Tune in version of 1778
Parts labeled "Treble, Counter, Tenor, and Bass" correspond to the modern SATB four-voice choir. However, the melody is in the tenor part, not the treble part.
"Chester" is a patriotic anthem composed by William Billings and sung during the American Revolutionary War. Billings wrote the first version of the song for his 1770 songbook The New England Psalm Singer, and made improvements for the version in his The Singing Master's Assistant (1778). It is the latter version that is best known today.
The name of the tune reflects a common practice of Billings' day, in which tunes were labeled with (often arbitrarily chosen) place names. Billings' tune evidently has little more to do with any particular town named Chester than his famous hymn "Africa" has to do with Africa. The idea behind this practice was that by labeling the tunes independently, one could sing them to different words without creating confusion (indeed, this later did happen; see below).
Parts labeled "Treble, Counter, Tenor, and Bass" correspond to the modern SATB four-voice choir. However, the melody is in the tenor part, not the treble part.
Although this cannot be established with certainty, it appears that these lyrics are by Billings himself.
Let tyrants shake their iron rod,
And Slav'ry clank her galling chains,
We fear them not, we trust in God,
New England's God forever reigns.
Howe and Burgoyne and Clinton too,
With Prescot and Cornwallis join'd,
Together plot our Overthrow,
In one Infernal league combin'd.
When God inspir'd us for the fight,
Their ranks were broke, their lines were forc'd,
Their ships were Shatter'd in our sight,
Or swiftly driven from our Coast.
The Foe comes on with haughty Stride;
Our troops advance with martial noise,
Their Vet'rans flee before our Youth,
And Gen'rals yield to beardless Boys.
What grateful Off'ring shall we bring?
What shall we render to the Lord?
Loud Halleluiahs let us Sing,
And praise his name on ev'ry Chord.
The song was later provided with religious (as opposed to patriotic) words by Philip Doddridge, and in this form is a favorite of Sacred Harp singers. The Doddridge words are as follows:
Let the high heav'ns your songs invite,
These spacious fields of brilliant light,
Where sun and moon and planets roll,
And stars that glow from pole to pole.
Sun, moon, and stars convey Thy praise,
'Round the whole earth and never stand,
So when Thy truth began its race,
It touched and glanced on ev'ry hand.
A slightly altered version of this text and the music by Billings was recorded in 1975 by the Old Stoughton Musical Society for their LP album, "An Appeal to Heaven".
20th century American composer William Schuman employed the tune in his New England Triptych (1956) and later expanded it into his Chester Overture.
Bernard Herrmann quoted the tune prominently in his score for the Colonial Williamsburg orientation film, Williamsburg: the Story of a Patriot.
An instrumental version of the song was used as background music for CBS's Bicentennial Minutes segments.
The HBO miniseries John Adams has a scene in episode 1 where a group of men sing this song together.
There is a concert band piece called Chester Variations, arranged by Elliot Del Borgo. [1]
The anthem features as background music in the 2008 strategy videogame Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization. Also, an arrangement of the anthem features as the main theme for the American Civilization in the 2025 strategy videogame Sid Meier's Civilization VII. [2]
"God Save the King" is the de facto national anthem of the United Kingdom, one of two national anthems of New Zealand, and the royal anthem of the Isle of Man, Canada and some other Commonwealth realms. The author of the tune is unknown and it may originate in plainchant, but an attribution to the composer John Bull has sometimes been made.
"My Country, 'Tis of Thee", also known as simply "America", is an American patriotic song, the lyrics of which were written by Samuel Francis Smith. The song served as one of the de facto national anthems of the United States before the adoption of "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the official U.S. national anthem in 1931. The melody used is adapted from the national anthem of the United Kingdom, "God Save the King".
The Finlandia hymn refers to a serene hymn-like section of the patriotic symphonic poem Finlandia, written in 1899 and 1900 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. It was later re-worked by the composer into a stand-alone piece. With words written in 1940 by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi, it is one of the most important national songs of Finland. Although not the official national anthem of Finland, it has been continuously proposed as such.
William Billings was an American composer and is regarded as the first American choral composer and leading member of the First New England School.
"On Ilkla Mooar Baht 'at" is a folk song from Yorkshire, England. It is sung in the Yorkshire dialect, and is considered the official anthem of Yorkshire. It is sung to the hymn tune "Cranbrook", composed by Thomas Clark in 1805; while according to Andrew Gant, the words were composed by members of Halifax Church Choir "some 50 years after Clark wrote his melody", on an outing to Ilkley Moor near Ilkley, West Yorkshire. It is classified as numbers 2143 and 19808 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
"Lift Every Voice and Sing" is a hymn with lyrics by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) and set to music by his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954). Written from the context of African Americans in the late 19th century, the hymn is a prayer of thanksgiving to God as well as a prayer for faithfulness and freedom, with imagery that evokes the biblical Exodus from slavery to the freedom of the "promised land."
The fuguing tune is a variety of Anglo-American vernacular choral music. Fuguing tunes form a significant number of the songs found in the American Sacred Harp singing tradition. They first flourished in the mid-18th century and continue to be composed today.
"Hail, Pennsylvania!" is a song written by Edgar M. Dilley as a submission to a University of Pennsylvania alumni committee-sponsored contest to write a song to the tune of "God Save the Tsar!", the national anthem of Imperial Russia, by Alexei Fyodorovich Lvov. Dilley was awarded $25 for creating it. It served as the regional anthem of Pennsylvania until 1990 and now serves as the municipal anthem of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
"God Save the South" is a poem-turned-song considered by some to have been the unofficial national anthem of the Confederate States of America. The words were written in 1861 by George Henry Miles, under the pen name Earnest Halphin. It was most commonly performed to a tune by Charles Wolfgang Amadeus Ellerbrock, although a second version was also published with a tune by C. T. De Cœniél.
John Henry Maunder was an English composer and organist best known for his popular Passion cantata Olivet to Calvary, composed in 1904.
New England Triptych is an orchestral composition by American composer William Schuman, based on works of William Billings. The work lasts about 16 minutes, and is written for an orchestra comprising three flutes, two oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.
"We Gather Together" is a Christian hymn of Dutch origin written in 1597 by Adrianus Valerius as "Wilt heden nu treden" to celebrate the Dutch victory over Spanish forces in the Battle of Turnhout. It was originally set to a Dutch folk tune. In the United States, it is popularly associated with Thanksgiving Day and is often sung at family meals and at religious services on that day.
The Five Mystical Songs are a musical composition by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), written between 1906 and 1911. The work sets four poems by seventeenth-century Welsh poet and Anglican priest George Herbert (1593–1633), from his 1633 collection The Temple: Sacred Poems. While Herbert was a priest, Vaughan Williams himself was an atheist at the time, though this did not prevent his setting of verse of an overtly religious inspiration. The work received its first performance on 14 September 1911, at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester, with Vaughan Williams conducting.
The alma mater of the University of Pittsburgh was adopted soon after the University changed its name in 1908 from the Western University of Pennsylvania to its current moniker. Lyrics were written by George M. P. Baird, class of 1909 and were set to the tune of what was then the Austrian National Anthem. A new tune for the "Alma Mater" hymn was composed by Charles W. Scovel, class of 1883, but it was not widely adopted and was either lost or became obscure.
Creation is a hymn tune composed by William Billings.
"Come Thou Almighty King" is a Christian hymn of unknown authorship, which is attributed to Charles Wesley by Victorian and Edwardian hymnologists, but whose authorship is predominantly stated as "anonymous" in modern hymnals.
The "Marines' Hymn" is the official hymn of the United States Marine Corps, introduced by the first director of the USMC Band, Francesco Maria Scala. Its music originates from an 1867 work by Jacques Offenbach with the lyrics added by an anonymous author at an unknown time in the following years. Authorized by the Commandant of the Marine Corps in 1929, it is the oldest official song in the United States Armed Forces. The "Marines' Hymn" is typically sung at the position of attention as a gesture of respect, akin to a national anthem. However, the third verse is also used as a toast during formal events, such as the birthday ball and other ceremonies.
The State Anthem of the Republic of Buryatia is one of the state symbols of Buryatia, together with the flag and coat of arms of the Russian federal subject. It was first used unofficially for the Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, between 1983 and 1990 titled "Song of the Native Land" with original lyrics in Russian.
Yankee tunesmiths were self-taught composers active in New England from 1770 until about 1810. Their music was largely forgotten when the Better Music Movement turned musical tastes towards Europe, as in Thomas Hastings's 1822 Dissertation on Musical Taste and other works. The principal tunesmiths were William Billings, Supply Belcher, Daniel Read, Oliver Holden, Justin Morgan, Lewis Edson, Andrew Law, Timothy Swan, Jacob Kimball Jr., and Jeremiah Ingalls. They composed primarily psalm tunes and fuging tunes, many of which have entered into the Sacred Harp singing tradition.
