William Billings: American Choral Music

Though becoming educated through self-teaching, William Billings was unmistakably an unforgettable composer of American Choral music. The composer's involvement in the complex, and extraordinary history of American music was developed throughout his lifetime derived from a range of miniscule to monumental contributions. Though familial troubles may have limited his early education of music, he never strove for less than remarkable. From efforts with the singing schools, and his compositions of hymns, anthems, psalms, and fuging tunes, his role in American history of music will never be dismissed nor forgotten.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 7th, 1746, Billings faced countless setbacks from the start. Due to birth defects, he had
Later, he began studying Tans’urs Musical Grammar and various psalm books and soon found that his love for music could not be squashed. Due to such studies, William found his calling and devotion in the musical category of choral music, specifically much of sacred music. He was credited with the creation of fifty-one fuging tunes, four canons, and fifty-two anthems and set-pieces. Not to mention the act of the now known fuging tunes that places the tune in the tenor voice and harmonizes it with block chords, was also due to Billings creativity and devotion. His music rarely, or possibly never consisted of solo songs or instrumental music, but of many hymn tunes.
Billings' music talent gave him the ability to create music that spanned across a horizon of emotions. He was able to display to his listeners the emotion of jaunty praise in the anthem “The Lord Is Risen Indeed” and the feelings of affliction and sorrow in the anthem “David’s Lamentation”. Climbing to success steadily, he did not stop here. Billings also worked to emit lighthearted amusement in the secular song "Modern Music" as well as a more serious emotion in the canon "When Jesus Wept."He accomplished much, while only having received a semblance of formal musical training in the Bostonian Singing
Having been born and resided in Boston, it is known that Billings wrote this song to speak upon what the lifestyle and town of Boston was like at this time of publication. Though written in the given language english, he maintained his well-known style of no instruments, and “independence” was written to be sung as acapella; as was expected of Billings. The voicing of this choral piece consisted of one Soprano part, one Alto part, one Tenor part, and lastly, one Bass part. Many say that this anthem offers a religious justification. This is seen in the lines “To the King they shall sing, Hallelujah / And all the continent shall sing, Down with this earthly king / No king but God.” In this part of the anthem, Billings is describing that he does not necessarily feel that the colonists were foolish or too quick to declare war on the British. This is because Billings felt that the British placed their powerful King George III as being stronger and more powerful than God himself. Although America was a relatively new country, they had already developed and displayed their strong belief instituted in the higher power of God. Therefore, when the British along with the King did not allow for the Anglo-Americans to be direct British subjects, but just