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But the glory of 'Kiah's art consisted in the execution of those good old billowy compositions called fuguing tunes, where the four parts that compose the choir take up the song, and go racing around one after another, each singing a different set of words, till, at length, by some inexplicable magic, they all come together again, and sail smoothly out into a rolling sea of song.
were forced to be sung, "And bow-wow-wow, And bow-ow-ow," and so on until bass, treble, alto, counter, and tenor had bow-wowed for about twenty seconds; yet I doubt if the simple hearts that sung ever saw the absurdity. It is impossible while speaking of fuguing to pass over an extraordinary element of the choir called "singing counter."
All public worshippers in the meetings one hundred years ago did not, however, regard fuguing as "something sweet everywhere," nor did they agree with Billings and Byles as to its angelic and ecstatic properties. Some thought it "heartless, tasteless, trivial, and irreverent jargon."
These old bigots must have been paralyzed at the new style of psalm-singing which was invented and introduced by a Massachusetts tanner and singing-master named Billings, and which was suggested, doubtless, by the English anthems. It spread through the choirs of colonial villages and towns like wild-fire, and was called "fuguing." Mr. Billings' "Fuguing Psalm Singer" was published in 1770.
Then they voted that the bass-viol could not be used unless Capt. We were well into the present century before any cheerful and also simple music was heard in our churches; fuguing was more varied and surprising than cheerful. Of course, it was difficult as well as inappropriate to suggest pleasing tunes for such words as these:
An old inhabitant of Roxbury remembered that when fuguing tunes were introduced into his church "they produced a literally fuguing effect on the older people, who went out of the church as soon as the first verse was sung."
As Susan was a leading member in the village choir, our hero was directly attacked with a violent passion for sacred music, which brought him punctually to the singing school, where the young people came together to sing anthems and fuguing tunes, and to eat apples and chestnuts.
"But could St Paul but just pop in, From higher scenes abstracted, And hear his Gospel now explained, By Heavens, he'd run distracted." These lines were reprinted in the "American Apollo" in 1792. The repetition of a word or syllable in fuguing often lead to some ridiculous variations in the meanings of the lines. Thus the words "With reverence let the saints appear And bow before the Lord,"
On all these things she pondered quietly, as she sat often on Sundays in the old staring, rattle-windowed meeting-house, and looked at the uncouth old pulpit, and heard the choir faw-sol-la-ing or singing fuguing tunes; but of all this she said nothing. Sometimes, for days, her thoughts would turn from these subjects and be absorbed in mathematical or metaphysical studies.
Parson Judson, of Taunton, was so lazy that he used to preach while sitting down in the pulpit; and was so contemptibly fond of comfort that he would on summer Sundays give out to the sweltering members of his congregation the longest psalm in the psalm-book, and then desert them piously perspiring and fuguing and lie under a tree enjoying the cool outdoor breezes until the long psalm was ended, escaping thus not only the heat but the singing; and when we consider the quantity and quality of both, and that he condemned his good people to an extra amount of each, it seems a piece of clerical inhumanity that would be hard to equal.
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