Kentucky Harmony (Ananias Davisson)
General Information
Short Title: Kentucky Harmony
Full Title: Kentucky Harmony: Or, a Choice Collection of Psalm Tunes, Hymns, and Anthems, in Three Parts, Taken from the Most Eminent Authors, and Well Adapted to Christian Churches, Singing Schools, or Private Societies.
Editor - Composer: Ananias Davisson
Publication date and place: 1816 by Ananias Davisson in Harrisonburg, Virginia, 140 pp.
Second Edition 1817, 159 pp. Third Edition 1819, 159 pp. Fourth Edition 1820. Fifth Edition 1826, 160 pp.
Description: This book, along with its companion volume, Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony in 1820, had a large influence on music in the American West and South¹ of that day. Davisson's arrangements and original compositions were reprinted or revised in almost all following books of the West and South, including
- Alexander Johnson's Tennessee Harmony (1818)
- Samuel Metcalf's Kentucky Harmonist (1818)
- James Boyd's The Virginia Sacred Music Repository (1818)
- Allen Carden's The Missouri Harmony (1820)
- William Moore's Columbian Harmony (1825)
- William Walker's Southern Harmony (1835)
- The Sacred Harp (1844)
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- ¹. The West and South included Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, western Virginia (now West Virginia), Ohio, western Pennsylvania, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia.
External Links
References
- Music, David W. 1983. Ananias Davisson, Robert Boyd, Reubin Monday, John Martin, and Archibald Rhea in East Tennessee, 1816-26. American Music 1(3):72-84.