Recent Researches in American Music

Recent Researches in American Music encompasses a wide variety of genres, styles, and epochs that define the music of our country. Some of the earliest volumes in the series concern music of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, such as J. Bunker Clark's two-volume edition Anthology of Early American Keyboard Music 1787–1830 (A 1, A 2) and Robert Hopkins's edition of previously unpublished sonatas by the important Philadelphia composer Alexander Reinagle (1756–1809) (A 5). 

Early musical theater is an important part of the history of American music. Karl Kroeger's volume, Pelissier's Columbian Melodies: Music for the New York and Philadelphia Theaters (A 13–14), brings together many of the songs, dances, and incidental music to the operas, plays, and pantomime of Victor Pelissier (c. 1740–c. 1820). Another volume is devoted to the earliest known American opera, The Disappointment: or, The Force of Credulity (A 3–4). 

Several volumes are devoted to sacred music of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Richard Crawford's The Core Repertory of Early American Psalmody (A 11–12) offers the 101 British and American pieces most frequently printed between 1698 and 1810. Another volume presents the complete works of New England composer Stephen Jenks (1772–1886), edited by David Warren Steel (A 18). 

Other volumes in the Recent Researches series fill gaps in the repertoire of mid-nineteenth century music in America. Lavern J. Wagner's edition of Band Music from the Benjamin H. Grierson Collection (A 29) traces the evolution of the American brass band, its music, and its instrumentation before the Civil War. John C. Schmidt's edition of three of Paine's chamber works includes the Sonata for piano and violin, the Romanza and Humoresque for piano and cello, and the Larghetto and Humoreske for piano, violin, and cello (A 17). Another New England composer, Arthur Foote (1853–1937), is represented by seven works for cello and piano, including three that are published for the first time (A 8). A volume of antebellum chamber music, edited by John Graziano and Joanne Eldridge-Swenson, offering previously unpublished string quartets and a string quintet by the virtually unknown Charles Hommann (1803–ca. 1873), is forthcoming. 

For music from the turn of the twentieth century, the series includes Selected Songs with Chamber Accompaniment by Charles Martin Loeffler (1861–1937) (A 16), edited by Ellen Knight. Loeffler's highly individual songs, many never before published, are settings of the French symbolists. Among the volumes issued in 1999 are Amy Beach's Sea-Fairies, Opus 59, Charles Sanford Skilton's Sun Bride, and George F. Bristow's Oratorio of Daniel, Opus 42.

Recent Researches in American Music has begun to fill some of the gaps that have persisted in the music of the United States. Nevertheless, many other works, in a wide variety of genres, deserve publication in this series. Several exciting projects are currently in process, and when they are published the volumes will add tremendously to our knowledge of the variety and extent of the music of America. 

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