THE FEDERAL HARMONY, 1788-94

No evidence has been found to support the opinion of Charles Evans that Timothy Swan compiled The Federal Harmony. In fact, it can be said with certainty that he did not. A substantial collection of Swan's personal papers is preserved at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts. The papers show that Swan lived in Suffield, Connecticut, during the years that the various issues of The Federal Harmony were appearing in Boston, and though they mention musical matters, not a word about The Federal Harmony is to be found. The only name consistently attached to the work was that of John Norman, the publisher, who engraved the music for several Boston collections of sacred music during the 1780s. Perhaps Norman himself was the compiler.

          Before 1795 six separate issues of The Federal Harmony appeared in Boston. The earliest (131 p.) is undated but can be assigned to 1788. Subsequent issues included: a substantially altered 114-page edition, dated 1790; a reprinting of that with a 16-page 'Appendix,' dated 1790 but probably published in 1791; a slight revision of the latter (130 p.), in 1792; a reprinting of that 130-page issue, dated 1793; and finally an entirely reworked 100-page edition, dated 1794 and somewhat mysteriously designated 'eighth edition.'

          That eight 'editions' were published and only six have been located suggests either that two more issues now missing appeared between 1788 and 1794, or that two issues preceded the earliest one located. The latter possibility is tacitly supported by Evans, who lists a 1785 edition (E19268), although he admits that he had seen no copy. Yet there are difficulties in imagining pre-1788 editions. The title was topically timely in 1788, in the wake of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the subsequent move toward confedera-tion; it would have been less so earlier. Moreover, the introduction to the 1788 edition says nothing about previous issues of the work, while later editions all make reference to earlier ones. If one grants the possibility, however, that The Federal Harmony appeared before 1788 under other titles and that those issues were included in the tabulation, the eight editions can be explained. In 1784 John Norman brought out The Massachusetts Harmony, with go pages of music printed from engraved plates. By early 1788 C. Cambridge had published Sacred Harmony, containing 94 pages of music-41 printed from the same plates as The Massachusetts Harmony. And in the earliest Federal Harmony, 61 of the 114 pages of music were printed from the same plates as Sacred Harmony, with 22 more from Massachusetts Harmony plates. (See Table 6.) Thus, when counting previous editions for the 1794 tabulation, the compiler could claim two close relatives predating the 1788 issue.

TABLE 6

Previous Use of Plates, The Federal Harmony [1788]

Federal Harmony (FH.)          Federal Harmony, Massachusetts Harmony, [1784] (M.H.), Select Harmony, [1786-88] (S.H.)

p. 19                                          p. 99, S.H.; corrections in music

p. 24-38, 41                              same as corresponding pages in M.H. & S.H.; number on p. 38 inverted in M.H.&S.H., right side up in F.H.

p. 48, 52                                    same as corresponding pages in S.H.

p. 53                                           same as corresponding pages in M.H. & S.H.

p. 54-77, 79-80, 82, 84-89       same as corresponding pages in S.H.; tune on p. 79 called WASHINGTON NEW in S.H., BENINGTON in F.H. & text underlay  changed.

p. 95                                            p. 17 S.H.

p. 96-101                                    p. 6-11, S.H.; p. 97, words added to COLCHESTER in F.H.; p. 100, signature mark changed at bottom of p.

p. 104                                          p. 20, S.H.; words added to OLD HUNDRED in FH.

р. 108-23                                     p. 54-69, М.Н.

p. 125-30                                     p. 71-76, М.Н.

          The reason for the sudden emergence of The Federal Harmony in 1794 under an impressively high edition number was almost surely commercial. The introduction repeats from edition to edition its claim that copper-plate engraving is superior to typographical printing, leaving no doubt that The Federal Harmony was issued to compete with The Worcester Collection (Worcester: I. Thomas, 1786, and later eds.), which was printed from music type. In 1794, when The Worcester Collection appeared in Boston in its fifth numbered edition, the compiler of The Federal Harmony apparently decided not to be outdone. With only a minor adjustment of facts, he set the work before the public in its 'eighth' edition.