.  He retired to Germany in 1815.
Near the end of his Christmas anthem, "Hail Infant Newborn," one can hear a phrase borrowed from "The Star Spangled Banner," which was then known as a popular tune called "To Anacreon in Heaven."  Only the orchestral parts and the vocal bass part to this piece have survived in manuscript.  The soprano line can be extracted from the organ part, and the inner voices have been reconstructed.

Georg Gottfried Müller (1762-1821) came to America in 1784.  He first taught and headed a Collegium Musicum for Pennsylvania communities, then served in Ohio, Philadelphia, and Newport, Rhode Island.

Johann Friedrich Peter (1746-1813), the best known and most celebrated of Moravian composers, was born in Holland in 1746 and educated there and in Germany.  In 1770, he came to America, bringing with him a great number of manuscript copies of European music.  (Some works of J. C. F. Bach are only known through these copies.)  He served as music director in various Moravian communities in Pennsylvania, in Salem, North Carolina, as well as in Maryland and New Jersey.  In addition to his many sacred compositions, he composed six string quintets, which are among the earliest chamber music written in America.

Simon Peter (1743-1819) came to America in 1770, together with his brother Johann Friedrich Peter.  Following a number of years in Pennsylvania, he moved to Salem, North Carolina, where he served the church for the remainder of his life as pastor and administrator.  Although he wrote considerably less music than his brother, his few works show considerable skill and talent.

Although the German composer Johann Abraham Peter Schulz (1747-1800) was not himself a Moravian, his music was popular within the church.  His compositions include keyboard works and a number of operas, but he was best known for his lieder, which he felt should have the quality of folk songs and sound "familiar" on first hearing.  "Thou Child Divine" was best known in the English translation published by the English Moravian composer Christian Latrobe.  It is that version which we perform here.  Originally for soprano and tenor soloists, the manuscript parts offer the alternative of performing it with two sopranos.

Hymns

Some of the hymns on this recording (pieces no. 1, 5, 15) come from the very early days of the church in the sixteenth century.  Others are from the early days of the Renewed Moravian Church, that is, from Germany in the eighteenth century.  The hymn Heiliger Herre Gott  is adapted from an early medieval plainchant antiphon.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Dr. Nola Reed Knouse, director of the Moravian Music Foundation, without whose expertise, generous assistance, and endless patience this project would not have been possible.  Thanks also to Peter Vogt for sharing his scholarship about the Moravian Church and to Dr. Albert Francke of the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem for his assistance in locating hymns.

Music on Boston Baroque/Telarc CD of American-Moravian music

Boston Baroque Performances

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