About “Bridgewater”, 276
This song is the traditional closing
song for Los Angeles singers, so I was curious to learn more about it.
Chapter 9, “The musical Edsons of Shady: Early American tunesmiths”, in Irving
Lowens’s Music and Musicians in Early America (W. W. Norton &
Company, 1964) is quite informative. The composer, Lewis Edson Sr.
(1748-1820), wrote three of the most popular fuguing tunes of his day – Bridgewater,
Lenox (40), and Greenfield (not in SH). Bridgewater was the town in
Massachusetts near the farm where he was born. When he was 13, he joined
the British army with his father, and then in 1763 began working as a blacksmith.
But by 1769 he was a singing master, eventually becoming famous as a singer.
In 1776 the family moved to Lanesboro in the Berkshires (which is the area
where Lenox is), possibly because they were Tories, and it was there he began
composing. His three famous tunes were published in 1782 in the Chorister’s
Companion, compiled by Simeon Jocelin and Amos Doolittle of New Haven,
and reprinted in many tunebooks after that. None of his later songs
were successful.
Here I give scans of several versions
of Bridgewater. Note that Edson’s version has no words with the tune,
and it is striking how many different texts the tune is set to in the different
books. (Crawford 1984 gives 28 verses, and says that in the 99 sources
he reviewed, it is most often printed with the verse in the Sabbath Harmony
version below; none of the other verses shown here are among his 28.) Also
noteworthy is the question of its time signature. Edson has it as duple,
but part of the tune is in three, as three of the later roundnote books have
it by using both signatures, and the Sabbath Harmony none. Sabbath
Harmony and the other later New England roundnote books are also interesting
for the way they have modified (bleached, really) the music, in the later
New England style.
from Lowens: page of Edson’s
The Social Harmonist, 2nd edition, New York 1801:
The Easy Instructor,
Little and Smith, 1816 edition (Albany), has it the same (words and time
signature) as The Kentucky Harmony, next, except that the alto part
is in alto clef.
from The Kentucky Harmony:,
A. Davisson, 1816:
from Wyeth’s Repository,
1820 edition:
from The American Vocalist,
D. H. Mansfield, Boston 1849:
from Sabbath Harmony,
L. O. Emerson, Boston 1860:
from Song of Zion: A manual
of the best and most popular hymns and tunes for social and private devotion,
by W. W. Rand. American Tract Society, Boston, no date, but likely
between 1851 (first printing in New York) and 1864 (“Enlarged” edition):
from The New Jubilee Harp;
Or, Christian Hymns and Songs, Boston: Ozias Goodrich, 1883:
