Hymn(al)s in the News

This news story is a few weeks old now, but you might not have heard it yet. The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is scheduled to open in Washington DC in five years. They have been collecting historical artifacts for some time (the regular Smithsonian holdings already contain many). One acquisition of interest here was recently spotlighted in a piece on National Public Radio: a hymn book that belonged to Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Tubman (1820? - 1913) is known primarily for her frequent trips to the south to rescue people from slavery through the Underground Railroad. Following her own escape from Maryland in 1849, she returned and brought back several members of her family, then numerous others, a few at a time. In all she may have released as many as three hundred former slaves (sources vary as to the number of her trips and the number of slaves freed), and was popularly known as the "Moses" of her people. During the Civil War she was a scout and a spy for the Union Army, and in her later years she also became an advocate for women's rights.

According to the NPR article, Tubman and the other Underground Railroad workers sometimes used African-American spirituals as signals (though other sources dispute this). These songs were part of a long-standing oral tradition, not written down until later in the nineteenth century, thanks to the efforts of people like James W. Work and Harry Burleigh. Though Steal away to Jesus and Swing low, sweet chariot do not appear in the book that belonged to Tubman (Gospel Hymns No. 2, edited by Ira Sankey), she certainly didn't need the book to sing them.

Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home,
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.

I looked over Jordan, and what did I see?
Coming for to carry me home,
A band of angels coming after me,
Coming for to carry me home.
Refrain

If you get there before I do,
Coming for to carry me home,
Tell all my friends I’m coming, too.
Coming for to carry me home.
Refrain

I’m sometimes up and sometimes down,
Coming for to carry me home,
But still my soul feels heavenly bound,
Coming for to carry me home.
Refrain

African-American spiritual, 19th cent.
Tune: SWING LOW (Irregular with refrain)

The chariot mentioned would seem to be the one that took the prophet Elijah to heaven in 2 Kings 2:11. This spiritual was part of the repertory of the Fisk Jubilee Singers and appeared in one of their collections as early as 1873.

Harriet Tubman is the woman on the left in the photograph below which appeared in the New York Times in the 1880s, though it was probably taken about twenty years earlier. Members of her family and others in the photo who she brought back from the south: (left to right) Gertie Davis {Watson} (adopted daughter of Tubman} behind Tubman; Nelson Davis (husband and veteran); Lee Cheney (great-great-niece); "Pop" {John} Alexander; Walter Green; Blind "Aunty" Sarah Parker; Dora Stewart (great-niece and granddaughter of Tubman's brother Robert Ross aka John Stewart). [Note: Dora Stewart is sometimes cropped out of other versions of this photograph]

Thanks to the Hymn Society's Facebook page for pointing me to this article. I'm debating whether to join the blog to Facebook, which might bring more readers here, but haven't made a decision yet.

Harry Thacker Burleigh

Earlier this summer, the General Conference of the Episcopal Church added several persons to be commemorated on the church calendar, including some additional musicians and hymnwriters, which puts them on our calendar here.

Composer Henry "Harry" Thacker Burleigh is marked today, one day before the anniversary of his death (though some sources erroneously show his death as December 12). Burleigh was born and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he sang in a quartet with his brother and two sisters as a young teen, then in high school he joined the newly established Choir of Men and Boys at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Paul in Erie. Over the next few years, Burleigh performed as a baritone soloist in several area churches and synagogues, as well as for community organizations.

In 1892 he moved to New York City, having won a scholarship to the National Conservatory of Music, and his first chance to receive formal musical training. He became friendly with the school's director, the composer Antonin Dvorak, and became Dvorak's assistant in 1893, copying out the instrumental parts from the manuscript of the New World Symphony. Some sources credit Burleigh's friendship with Dvorak with the elder composer's use of themes in that symphony which evoke African-American spirituals, though Dvorak apparently never confirmed that assumption.

In 1894, Harry Burleigh became the baritone soloist at St. George's Episcopal Church in New York over the objections of many in the congregation who were not comfortable with an African-American song leader. However, he was to remain in that post for the next fifty-two years, reportedly missing only one Sunday. In 1900 he also became the first black soloist at the NYC synagogue Temple Emanu-El. During these years he also began to compose, but his compositions took second place to his concert career for the next several years.

In 1911 he began working as an editor in the New York office of G. Ricordi and Company, an Italian music publisher. He took more of an interest in composing after this, and also in exploring the tradition of the spiritual. He compiled, arranged, and published Jubilee Songs of the United States (1916) and Old Songs Hymnal (1929) which collected more than a hundred spirituals that had not been published before. His arrangements of spirituals, both for soloists and for chorus are still sung today, such as this one.



Burleigh also composed instrumental music, and was renowned for his art songs. He was a charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and later served on its board of directors.

In the Episcopal Hymnal 1940, his hymn tune McKEE was first published with the John Oxenham text In Christ there is no east or west. McKEE was based on the spiritual I know the angel's done changed my name, and named for the Reverend Elmore McKee, the then-current rector of St. George's. You may have sung it; it was published in several hymnals after that.

Harry Burleigh retired as St. George's baritone soloist in 1946 at the age of eighty, two years before his death. A posthumous tribute in the church's newsletter declared He seemed aware of deeper tones of brotherhood and throbbing harmonies of humanity which others did not hear.