JOSEPH FUNK'S "ALLGEMEIN NÜTZLICHE
CHORAL-MUSIC " (1816)
By HARRY ESKEW
As the main stream of the American singing-school movement during
the early nineteenth century shifted gradually from the North to the South
and West, an important area of musical activity was the Shenandoah Valley
of Virginia. In this Valley from 1816 to 1860 thirteen singing-school tune-
books were published in at least thirty-two editions, beginning with
Ananias Davisson's Kentucky Harmony.
These Shenandoah Valley music publications are similar in several ways.
The shape of each tunebook is oblong, being longer in width than height.
Each collection opens with a theoretical introduction for teaching music
reading in singing schools. The music of each tunebook is printed in shape
notation, an aid to music reading which was widely accepted during this
period in the South and West. These collections contain several types of
vocal music set to religious texts, ranging from simple psalm and hymn
tunes, including hymns of folk origin, to more elaborate fuging tunes and
anthems. The music is given in open score, and the number of voice parts
ranges from two to four, the latter being most frequent. The melody is
normally found in the tenor part. These tunebooks were not limited to use
in singing-school classes; they also found a place in religious services, as
well as in other home and community activities.
Although these Shenandoah Valley tunebooks are largely similar in
format, contents, and usage, one of the earliest, entitled Allgemein nützliche
Choral-Music, differs significantly from the others, for its language is Ger-
man and its music is predominantly of German origin.
From the time of the early settlements in the Shenandoah Valley during
the 1730's German-speaking people coming primarily from earlier settle-
ments in New York, Pennsylvania and Piedmont Virginia constituted an
important element of the population. A study by John W. Wayland of
the names in extant records of several northern counties of the Valley dating
from the late eighteenth century calculated the proportion of German
names ranging from twelve to seventy percent.¹
Among the Pennsylvania Germans moving into the Shenandoah Valley
during the late eighteenth century was Henry Funk, father of thirteen
children, including Joseph Funk, compiler of the tunebook Choral-Music.
The Funks moved to Virginia about 1780 and settled near the present-day
community of Singers Glen, located twelve miles northwest of Harrison-
burg, seat of Buckingham County. The elder Funk was a Mennonite
minister, and Joseph, while not a minister, became a very active Mennonite
layman. Little information exists concerning Joseph Funk's early life. He
was born in Pennsylvania on April 6, 1778, and came with his family to
Virginia as a young child. Funk was twice married and twice widowed,
raising a family of fourteen children. Although nothing is known of his
education, Funk as a member of a minister's family probably received much
schooling at home.
In 1815 Funk had the Henkel Print Shop of New Market produce a
1
John W. Wayland, The German Element of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia (Charlottsville,
1907), pp. 95-96.
[38]
broadside in German soliciting subscribers for a music book. Its first few
lines may be translated as follows:
Proposal by Joseph Funk of Rockingham County, Virginia, who intends to
bring out by subscription a musical chorale book entitled: A Generally Useful
Chorale Music.²
The publication of Choral-Music in 1816 was a venture supported by the
co-operation of leaders of several important German-speaking church bodies
of the Valley. The Lutheran printer Solomon Henkel bore much of the
cost of printing, even though he did not print Funk's work. The Reformed
minister Johannes Braun, acknowledged leader of his denomination in
Virginia at this time, gave much assistance, and wrote at Funk's request
the foreword of Choral-Music entitled "On Music, or the Tonal Art." This
foreword, a typical apology for music showing its biblical authorization,
gives Braun's view of the state of singing among the Germans of the Valley.
It is to be regretted that we Germans, especially in these parts, are so backward in
the practice of the vocal art. Nowhere is this more noticeable . . . than in public
gatherings and, more or less, in all religious organizations. There are many, and
with the scarcity of singing schools more and more, who do not open their mouths
to sing at all; and there are others who cause, by unsuitable sounds, such discords
that both the song service and the devotional service are disturbed if not entirely
broken up.³
In the printing of Choral-Music two important items were needed: the
Fraktur type then commonly used for German books and fonts for music
symbols.
Two printers of German publications were active in the Valley in 1816:
Solomon Henkel in New Market and one of his associates, Laurentz Wart-
mann, who was then establishing his own business in Harrisonburg. The
Henkels were reportedly too busy publishing the official reports of the
Lutheran Church, so Wartmann printed Funk's Choral-Music.
It seems very unlikely that Wartmann owned the necessary fonts for
printing music. Choral-Music was Wartmann's first publication and his
only other known music publication, appearing twenty-six years later, was
printed with music fonts supplied by the customer.
4
The only printer in the Valley known to possess music fonts in 1816 is
Ananias Davisson, who in the first part of the year published the first
edition of his Kentucky Harmony. We know that as early as 1812 and
1813 Wartmann had done some printing in Harrisonburg for the firm of
Davidson and Bourne,
5
whose identity has not been discovered in con-
temporary sources. Although Davisson's last name is spelled Davisson in
his Kentucky Harmony, the Rockingham County Deed Books of this
period also record Ananias Davis and Ananias Davidson, indicating a likely
variance in the custom of spelling his name, as well as the increased proba-
bility that he was the same person associated earlier with Bourne in the
2
Listed in Klaus G. Wust, "German Printing in Virginia A Check List, 1789-1834," Twenty-eighth
Report of the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland (Baltimore, 1952), p. 61. The only
known copy of this broadside Vorschlag was in the collection of the late Joseph K. Ruebush of Harrison-
burg. It has since disappeared. Author and editor would appreciate any information as to the present
whereabouts of this item. The publication date of 1816 is missing from the imprint of the Choral-Music.
It has been established from a letter by Joseph Funk to William Marshall, dated July 3, 1816, in which
Funk applies for copyright for "a German Music Book" and included the title page of the Choral-
Music. This letter is among the Solomon Henkel Papers of the Duke University Library, Durham, N. C.
3
Joseph Funk, Die allgemein nützliche Choral-Music (Harrisonburg, Virginia: Laurentz Wartmann,
1816), p. 11. This translation is from George Pullen Jackson, White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands
(Chapel Hill, N. C., 1933), pp. 32-33.
4
This other music publication of Wartmann was the third edition of Funk's Genuine Church Music
(1842), for which Funk supplied the music fonts. John W. Wayland, "Joseph Funk Father of Song
in Northern Virginia," The Pennsylvania German XII (1911), p. 586.
5
Klaus G. Wust, "A Virginia-German Printer: Laurentz Wartmann (1775-1840), American-
German Review XX (August-September, 1954), p. 29.
[39]
printing business. These variant spellings of Davisson's name in the county
records also agree with the conclusion of Wayland.
I am of the opinion that Ananias Davisson was the Davidson who was associated
with Bourne in 1813. Even Shakesphere did not always spell his name in the
same way.
6
Further support of the view that Choral-Music was printed with Davisson's
music fonts is found by comparing the music symbols of this tunebook with
those of Kentucky Harmony, which have similar lines, and signs for clefs
and note heads. Because of these circumstances, it seems likely that
Laurentz Wartmann had worked with Ananias Davisson in printing as
early as 1812 and 1813, and in 1816 used the music fonts with which
Davisson had printed Kentucky Harmony for the printing of Funk's Choral-
Music.
In comparison with other Valley tunebooks, Funk's Choral-Music is
small, numbering only eighty-eight pages. The title page, like those of most
collections of its kind, gives detailed information on its contents and in-
tended usage.
The Generally Useful Chorale Music. Including: Selected Melodies, Which Are
Common to All Religious Faiths. Arranged for Two Voices. Accompanied with a
Foreword about Music or Tonal Art; And with a Complete Introduction on the
Grounds of Vocal Music. Adapted for Use in Public Worship, Singing Schools, and
Private Lessons. Written by Joseph Funk. My Lips and my Soul, which Thou Hast
Delivered, Are Joyful and sing Praise to Thee. Psalm 71:23. Harrisonburg, printed
by Laurentz Wartmann, Rockingham County, Virginia.
After the title page is the copyright page and a fourteen-page foreword by
Johannes Braun. Then follows an eight-page theoretical introduction which
is similar to those of other tunebooks of this period.
The eighty-seven pieces of music in Choral-Music may be grouped into
three basic categories: (1) chorales, (2) psalm tunes, and (3) folk hymns.
Unlike the other Shenandoah Valley tunebooks, Choral-Music contains none
of the more elaborate types of singing-school music, such as the fuging
tune and anthem.
The chorales constitute the largest of these three categories, forming
about eighty percent of the pieces. Most of these chorales for which sources
have been found date from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Several chorales in Funk's collection are in church hymnals of today,
such as "Jesu meine Freude" (Jesus My Joy), a traditional German
melody adapted by Johann Crüger (1653) with text by Johann Franck
(1655), which is known in English by Catherine Winkworth's translation
beginning "Jesus, priceless treasure." This chorale, like the others in this
tunebook, is scored for two voices, the melody accompanied by a bass. The
chorales in this collection generally have rather florid melodies. In contrast
to the florid first phrase of "Jesu meine Freude" in Choral-Music, for
example, its usual version has only the notes A, A, G, F, E, D. The bass
parts of the chorales in this tunebook, however, are generally less elaborate
than those of other settings examined.
Comparison of the chorale melodies of Choral-Music with those in other
American collections of this period as well as the numerous European
versions in Zahn's Die Melodien der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenlieder
has shown nearly all of Funk's versions to be more florid. In view of the
lack of similarly florid versions in print, it seems likely that Funk recorded
the melodies as he had heard them performed by the German groups of the
6
John W. Wayland, Historic Harrisonburg (Staunton, Va., 1949), p. 45.
[40]
Valley. Perhaps further research will reveal that these chorales had under-
gone a transition similar to that of the psalm tunes in the Early New
England Folk Style a century earlier.
7
Throughout Choral-Music Funk uses almost no accidentals, so the usual
C-sharp in measure nine of "Jesu meine Freude" is not indicated. Perhaps
at this time Funk, like his immediate predecessor Ananias Davisson in
Kentucky Harmony, believed accidentals to be a needless incumberance.
Funk was evidently not concerned with the strict rules usually observed
in chorale harmonization, for this piece contains parallel octaves from
measures five to six and parallel perfect fifths from measures thirteen to
fourteen. The overall form of "Jesu meine Freude," similar to many of the
chorales in Funk's tunebook, is AAB, the equivalent of the old German
bar form.
In the second main grouping of pieces in Choral-Music, consisting of ten
psalm tunes, the best known is that of the 134th Psalm called " Old
Hundredth." This psalm tune first appeared in the Genevan Psalter in
1551, where it was set, as here, to Psalm 134. The name "Old Hundredth"
stems from this tune's later use with the English paraphrase of Psalm 100
beginning " All people that on earth do dwell." The Genevan Psalter was
translated into German by Ambrose Zobwasser in 1573, thus bringing many
Genevan tunes into German usage. This version of Psalm 134 in Funk's
Choral Music is quite rigid in rhythm, allowing no syllable tof the text to
occupy more than a beat until the final measure. In the second and last two
phrases are quarter-note ornaments which are not found in either the
Genevan version or the " even-note " version sung by many American con-
gregations of today.
The use of psalm tunes in Choral-Music probably made this collection
more acceptable to the Reformed churches of the Valley, for their musical
heritage lay in the tradition of metrical psalmody.
Along with the title above each piece Funk usually gives several other
indications. The designation before the title "Vers Art 3" refers to the
number of poetic meter given in a Lutheran hymnal of this period, prob-
ably the Erbauliche Lieder-Sammlung (Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1785).
The indication refers to the poetic meter according to the usual English
terminology, which in this case refers to long meter: four lines of eight
syllables each. The number in parentheses refers to the corresponding
melody used with additional stanzas in a Mennonite hymnal then in use,
the Unpartheyisches Gesangbuch, first published in Lancaster, Pennsyl-
vania in 1803. Since each of the tunes in Choral-Music has only a single
stanza of text, it is probable that hymnals were frequently used in conjunc-
tion with it. Of the eighty-seven hymn texts in Choral-Music, sixty-five
(75%) appear in Unpartheyisches Gesangbuch (5th edition, 1841). Of these
sixty-five common texts, however, only thirty-six (55%) utilize the same
tunes in both books.
From the standpoint of American music, the most interesting of the
three main groupings of pieces in Choral-Music is the folk hymn. There
are six pieces in this tunebook which can be definitely classified as folk
hymns in the Anglo-American tradition
8
on the basis of secular folksong
7
See Gilbert Chase, America's Music (New York, 1955), chapter 2.
8
Four of these folk-hymn tunes ("Primrose,'' "Rockbridge," "Salvation," and Supplication") are
discussed in the works of George Pullen Jackson, for which exact references are given in the Compre-
hensive Index in his last book. Another Sheaf of White Spirituals (Gainesville, Fla., 1952), "The
tune to "Seelenweide, meine Freude" is related to the folk-hymn tune "Charleston" in Funk's
Genuine Church Music (1832), p. 192; which appears under the name "Bartimeus" in John R. Daily,
The Primitive Baptist Hymn and Tune Book (Madisonville, Kentucky, 1902), no. 197."
Two other tunes in Choral-Music which appear to possess enough folksong traits to merit further
investigation are those to "Wir singen dir Immanuel" and "Schönster aller Schönen" (both on page
57). The latter of these, which may well be a German folksong, bears a strong resemblance to the
melody of "O du liebster Bräutigam" in Joseph Doll's Leichter Unterricht 2nd ed. (Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, Johann Wyeth, 1814), p. 96.
[41]
counterparts or stylistic traites. Both of these folk hymns (Illustration I)
are taken from Kentucky Harmony, as indicated by the note at the bottom
of the page. In Kentucky Harmony these tunes are given their usual names,
respectively "Rockbridge" and "Supplication," are both attributed to
Chapin, probably Lucius and/or Amzi Chapin, singing-school teachers
active in the South and West during the late eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries.
9
The melody of the first piece, "Rockbridge," is pentatonic with the
fourth and seventh degrees of the scale missing. "Rockbridge" has four
phrases, each concluded with the equivalent of a whole note. The basic
pattern of the first phrase is simply varied in phrases two, three, and four.
The second tune, "Supplication," like many folk hymns, is modal. The
basic unity of structure of this melody is also of interest. Of the four
phrases, the first, second, and fourth open with the note E; and the first
three phrases also close with E. The four notes at the beginning of the
first phrase are repeated at the beginning of the last phrase. The internal
phrases open with similar variations upon the initial four notes.
Illustration II demonstrates the strong resemblance of many American
folk hymns. Although this melody beginning with the words "Man mag
wohl ins Klag-Haus gehen" is longer (six phrases instead of four) than
"Supplication," these two tunes have several points of resemblance. Both
tunes are in the same key and meter, and possess similar rhythmic patterns.
The familiar opening motive of " Supplication " without its first note occurs
in "Man mag wohl" at the beginning of all phrases except the fourth. In
addition, the last four notes of these two tunes are identical. As far as
I know, the appearance of this tune to "Man mag wohl" is unique to
Funk's Choral-Music. This isolated appearance of this tune related to a well
known American folk hymn in a German tunebook seems to indicate that
the Anglo-American folk idiom was familiar enough for German-Americans
at this time to utilize it in adapting tunes for their own texts.
In several extant copies of Choral-Music there is pasted in a broadside
religious ballad entitled "Joseph's Lied" (Illustration III), which was
printed by either Henkel or Wartmann around 1816
10
probably also using
Davisson's shape-note music fonts. The melody of "Joseph's Lied" is quite
significant in American shape-note hymnody, for it appeared in numerous
tunebooks entitled "Green Fields," associated with John Newton's hymn
"How tedious and tasteless the hours." (It is even today in the current
hymnals used by America's two largest Protestant denominations, the
Methodists and Southern Baptists.) George Pullen Jackson cited several
eighteenth-century European sources of this tune, as well as its appearance
in numerous nineteenth-century American publications, the earliest of
which was in 1820 in both Alien Carden's Missouri Harmony and Davisson's
Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony.
11
"Joseph's Lied" therefore ante-
dates previously known American publications of this tune some four years.
Little is known concerning the use of Funk's Choral-Music. Although
no later editions have been discovered, records of singing schools in a
Rockingham County Mennonite church as late as 1845 to 1850 using
Choral-Music have been found by Harry A. Brunk.
12
It is likely, however,
9
See Charles Hamm, "The Chapins and Sacred Music in the South and West," Journal of
Research in Music Education VIII (1960), 91-98. Since the publication of this article, the important
Andrew Law papers have been made available in the Library of the University of Michigan. Cursory
examination of several of these letters seems to indicate that some of the Chapin tunes were by either
Lucius or Amzi, and that others were composed jointly by them. Letters from John Logan to Andrew
Law dated October 1, 1811; November 11, 1811; and September 9, 1812. Letter from Lucius Chapin
to Andrew Law dated March 9, 1812.
10
Wust, "German Printing." Op. cit., 62.
11
George Pullen Jackson, Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America (New York, 1937), 92-94.
12
Harry A. Brunk, History of Mennonites in Virginia 1727-1900 (Harrisonburg, 1959), 322.
[42]
that the use of Choral-Music declined within a few years, for in 1832, sixteen
years after its publication, Funk brought out a tunebook in English.
This tunebook, entitled A Compilation of Genuine Church Music, was
printed for Funk by J. W. Hollis in Winchester sixty miles to the north,
and bound by E. Watts in Charlottsville, eighty miles from Winchester and
over forty miles from Funk's home. The format of Genuine Church Music
is similar to Choral-Music, but Funk's later book is more than three times
larger, containing a total of 271 pieces of music. Furthermore, the change
in language is accompanied by a change in musical traditions. In place of
a tunebook predominantly of German chorales, the contents of Funk's
Genuine Church Music consist largely of British and American music. Of
the seventy chorales in the earlier tunebook, only nine are retained in
Genuine Church Music.
13
In contrast to this, practically all of the American
folk hymn tunes in Choral-Music, plus many more, appear in Genuine
Church Music.
Funk's Genuine Church Music succeeded Davisson's Kentucky Har-
mony as the leading tunebook of the Shenandoah Valley. By 1847 four
editions had been published totaling 28,000 copies. Beginning with the
fourth edition, Genuine Church Music was printed and bound by Funk and
his sons in their own print shop at their home in Mountain Valley, the
community later renamed Singers Glen because of its musical significance.
Ten editions of this tunebook were published during Funk's lifetime. After
Funk's death in 1862, this work continued to be published by his sons and
others. Genuine Church Music is still in print under the title The New
Harmonia Sacra A Compilation of Genuine Church Music. The latest edi-
tion, the twenty-second, was published in Harrisonburg in 1959 by Harry
A. Brunk.
How do we account for the radical changes in both language and music
from Funk's Choral-Music of 1816 to his Genuine Church Music of 1832?
In seeking explanations for these changes, one must examine what was
happening in hymnody during this time among both the German and Anglo
Americans.
During the previous century the earliest German language hymnals of
the larger churches to be printed in America were reprints of those that had
been used in Europe, such as the Ausbund (1742) and Das kleine David-
ische Psalterspiel (1744), both produced by Christopher Saur in German-
town, Pennsylvania. In the late eighteenth and the beginning of the nine-
teenth century the first German-American hymnals were published in Penn-
sylvania: the Lutheran Erbauliche Lieder-Sammlung of 1786, the Reformed
Neue and verbesserte Gesang-Buch of 1797, and two Mennonite hymnals—
Die kleine geistliche Harfe der Kinder Zions of 1803 and Unpartheyisches
Gesangbuch of 1804.
14
Although these hymnals were reprinted and con-
tinued in usage during the early nineteenth century, this period saw the pub-
lication of bilingual and English language hymnals by German Americans.
The transition from German to English was not without difficulty.
13
Most of these nine chorales are given German place names. The numbers following each name
indicate the pages on which they appear respectively in Choral-Music and Genuine Church Music:
"Dresden" (38, 56), "Brandenburg" (44, 70), "Bavaria" (73, 81), "Hamburg" (25, 109), "Basil"
(40, 126), "Germany" (26, 137), "Frankfort" (78, 153), "Penitence" (25, 167), "Day-Star"
(38, 185).
14
For full bibliographical data on these German-American hymnals see Oswald Seidensticker, The
First Century of German Printing in America 1728-18SO (Philadelphia, 1893).
Little research has been done on the German-American shapenote tunebooks of early nineteenth-
century Pennsylvania. These publications, some of which are bilingual, reflect a mixture of cultural
forces. Among those which could be fruitfully investigated are:
Joseph Doll, Leichter Unterricht (1810) and Leichter Unterricht Vol. 2 (1815)
Isaac Gerhart and Johann F. Eyer, Choral-Harmonie (1818)
Johannes Rothbaust, Die Franklin Harmonie (1841)
S. M. Musselman, Die neue Choral Harmonie (1844)
T. R. Wever, The Pennsylvania Choral Harmony (1844)
[44]
Something of the conflict arising from the language change is shown by the
following statement written in 1812 favoring the retention of German.
Your English-raised children lose forever all the edification, which they could have
had in the German church-services—the beautiful German prayers—the splendid
catechisations—the many devotional hymns and church-songs, with which our fore-
fathers comforted themselves in the face of need and death, and for which the
English language is far too poor, for them ever to be rightly translated.
This same person also viewed the hymn tunes of the English-speaking
people with disdain. He felt that if the Lutherans and Reformed should
build English-speaking churches the results would be tragic for their
hymnody.
. . . our solid church-melodies exchanged for English jumping-tunes, and in place
of our present hymnal, full of biblical spirit and godliness, there will be a Collection
of Odes and Arias, which give no nourishment to the soul in its search for grace.
15
In the Shenandoah Valley the transition from German to English can
be clearly seen in the trends of local publications. During the first two
decades of the nineteenth century numerous German works were published
in the Valley, including newspapers, school textbooks, devotional books,
church records, hymnals, and several types of broadsides, including song
sheets; most of these imprints came from the Henkel Press in New Market.
By 1830, however, the stream of German publications in this area had
dwindled to only a trickle; and in 1834 appeared the last completely German
publication of the Valley. The exclusive use of German gave way to several
decades of bilingualism. The ABC book of Henkel, for example, was pub-
lished in a bilingual edition in 1817. As early as 1816 the Henkels published
a hymnal in English. From 1834 the Lutheran and Reformed official church
reports appeared in English. By 1840 the official transactions of the three
leading denominations of the Valley—Lutheran, Reformed, and United
Brethren—were being made in English. The Mennonites and Dunkers,
being more closely-knit and sectarian, were able to preserve German in
their church services for another decade or two.
16
In the Valley the first
American Mennonite hymnal in English was published in 1847; it was
printed by Wartmann in Harrisonburg, and Funk served as a member of
the hymnal committee. The second edition of this Mennonite hymnal,
published in 1851, contained an appendix of twenty-six hymns in German.
17
By the time of the Civil War the German language had been almost com-
pletely replaced by English in the churches of the Shenandoah Valley.
In view of this gradual transition from German to English taking place
in the Valley and elsewhere during the early nineteenth century, it is not
surprising that sixteen years after the appearance of Choral-Music Funk
should publish a tunebook in English. But why should the language change
between these two collections be accompanied by such a radical change in
the music?
An important factor to be taken into consideration in understanding
this musical change is the spread of shape-note tunebooks predominantly
of American music in the Valley after the publication of Choral-Music. In
1817 and 1818 in Winchester two tunebooks were published: Wheeler
Gillet's The Virginia Sacred Minstrel and James M. Boyd's The Virginia
15
"Zuruf an die Deutschen in Amerika," No. 2, in Evangelisches Magazin (Philadelphia), I
(1812), 67-69, usually attributed to John George Schmucker (1771-1854). Quoted in Don Yoder,
Pennsylvania Spirituals (Lancaster, Pa., 1961), p. 121.
16
John Stewart and Elmer L. Smith, "The Survival of German Dialects and Customs in the
Shenandoah Valley," Thirty-First Report of the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland
(Baltimore, 1963), p. 67.
17
Irvin B. Horst, "Joseph Funk, Early Mennonite Printer and Publisher," Mennonite Quarterly
Review XXXI (1957), 273.
[45]
Sacred Music Repository. In Harrisonburg by 1826 Ananias Davisson's
Kentucky Harmony had been published in five editions and three editions
of his Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony had appeared. In 1831 in
Winchester was published James P. Carrell's and David L. Clayton's The
Virginia Harmony. The publication of these tunebooks clearly indicates
the widespread acceptance of the American shape-note tradition in the
Valley during these sixteen years.
The contents of Joseph Funk's personal library indicate that he was
also familiar with developments among some of the more sophisticated
tunebook compilers outside the shape-note tradition. These books of Funk,
now housed in the Menno Simons Historical Library of Eastern Mennonite
College in Harrisonburg, include Lowell Mason's The Handel and Haydn
Collection of Church Music (Boston, 1822) and two works of Thomas
Hastings: Dissertation on Musical Taste (Albany, New York, 1822) and
Musica Sacra (eighth edition, Utica, New York, 1829).
Funk's knowledge of other important singing-school publications is
shown in the section dealing with shape notes in the first edition of Genuine
Church Music. In his justification of shape notes Funk quotes from several
musical works, including the sixth edition of Andrew Adgate's Rudiments of
Music (Philadelphia, 1799) and the sixth edition of Samuel Dyer's Art of
Singing (New York, 1828). Funk also mentions having consulted " more
than a few "writers on vocal music," both German and English."
18
By taking into consideration these various factors—the gradual language
change among German Americans in the Shenandoah Valley during the
early nineteenth century, the widespread acceptance of the shape-note
tradition with its New World orientation, and Funk's acquaintance with
some of the more sophisticated American musical trends of this time—one
is better able to understand the marked differences between Choral-Music
and Genuine Church Music.
Even in Funk's Choral-Music, however, the appearance of American
folk-hymn tunes with German texts is a cultural contact showing early
signs of the process of musical acculturation, a process which was to result
in the gradual assimilation of German Americans into the dominant Anglo-
American musical tradition of the Shenandoah Valley.
18
Joseph Funk, A Compilation of Genuine Church Music (Winchester, Va., 1832), xviv.
[46]
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