Scope and Content Note
The William A. Newland and Charles Zeuner Collection of Music constitutes the working library of professional musician William A. Newland, who was active in many different musical circles in nineteenth-century Philadelphia. It consists almost exclusively of music, in both manuscript and printed form, and reflects the diversity of sacred and secular musical activity in America in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century.
The imprints in the collection, both European and American, consist primarily of music for piano (2 or 4 hands) and songs. Manuscripts in the collection include both instrumental and vocal works of many genres, with a particular concentration in sacred vocal works in both Latin and English. The music in Latin is especially noteworthy in that it may represent the only known source of pre-Cäeciliaverein nineteenth-century American Catholic church music. Newland's many transcriptions and arrangements illustrate the common practice of setting operatic and other secular melodies to sacred texts for church use; the collection abounds in settings for liturgical anthems and hymns such as "Ave Maria," "O Salutaris Hostia" and "Regina Coeli." Similarly, the 2 and 4 hand piano transcriptions in the collection demonstrate nineteenth-century America's fondness for piano arrangements of operatic and orchestral works.
The composers represented in this collection constitute a representative sampling of the mix of European and American music prevalent in the United States in the mid-19th century, ranging from Mozart and Rossini to George F. Root and Oliver Shaw. American composers are particularly well-represented in the collection by popular nineteenth-century instrumental forms such as the quickstep, quadrille, gallop, rondo polacca, march, and waltz, which are found in both the keyboard works and those scored for band or small orchestra.
Of primary significance in the William A. Newland and Charles Zeuner Collection of Music is the existence of the largest extant source of the music of Charles Zeuner. His numerous manuscripts of German songs are complemented by his variations on American standards such as "Yankee Doodle," "Hail Columbia," and "Home Sweet Home." Quicksteps named for President Tyler and Governor Everett of Massachusetts, a Funeral March for President Harrison, and pieces designated specifically for the Fourth of July illustrate that both Newland and Zeuner are representative of the many nineteenteh-century emigré composers who were fully integrated into the mainstream of American music.