Newport Historical Society

This collection covers a large range of musical styles, notational format, and publishing methods beginning with examples early musical notation. Initially, music of the Western World was largely transmitted orally and remembered with varying accuracy, eventually sparking attempts to create a more cohesive, reliable form of written notation (Boorman). The resulting system, largely dated to the 1100s, used four lines and stemless notes whose shapes, fill, and relation to surrounding notes indicated their value. The two oldest pages of music in the Newport Historical Society’s collection, with hand copied and colored Latin and Germanic text, are fragments of larger, bound collections of religious psalms and service music including the Marian hymn, Regina Cœli, of the Catholic Church. While religious in nature, these pieces, most likely produced in Europe, are quite different from early American pieces of the collection which initially feature simpler melodies and vernacular texts.

Particularly in the New England region, many religious groups settling in the colonies sought simplicity in their theology and religious practices in reaction to the opulence and ritual of the Catholic Church and Church of England. For music, this meant a turn away from the grand, heavily instrumented, and multipart music common to Catholic and Anglican Churches and toward more participative, Biblically based music (Ogasapian, 29-30). Originally, these colonial religions paired psalm texts directly from the Bible with common melodies of well-known, simplified religious themes or even secular, regional tunes. These psalms and hymns were sung initially by the entire congregation in unison without regard to rhyme or precise pitch. Believing the Bible to be the perfect word of God, music was approached as another tool through which to express God’s works and being simply and honestly, not something to be studied or embellished. However, the varying interpretations and abilities of community members – and the resulting cacophony – caused religious leaders of many denominations to rethink these views, sparking stronger appreciation for music education, practice, lyrical adaptation, and new forms of musical notation.

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