ABSTRACT
For about 250 years after the first British settlements in the New World, the possibility of a viable native art music was out of the question. Throughout the seventeenth century, the struggle for existence took precedence over all other considerations. The eighteenth century saw the appearance of our first towns and some desultory music-making. A few Americans could and did write music, but conditions were not auspicious for the survival of any sophisticated homegrown art. They were either genteel gentlemen-practitioners like Francis Hopkinson of Philadelphia or poorly trained New England singing-school teachers like William Billings of Boston. The latter, who had undoubted musical talent, worked within the narrow confines determined by the barely literate amateur choruses of the time. He also died a pauper, scarcely any financial rewards having come his way during his lifetime. As W. Dermot Darby writes:
Billings’s merit is that he was the first musician of really independent and original talent that America produced. He was handicapped by lack of technical knowledge and lack of a suitable milieu.… He is a noteworthy figure, but his importance is not overwhelming. 1
