Playlist
* The Birthday of Jesus Maura Slon and Joel Hume 1:20
* Peace and Joy Kim Suoka and The Rose Ensemble 2:21
* We have found the promised Saviour Randy Folger and ensemble 2:30
* Love is Little The Tudor Choir 2:38
Music notes:
The Birthday of JesusThe Shakers were a Pentecostal religious sect that emerged in mid-18th century England. They shared many beliefs with the of the Quakers, but featured communal celibate living, and a very different style of ecstatic singing and dancing worship rather than deep listening for the voice of God in meditative silence. The Shakers considered speaking in tongues and the songs that came to them individually as having come from God, and those songs infused all aspects of their lives.
Shakers lived a communal, pacifist, and celibate lifestyle. They thrived as a sect in the 19th century, but are almost now extinct. I have a bit more background information about the Shakers after the Music Notes below, but for much more info and and six more of their songs go to my Dec 10, 2023 posting. As an update to the information in that post, earlier this year 59 year-old April Baxter, a former Episcopal nun, has joined the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community and is on the path to full membership. That would bring their total number of current Shakers up to three. You can hear a 3 minute NPR All Things Considered clip about that here.
This song is an anonymous composition from the short-lived West Union, Indiana Settlement near Dayton, Ohio which was in existence from 1811 until 1827. That community had been settled by about 300 Shakers as part of a Western expansion, but the Shakers there “struggled against mother nature (malaria, floods, tornados) and decided to move back east.” It had been the Shakers’ westernmost settlement.
The duet is sung by Maura Slon and Joel Hume. It is from an independently-produced 1995 album called Joy of Angels: Shaker Spirituals for Christmas and the New Year. That CD is now out of print. Unfortunately I do not know anything more about the song’s history and I don’t have written lyrics. There is a companion book for the album, but I have been unable to obtain a copy.
Peace and Joy is an anonymous composition found in Original Shaker Music, published by the Shaker settlement of Mount Lebanon, NY in 1893. The soloist is is Kim Suoka and the recording is from The Rose Ensemble’s 2008 album And Glory Shone Around. Unfortunately, that Minnesota-based professional chamber choir did not survive the Covid shutdowns.
Lyrics:Awake for the angels are gath’ring near,Whispering peace and joy,Gathering near Christ’s blessing to bring,Let nothing that boon destroy.
Happy are they who gather these gifts, Fresh from the heav’ns the soul to uplift. (X2)
Oh, then let us gain ev’ry Christian grace,Whate’er the toil and strife,Thus forming here a household of faithThe fruit of the virgin life.
Let us sing with the angels in glad accord, Peace and Joy are the gifts of the Lord. (X2)
We have found the promised Saviour is also from an anonymous composer who lived in the Mount Lebanon Shaker Settlement. The soloist is the late Randy Folger, who was one of the foremost experts on Shaker music. This performance is also from the Joy of Angels album so I donot have further information.
Love is Little This song is from the Seattle-based Tudor Choir’s 2001 album of Shaker songs gentle words which was dedicated to Randy Folger. The liner note does not identify a songwriter, but it is dated from 1834 and came from the 6000 acre South Union Shaker Settlement near Auburn, Kentucky. That community was established in 1807 and lasted until 1922.
This choral arrangement is not how the Shakers would have sung the song. It is by Kevin Siegried, who after a career as a composer, singer, conductor and music teacher was at the time a doctoral student in composition at the new England Conservatory of Music.
Lyrics:Love is little, love is low;love will make my spirit grow.
Grow in peace, grow in lightlove will do the thing that’s right.
In his liner notes, Seigfried explains the apparently paradoxical statement “love is little” by explaining that “the words ‘little’ and ‘low’ appear frequently in Shaker texts to signal or invoke humility.” We are all familiar with that concept from a song called Simple Gifts which is nearly the only Shaker song that has gone mainstream and become famous. It begins: “’Tis a gift to be simple …”. Seogfried goes on to quote a stanza from the first published Shaker hymnbook, published in 1812:
I want to feel little, more simple, more mild,Like our blest parents, and more like a child;More thankful, more humble, more lowly in mind;More watchful, more pray’rful, more loving and kind.
Background information
The Shakers, formally known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, were a Pentecostal Christian communal sect that was founded in 18th century Manchester England. Under the charismatic leadership of Mother Ann Lee, the Shakers moved from England to the United States in 1774 hoping to escape religious persecution. However in the US their pacifism during the American Revolution and nonconformist Protestant beliefs continued to draw religious persecution, but despite that it grew rapidly until the late 19th century. But since then the sect, which believes in celibacy, has declined to the point where it is now in a precarious position.
The Shakers were perhaps the most musical of all the Christian religions. All aspects of their lives were imbued with singing and dancing. They believed that all creativity, including lyrics and melodies, came as gifts from God and should be shared. I began to collect recordings of Shaker songs suitable for Christmastime back when I was still sharing my midwinter music on 80 minute CDs. I aimed to someday have one of my annual CDs be completely filled with Shaker songs and music, with its liner notes mainly being an essay about the history of the Shake denomination and their music.
That plan needed to be changed when I switched the medium for these seasonal music compilations to these pre-Christmas daily newsletters. My December 10, 2023 newsletter was a set of six Shaker songs accompanied by my envisioned essays. Today’s musical selections are four more Shaker songs. I won’t repeat the background information in these notes. To hear those songs and/or learn more about the Shakers and their music go here.
