|
|
Article: The Bay Psalm Book tercentenary, 1698-1998.
- Article from:
- Notes
- Article date:
- December 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Music Library Association, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
In 1698, the Boston printers Bartholomew Green and John Allen brought out a ninth edition of the Bay Psalm Book.(1) In it one sees the first music printed in the British colonies. Music had been printed in the New World as early as the 1540s in Mexican service books, nearly a century before even the first Bay Psalm Book of 1640. The music printing in Mexico soon died out, however: the 1698 Bay Psalm Book was to begin a bibliographical lineage that continues to today. We honor it on its three hundredth birthday.
None of the eight earlier editions of the Bay Psalm Book have music. Whose idea was it to include the notes? My candidate is Increase Mather, who was ...