Buechner, Alan Clark. Yankee Singing Schools and the Golden Age of Choral Music in New England, 1760-1800. Foreword by Kate Van Winkle Keller. Boston: Boston University for the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, 2003. Viii + 158 pp. Index. Paperback, ISBN 0-87270-132-8, $30.00.

Alan Clark Buechner's 1960 dissertation from Harvard University, Yankee Singing Schools and the Golden Age of Choral Music in New England, 1760-1800, is finally published. It has been unavailable for over forty years (except for use at Harvard University), because of institutional restrictions. This book is an outstanding study of the beginnings of American music education, including the establishment of "regular singing," the development of singing schools, and the growth of singing societies and church choirs in the eighteenth century. The text is well written and includes numerous delightful quotations. The book is a welcome addition to Britton and Lowens' American Sacred Music Imprints for research on American music education in the eighteenth century. (1)

Alan Buechner (1926-1998) was devoted to his students. At Harvard in the 1950s, he worked on his dissertation and taught music education courses for students preparing to be classroom teachers and music specialists. At a time when it was not fashionable to promote American music, he encouraged students to play the guitar and teach folk songs. His recording New England Harmony: A Collection of Early American Choral Music (Folkways F32377) was produced at Old Sturbridge Village in 1964. From 1967 to 1992, Buechner was a professor of music and coordinator for music education at the Copland School of Music, Queens College, CUNY, where he guided dozens of graduate students. He was a founding member of the Sonneck Society in 1975 (now the Society for American Music), and received the society's Distinguished Service Citation shortly before his death in 1998. Buechner gave papers at major conferences and published articles in prominent journals, but he was mainly interested in his students, disregarding the "publish or perish" academic edict. Fortunately, he made arrangements in 1996 to have his dissertation published by the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife. (2)

The foreword to the book, by Kate Van Winkle Keller, executive director of the Society for American Music, and the following acknowledgments section give biographical details on Buechner's life and contributions to the study of American music. The book contains many pages of facsimiles from early singing books. There are extensive endnotes for each chapter and the bibliography lists primary and secondary sources. Buechner consulted over 470 sources (singing books, diaries and journals, church records, newspapers, books, and dissertations) plus one hundred town and church...