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 curious title of the song reflects a common practice of Billings's day, in which tunes were labeled with (often arbitrarily chosen) place names. Billings's song 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".
The modern American composer William Schuman employed the tune of "Chester" 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.
HBO's John Adams has a scene in episode 1 where a group of men sang this song out loud together.
"America " is an American patriotic song, the lyrics of which were written by Samuel Francis Smith. The melody used is the same as that of the national anthem of the United Kingdom, "God Save the Queen". 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 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 is regarded as the first American choral composer, and leading member of the First New England School.
The "Battle Hymn of the Republic", also known as "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" outside of the United States, is a popular American patriotic song by the abolitionist writer Julia Ward Howe.
"Lift Every Voice and Sing" – often referred to as the Black national anthem in the United States – is a hymn with lyrics by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) and set to music by his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954), for the anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's birthday in 1900.
"Africa" is an 18th-century hymn tune by American choral composer William Billings, who worked in New England.
"The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning" is a hymn of the Latter Day Saint movement. It was written by W. W. Phelps, one of the most prolific hymnwriters of early Mormonism.
Common metre or common measure—abbreviated as C. M. or CM—is a poetic metre consisting of four lines that alternate between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with each foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The metre is denoted by the syllable count of each line, i.e. 8.6.8.6, 86.86, or 86 86, depending on style, or by its shorthand abbreviation "CM".
John Henry Maunder was an English composer and organist best known for his cantata "Olivet to Calvary".
A Christian child's prayer is Christian prayer recited primarily by children that is typically short, rhyming, or has a memorable tune. It is usually said before bedtime, to give thanks for a meal, or as a nursery rhyme. Many of these prayers are either quotes from the Bible, or set traditional texts.
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.
"Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" is a hymn with words taken from a longer poem, "The Brewing of Soma" by American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier. The adaptation was made by Garrett Horder in his 1884 Congregational Hymns.
"Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" is a Christian hymn written by the pastor and hymnodist Robert Robinson, who penned the words in the year 1758 at the age of 22.
"For the Beauty of the Earth" is a Christian hymn by Folliott S. Pierpoint (1835-1917).
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-born English 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 Second New England School or New England Classicists is a name given by music historians to a group of classical-music composers who lived during the late-19th and early-20th centuries in New England. More specifically, they were based in and around Boston, Massachusetts, then an emerging musical center. The Second New England School is viewed by musicologists as pivotal in the development of an American classical idiom that stands apart from its European ancestors.
"Gwahoddiad" is a Welsh hymn of American origin.
Creation is a hymn tune composed by William Billings.
"Come Thou Almighty King" is a popular Christian hymn of unknown authorship, which is often attributed to Charles Wesley and Isidro Garcia.
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, Andrew Law, Timothy Swan, Jacob Kimball Jr., Lewis Edson, and Jeremiah Ingalls. They composed primarily psalm tunes and fuging tunes, which differ enough from European fugues to warrant the spelling "fuge".
