Stephen Jenks (March 17, 1772 – June 3, 1856) was an
Yankee tunesmith, teacher, and tunebook compiler. He was born in
Glocester, Rhode Island
Glocester is a town in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 9,974 as of the 2020 census. The villages of Chepachet and Harmony are in Glocester. Putnam Pike ( U.S. Route 44) runs west through the town center of Gl ...
and raised in
Ellington, Connecticut
Ellington is a town in Tolland County, Connecticut, United States. Ellington was incorporated in May 1786, from East Windsor. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 16,426.
History
Originally the area in what is now Ellington was name ...
. During his life he moved from town to town, living in
Ridgefield and
New Canaan, Connecticut
New Canaan () is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 20,622 according to the 2020 census.
About an hour from Manhattan by train, the town is considered part of Connecticut's Gold Coast. The town is bounde ...
,
Pound Ridge, New York
Pound Ridge is a town in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 5,104 at the 2010 census. The town is located toward the eastern end of the county, bordered to the north and east by the town of Lewisboro, by Stamford, Con ...
, and
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts B ...
, finally settling in
Thompson, Ohio
Thompson is an unincorporated community in Thompson Township, Geauga County, in the U.S. state of Ohio at an elevation of 1270 ft (287 m). The Thompson Ledges, an important geologic and topographic feature of northeast Ohio
The reg ...
in 1829. Between 1799 and 1810 he authored and coauthored more than ten printed collections of sacred and secular music; after moving to Ohio, he became a farmer and a maker of percussion instruments.
The music
Stephen Jenks' music is representative of the type of music being written at that time in rural
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
America,
a cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without Musical instrument, instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differ ...
and an interest in melodic writing. However, his music contains striking harmonic progressions, unusual dissonances and
cross relations. In "Weeping Nature" (''The Delights of Harmony'', 1804), for example, Jenks seems to revel in the clash of the E major / minor chord or in the song "Sorrow’s Tear," filled with cross relations between C sharp / C natural. Although many of these result from his use of
modal harmony and, as previously mentioned, strong melodic writing for the individual parts, his use of these relations is not simply random, they are used to express the text being set. In "Weeping Nature" the lyrics (probably written by
Samuel Stennett) concern the death of the body:
::With murm’ring eyes she
aturedoth survey
::her fellow lump of mortal clay
::Destroy’d by Death’s consuming spear
::the King of Nature’s dread and fear.
while at the same time urging the pious to the divine will of resignation:
::Nature is not subject, we find,
::To the Almighty’s sacred mind
::She cannot say, “Oh, sov’reign Son,
::Thy ways are just, thy will be done.”
The pull of these two worlds presented in the text, the death of the body and the acceptance of this fact in the wait for eternal life beyond, is reflected in the music with the sudden shifts between a minor and C major, resulting in the clash between the G sharp and G natural, even at one point with a
cadence
In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin ''cadentia'', "a falling") is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards.Don Michael Randel (1999) ...
of an E major/minor chord.
The group of tunebooks that Stephen Jenks helped release are as follows:
* ''The New-England Harmonist''. Danbury, Connecticut, 1799.
* ''The Musical Harmonist''. New Haven, 1800.
* ''The American Compiler''. Northampton, Mass., 1803 (with Elijah Griswold).
* ''The Delights of Harmony''. New Haven, 1804.
* ''The Delights of Harmony; or, Norfolk Compiler''. Dedham, 1805
online* ''Additional Music, to the Delights of Harmony, &c''. Dedham, not dated.
* ''The Delights of Harmony; or, Union Compiler''. Dedham, 1806.
* ''The Jovial Songster''. Dedham, 1806 (secular songs).
* ''The Hartford Collection of Sacred Harmony''. Hartford, 1807 (with Elijah Griswold and John C. Frisbie)
* ''The Royal Harmony of Zion''. Dedham, 1810.
* ''The Christian Harmony''. Dedham, 1811.
* ''The Harmony of Zion; or, Union Compiler''. Dedham, 1818.
* ''The Whistle''. Dedham, 1818 (secular songs, words only).
Many of his tunes are still sung at
Sacred Harp
Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that originated in New England and was later perpetuated and carried on in the American South. The name is derived from ''The Sacred Harp'', a ubiquitous and historically important tune ...
singings.
Books and editions
*Jenks, Stephen, ''Complete Works'', edited by David Warren Steel
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenks, Stephen
1772 births
1856 deaths
American male composers
American composers
Shape note
People from Glocester, Rhode Island
People from Ellington, Connecticut
People from Geauga County, Ohio
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut