Author Description

Scholes exposes the prevailing academic prejudice that the Puritans were killjoys who hated and suppressed music. Contents: Preface -- List of illustrations -- Introduction: Brief preliminary sketch of the history of Protestantism and Puritanism, and of the founding of the puritan colonies -- 1: Charge against the American Puritans -- 2: Blue Laws of Connecticut -- 3: Instrumental music and the New England community -- 4: Puritanism and the dance on both sides of the Atlantic -- 5: Trouble at Merry Mount -- 6: Charge against the English Puritans -- Interlude: Puritanism and dress, recreation and children's names -- 7: England as a musical country at the time of the American Colonization -- 8: Musical publications in England during the Puritan rule -- 9: Cromwell as music lover -- 10: Some English Puritan poets and music -- 11: Some light on musical education in Puritan times in England -- 12: Some further illustrations of the practice of music in Puritan days -- 13: Opera in Puritan England -- 14: Antiquity and nature of the objection to elaborate church music -- 15: Organ in church and home in Puritan England -- 16: Puritan church song in England and New England -- 17: What the psalms meant to the Puritans -- 18: Musical profession in England under the Puritan rule -- 19: Glimpse at musical life in a non-Puritan colony -- 20: Is there no evidence against the Puritans? -- Interlude: Calvin and music -- 21: Eighteenth-century origin of the objection to music -- Envoi -- Appendices: -- Music at King's College, Cambridge -- Peters disturbances at Hebron -- Was Peters sane? -- Some supplementary references to Peters' Blue Laws -- Description of the genuine "Blue Laws" of Connecticut -- Some early cases in court in Massachusetts -- Why "Blue"? -- Puritan doctrine of predestination -- Quakers and music -- Jew's harp -- Bunyan's flute, violin, and musical cabinet -- Glossary of musical terms which occur in the text of passages quoted, etc -- Index of works cited.