An Immigrant’s Musical Memoir

Abstract

This chapter centers on the 1819 Original Collection compiled by Arthur Clifton, an English musician who had emigrated to Baltimore in 1817 (changing his name, from Antony Corri, in the process). Though not a commercial success, this pathbreaking volume was the first American publication to present a substantial body of material drawn from European classical music in psalmodic form, containing 21 psalm and hymn tunes culled variously from the work of Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Such adaptations had been enjoying a modest vogue in England since around the turn of the century, but only half a dozen or so had appeared in the United States. Clifton relied on existing London publications for inspiration—many of the European melodies he includes had already been adapted by English compilers. But he returns to the classical music sources themselves in almost every case, developing his own meticulously crafted body of adaptations.