AMERICAN SONG For the purposes of this article the expression "American song" will be used to cover the history and development of song writing in the United States by native-born composers. Due to the heterogeneous ancestry of her inhabitants, America has produced, until comparatively recently, few songs that can be considered distinctly indigenous. The singers of America for generations have ranked among the greatest ; her foremost song-writers, how ever, with but rare exceptions, have proved second-rate measured by the standards of the Old World. This lack of musical atmos phere is undoubtedly caused not only by the mixed nationalities of Americans, but also by the fact that America's attention was focussed necessarily at first on producing the bare necessities of life and later to extending her commerce with other countries. According to the best available authorities, Francis Hopkinson (1737-91) was the first native-born American composer. His "My days have been so wondrous free," composed in 1759, is the earliest known secular song by an American. It is interesting to note the natural English flavour that permeates most of Hopkinson's songs. Almost a century elapses before we encounter the songs of another American composer, those of Stephen Collins Foster (1826-64), unless, of course, we consider as song-writers such compilers of tune-books and composers of hymns as James Lyon (1735-94), William Batchelder Bradbury (1816-68), Thomas Hastings (1787-1872), and Lowell Mason (1792-5872). Despite the ever-diminishing attitude of patronage of some musicians towards his songs, Stephen Foster stands as one of the few representative American composers. His "Old Folks at Home," "Nelly Bly," "Old Uncle Ned," and "My Old Kentucky Home" are among the best known of his songs. Following him come George Frederick Root (182o-95), George Frederick Bris tow (1825-98) (better known for his work in larger forms, but a splendid, sincere writer of songs), Harrison Millard (183o-95) and James Remington Fairlamb (1838-1908). These men be longed to approximately the same period; yet an examination of their work shows a startling lack of similarity. For example,
what could be more widely separated than Foster's "Old Folks at Home," Fairlamb's "Little Blue Pigeon," an aria from Bristow's "Rip Van Winkle," Millard's "Waiting," and "Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching," by which Root is best remembered? We see here a curious factor: the English element is gradually being overshadowed by the Teutonic, Scandinavian, and later on French and Latin.
The era from the Civil War to the end of the i9th century marks the gradual progress of the American song-writer, culminat ing in the titanic figure of Edward MacDowell, who composed "The Sea," "Thy Beaming Eyes" and "Long Ago." Lack of space per mits the mention of only a few lyric composers of this period, the foremost being :-Dudley Buck (1839-1909), "Fear Not Ye, 0 Israel"; Homer Newton Bartlett (1846-1920), "Thy Dear Eyes"; Arthur William Foote (1853-1937),, "I'm Wearin' Awa' "; George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931), "Allah"; Wilson George Smith (1855-1929), "If I But Knew"; James Hotchkiss Rogers ), "At Parting"; Clayton Johns (1857-1932), "I Love and the World Is Mine"; Edgar Stillman Kelley (1857- ), "Israfel"; Harry Rowe Shelley (1858- ), "Love's Sorrow"; Charles Beach Hawley (1858-1915), "Because I Love You Dear"; Charles Whitney Coombs (1859-1940), "In the Dark, in the Dew"; Henry Louis Reginald de Koven (1859-1920), "0 Promise Me"; Gerrit Smith (1859-1912) ; William Arms Fisher (1861 ), "Under the Rose"; Arthur Battelle Whiting (1861-1936), "Fuzzy-Wuzzy"; R. Huntington Woodman (1861-1928), "An Open Secret"; Ethelbert Woodbridge Nevin (1862-1901), "The Rosary"; Horatio William Parker (1863-1919), "Once I Loved a Maiden Fair"; William Harold Neidlinger (1863-1924), "The Birthday of a King"; Frederick Field Bullard (1864-1904), "Stein Song"; William Victor Harris (1869- ), "The Hills o' Skye." Several of these composers are writing songs at present (1929), but they did most of their work before the close of the i9th century.