December 7: "Star in the East"

Lucky number 7. Today's obscure carol is a return to the American south and its old world Christmas traditions, and as such it has a handful of names ascribed to it. "Star in the East" seems to be the favored modern name, which is technically the name of the tune and not the hymn itself. The lyrics of the hymn were penned under the name "Brightest and Best," and sometimes "Sons (or Stars) of the Morning." Like a lot of the music I'm looking into here, the tune is in a minor key, which I'm really fond of for Christmas music, and as such I'm fond of this song. Today is also Pearl Harbor Day, so I wanted to choose an American carol, one that might have been sung with some apprehension in American churches around Christmas of 1941.

"Star in the East" is usually sung as a shape note song, as it appeared in the 1854 edition of Southern Harmony as hymn #16. Shape note music is a style of musical notation that links a shape with a given pitch and syllable (think "fa, so, la") within a scale. The style is believed to have developed in churches and early music schools in rural 18th century New England as a means of teaching music to students who may not have been literate, let alone able to read music. Shape note singing also promotes congregational participation as it's usually written in 3-part harmony. It remained popular throughout the rural south and Appalachia into the early 20th century, and maintains some limited use in Baptist congregations today. Here's the sheet music to the shape not song "I'm Going Home":

And here's the same hymn sung by The Sacred Harp singers (also the recording used in the movie Cold Mountain):

So now you know what shape note music is! Sometimes it's ambiguously referred to as "sacred harp" singing after the widely reproduced and updated Sacred Harp hymnal, a comprehensive book a shape note hymns similar to Southern Harmony. It's musical power and fullness made it a preferred method of choral singing even for very musically literate congregations. However, the original hymn "Brightest and Best" was not written as a shape note hymn, or in America at all. Its lyrics are by Reginald Heber, an Anglican bishop in England, who wrote it in 1811. The hymn made its way to America and was adapted into shape note music by William Walker, also the author of Southern Harmony, the first edition of which he published in 1835. Walker is also responsible for the tune, "Star in the East," which is the colloquial name for the hymn now in America. It was intended as an Epiphany carol, which is handy in southern Appalachia, as I brought up in December 1st's post. Maybe that's why it caught on so well. 

That's not the first of Tim Eriksen that's been on this blog, and I doubt it'll be the last. That's also him conducting the singers in "I'm Going Home." Seriously, if you're at all even the tiniest bit interested in American folk music and its history, or even if you just like good music, you're doing yourself a disservice by not listening to his stuff. Traditionally this song is made to be sung a capella (as with all shape note songs), but he works the melody on his 12-string like that's what it was made for. Lyrically there's not a ton to say about "Star in the East"-- I'm mostly in it for the tune of it, which is to say the American part (hoo-rah). It's pretty standard as 19th century hymns go, but I think the refrain does deserve, at the very least, copying and pasting here:

Brightest and best are the sons of the morning

Dawn on our darkness and lend us Thine aid;
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid!

Why "sons" and not "suns" in that first line? There's no readily available source on that which I can find, but it's pretty obvious to me that it's a play on words of sorts, relating Jesus' coming to the sunrise that breaks through the darkness of night. It also seems that the song is written from the perspective of the Magi, which must be what denotes it as an Epiphany carol moreso than a Christmas one. If you're ever bored, look up some other Sacred Harp tunes, especially if the haunting nature of this one speaks to you like it does to me; I don't think you'll be disappointed.