"Chester"

[mmcirvin]

Okay, here is something that has baffled me for a while. The Morton Gould piece to which I am listening is based on an American Revolutionary hymn called "Chester", which was apparently one of the most popular patriotic songs at the time and sort of an unofficial proto-national anthem for a while.

This page has some lyrics for "Chester". These lyrics have been somewhat redacted: originally they were much more specific about naming names, which made the song rather inflammatory.

In any case, try as I might I can't figure out how you'd sing those lyrics to this tune. They don't quite seem to go. Were they just a little looser about beats-to-syllables correspondence at the time? Were they doing Mariah Carey type histrionics with the "i-i-iron rod"?

UPDATE: It was William Schuman, not Morton Gould. Thanks, Sam.

Comments

[samantha2074.livejournal.com]

Dear Matt,

William Schuman != Morton Gould

Also, the lyrics would work fine -- if sung to another tune. I don't get that.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I didn't even look at the tag. I think I was doing free association: "Chester" -> Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould -> Morton Gould. Or maybe I was mixing up Fall River Legend with New England Triptych.

[jwgh]

I happen to have in front of me a folksong fake book. Unfortunately I'm not sure how to best render it here ... hm.

As far is 'iron rod' goes, each syllable of 'iron' gets two notes, so it's 'i-i-ro-on roooooood'.

Let's say | indicates the beginning of a measure, / indicates the beginning of a beat and . the beginning of a half-beat. Then I make it:

|Let/ty.rants|shake/their|i.i/ro.on|rod
|and/slav.'ry|cla.ank/he.er|ga.ll/i.ng|chain
|We'll/fear.them|not/we.ee|tru.ust/i.in|God
|Ne.ew/Eng.land's|Go/od.for|e.e/ev.er|reigns

Hm, I guess musical notation was invented for a reason.

The last line in particular has a bunch of sixteenth notes and stuff, but I hope this is enough to give an idea ...

[jwgh]

The Amazon page for a CD called 'Liberty Tree: Early American Music 1776 - 1861' has samples of the song being sung in RealMedia and Windows Media Player formats.

[plorkwort.livejournal.com]

The version in The Sacred Harp uses some not-so-brilliant lyrics by Philip Doddridge (whose better works include the poem with "Thou refulgent orb of day), but here's the solmization in four shapes:

so-- fa mi   | fa-- so--  | la fa mi la | so----
let  ty-rants shake their   i--i--i--ron  rods

so-- so so | so la so-fa la | fa la so fa | so----
and slav'-ry cla-a-a-ank her  ga-a-a-lling chains
(and southern traditional singers, if using these lyrics, will pronounce galling with a flat a, not rhyming with falling)

i know what ur talking bout

[jazzerina88.livejournal.com]

we have listen to chester in my survey of american lit class, and yes you would think the words would go with the musis. But this was because at the time the people of the New world were moving form puritanism an extreme belife of god and his wrath to classicism which was more logical and reasoning but still had that regligious element which is why the song sounds like that if you listen it sounds like a hymth somthing they hadn't quite moved out of
interesting isn't it hopefully i'll pass the test on this shit next week
cu