However, a lot of the work I've been doing has been--believe it or not--some research for my own pure pleasure. Actually, that's not entirely true, it started as some work to get the Bach Children's Chorus some historically interesting music, and that's still the main reason I'm working on it. Plus, I'm sure I'll use it in a book someday. But the sheer amount of effort I've put in has been motivated by the pleasure I'm taking in it moment to moment.
I have gone to some effort to interest the National Lincoln Bicentennial Commission in having the Bach Children's Chorus sing at the main celebration in D.C. in February, which has led to my working closely with the directors of the BCC to help them decide on a good repertoire that can be arranged for the kids in short order. Because you always need a "hook" -- a reason to have it be our kids be the ones singing--we've decided that a great one is to have our kids be "ambassadors from the city of Frederick Douglass" (and, it's true, saying that phrase has definitely made the organizers sit up and take notice). See, after Douglass left slavery, he made Rochester his home base. Rochester, as you can imagine, loves Frederick Douglass. And, it seems, no other performing group has a specific "Frederick Douglass repertoire." If the BCC develops one, it will pay off well into the future, as it's actually marketable.
But in what, exactly, should this Lincoln and Douglass (one should NOT make the mistake of saying Lincoln-Douglass, as that conjures up images of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in which the Douglas in question is Stephen Douglas, the anti-abolitionist) repertoire consist? Someone needed to find a good body of work for the director to review with the intent of arranging for a 4-part children's chorus. Because this project has been my baby, fundamentally, I'm the one who has been doing the historic research into the music enjoyed by Lincoln and Douglass, and into some of the music actually sung and played by Douglass, who, it turns out, was a gifted singer and violinist.
I've been at this for a couple of weeks, bringing the kids from library to library, calling and emailing historians and librarians all over the country, and charming the sellers of rare books into making photocopies of index pages of an 1827 version of the hymn book The Seraph (the 1836 edition of which Douglass carried up from Baltimore as he escaped slavery). It has been absolutely fascinating. I'm making connections that people have never made before, and informing people who have helped me and who care about this issue about those connections, making them excited. I even found a slight mistake that one Douglass historian made; I have his email address (in fact, he's one of the people who has helped me), and I'll be able to let him know the mistake once I've compiled this data a bit more formally.
Last week, I saw in one research book that the hymn that inspired Frederick Douglass to leave slavery was called "Run to Jesus." Douglass quotes from this hymn in his second autobiography:
Run to Jesus--shun the danger--He points out that this was a thinly-veiled song about escaping to the North:
I don't expect to stay
Much longer here.
In the lips of some, it meant the expectation of a speedy summons to a world of spirits; but, in the lips of our company, it simply meant, a speedy pilgrimage toward a free state, and deliverance from all the evils and dangers of slavery.
I didn't know where the historian had gotten the specific information that it was this song that first inspired Douglass to leave slavery, but in a way, it was good enough for me--it sounded like a perfect song for the kids to learn, with this story behind it. So I went looking for the sheet music in the Sibley Music Library here in Rochester. I had the librarians hunting through various index books, and they pointed me to a collection in their general stacks, a songbook published in 1887 for the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University. To my shock, right there at the top of "Run to Jesus," it said:
RUN TO JESUS.
[This song was given to the Jubilee Singers by Hon. FREDERICK DOUGLASS, at Washington, D.C., with the interesting statement, that it first suggested to him the thought of escaping from slavery.]
We had our primary source!! I was able to tell this to the curator of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in D.C.. She was extremely pleased to hear this; she hadn't known of that songbook, and I think she's going to try to acquire one for their collection. Then, in the same email, she told me something great: The Frederick Douglass NHS has Douglass's original copy of The Seraph (the book, various editions of which I have been chasing all over the country). Tomorrow, the curator is going to open the case and write out for me the list of hymns in it, so I can compare it with the index of the 1827 edition (emailed to me from Wilmington) and the index of the 1860 edition (sent to me from Harvard), AND so that we can choose some of the songs for the kids in the chorus to sing as part of the repertoire.
I had started the research on The Seraph based on the information in a history collection at the Rochester Museum & Science Center, so I've kept the historian there apprised of my progress. She's been so pleased that she asked me to give a talk on this adventure to a gathering there next month of people who support their archives. That should be fun.
In short, this has been an intensely pleasurable three weeks or so of gathering and integrating information, and lighting little fires of excitement in librarians and historians, and even a Presbyterian minister, in places as diverse as Harvard and D.C. and Hartford, CT, in Bridgeton, NJ and Atlanta and San Francisco and Wilmington, DE. Everyone, almost without exception, has been happy to help, photocopying things and sending them to me for free.
On Friday afternoon, I hosted a meeting here at my house with the BCC directors and a famous baritone who lives here in Rochester, and they worked out right there on my piano a beautiful rendition of "Run to Jesus," and talked about how they would arrange the parts for the BCC kids to weave in between what the baritone would sing. I felt moved by the private concert, and privileged to have been the person who had made it happen. The baritone is going to perform it at that November event at the RMSC that I mentioned above, at which I'll be talking. Well, that's not definite yet, but I'm pretty sure I can just tell the RMSC folks that he'll be doing it and he'll be welcomed with open arms. Important, too, because all of the people who are involved with Frederick Douglass's legacy here in Rochester will be at this event, and we'll be able to rub elbows with them.
One thing to mention here: Frederick Douglass was a really great guy. Brilliant, articulate, one of us. His autobiography, especially the second one, My Bondage and My Freedom, is a terrific read. Worthwhile. I have many thoughts on this, particularly concerning the extent to which it is important to make abstract arguments for individual liberty, and whether that is more or less valuable than making a specific case for the concrete ways in which slavery is cruel. But that's for another post, someday, if I feel like it.
You know, sometimes you do a lot of unpaid work for a project, and then feel terribly discouraged when it all slides down into a black hole. But here, yes, I've spent hours and hours on this, ostensibly to help the Bach Children's Chorus. But it's been so fulfilling, even if we don't end up getting asked to go to D.C. in February. There are still a few rare people out there who care about these things, who care about getting them right, and who get as jazzed as I do to think that they're adding to a body of knowledge, filling in holes in history. These small discoveries give me an immense amount of energy. Being in contact with people who care like I do gives me hope.
And the kids are getting an education, too--in music, and in history, and in watching me care about this so passionately. History matters, getting it right matters...and also, getting it right is possible and pleasurable with a little effort. Great lessons, I think.
3 comments:
Wow--how awesome, how interesting. I have a couple friends who are rare book librarians, and they're always dealing with this sort of thing--verifying, looking for primary sources. These stories always fascinate me.
Yes, because you're THAT KIND of librarian, Adrienne!
If you're available mid-afternoon (2-ish or 3-ish) on Sunday, November 9, that's when I'll be giving the talk at the RMSC when they're celebrating Coles' birthday. It's open to the public and I think it will be fun. Hearing Derrick sing is always worthwhile in and of itself.
Sounds fun--and I have a free day that day! Is it in a special room or is that still up in the air...? It's really been too long since I last visited RMSC.
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