Sabbatical Leave

August 4, 2003 to July 31, 2004

During my sabbatical leave I will be located at the Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center
in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania.

Description of Sabbatical Projects

Here is a link to the Schwenkfelder Library Home Page

Here is a link to Mapquest® showing the location of Pennsburg

 


Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center, May, 2002

 


Main Reading Room

 

 

 

Description of Sabbatical Projects.

During my sabbatical leave I will be working on three projects: 1) Hoffmann Correspondence, 2) Ephrata Community Hymns and Hymn Tunes, and 3) Activities as Scholar in Residence at the Schwenkfelder Library.

 

 

HOFFMANN CORRESPONDENCE

Background:

Christoph Hoffmann and Rosina Drescher immigrated with their respective parents to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in 1734. Their families were members of an outlawed religious group in eastern Germany (Silesia) called the Schwenkfelders. Like most German immigrants, the Schwenkfelders came to colonial Pennsylvania in search of religious freedom. Around 1750, after their marriage, Christoph and his wife Rosina exchanged letters with relatives and other Schwenkfelders in Silesia. This correspondence continued for 40 years. Toward the end of his life, Christoph compiled two manuscript volumes of this correspondence. One contains the letters of his late wife Rosina and the replies she had received. The other volume contains his own letters and replies. There is a total of 77 letters in the two collections.

Ultimate goal:

Publish a scholarly edition of the Christoph and Rosina Hoffmann correspondence.

Justification:

The Hoffmann correspondence is significant because it gives insight to dynamics between this immigrant family and those of the Schwenkfelder faith who remained in Silesia. The reader will become knowledgeable about the personal lives of the colonial era correspondents as well as their views on local political and religious events. The correspondence from Silesia affords some glimpses into daily life in that country and the gradual abandonment of the Schwenkfelder faith. Rosina’s correspondents were women (Christoph corresponded with men) so these letters would be of interest to those in women’s studies focused on (German) immigrant women’s correspondence during the colonial period.

Progress toward ultimate goal:

I have transcribed, translated, and typed the entire correspondence in these two manuscript volumes. Some of the correspondents have been documented.

Sabbatical goals:

I plan to:

  • finalize the translation
  • document all correspondents and develop their family trees
  • search the Schwenkfelder Library archives for additional correspondence of the Hoffmann’s with relatives and friends in Silesia. If such material exists, it must be translated.
  • search the Schwenkfelder Library archives for any other manuscript materials related to the American and Silesian correspondents.
  • write an introduction to the correspondence as well as the explanatory notes on the persons, places, and events mentioned in the correspondence.
  • compile an index to persons, places, and events.
  • find or create appropriate illustrations for the publication, including family trees.
    •

    Return↑

     

     

     

    EPHRATA COMMUNITY HYMNS AND HYMN TUNES

    Background:

    During the 18th century many sectarian groups and individuals were forced to flee Germany because of their non-conformist religious convictions. Most of these refugees emigrated to colonial Pennsylvania, where they found tolerance of their religious views.

    While German immigrant groups normally reestablished their home churches in Pennsylvania, the Ephrata Community did not exist before its organization in Pennsylvania in 1730 under the charismatic leadership of Conrad Beissel a.k.a Vater Friedsam.

    Between 1730 and 1766 members of the Community wrote some 1200 original hymns and composed over 1500 original tunes in four (and more) voices for those texts (some hymns have multiple settings).

    Ultimate goal:

    Publish a scholarly edition of the hymn texts in German and English translation as well as the musical notation of each air for the text.

    Justification:

    During the colonial era the Ephrata Community produced virtually the only original hymn texts and tune compositions in all of the colonies. No group, including the English, produced nearly so much. The manuscripts and imprints are extremely rare. Although there is some scholarly interest in the corpus, systematic and in-depth study has not been possible due to the lack of a complete catalog. This publication will provide the basic reference work needed for scholarly study of the materials, and, hopefully, thereby attract more scholarship.

    Progress toward ultimate goal:

    Begun in 1973, this project has two phases:

    Phase 1:

  • The cataloging of all primary print and manuscript sources, which are scattered across the United States, England, and Germany
  • The cataloging of every hymn text and hymn tune in the primary sources
  • The determination of the authorship of every hymn text. (The tunes are all by the community leader Conrad Beissel). Since the texts are mostly unsigned, this required a significant amount of detective work
    •

    Phase 1 culminated in my 1995 publication An Index to Hymns and Hymn Tunes of the Ephrata Cloister 1730 - 1766. Including all printed and Manuscript Hymnals and Hymnal Fragments and representative Music Manuscripts.

    Phase 2:

    The current project should culminate in the publication of an edition of the hymns and hymn tunes. This would be a multi-volume set: The hymns of 1) the Sisters, 2) the Brothers, 3) Vater Friedsam, and 4) Ephrata tunes for popular European hymns. The final project will probably reach some 6,000 pages.

    To date I have:

  • reaffirmed and (in a handful of cases) corrected the authorship of each text.
  • typed all the hymn texts
  • transcribed, transposed from the original key of C to the present day universally accepted key of G, and reproduced all airs with music software.
  • translated about one half of the hymns
    •

    Sabbatical goals:

    I plan to:

  • translate the rest of the hymns and then review and revise the translation of the entire corpus producing a final version.
  • check all prints and manuscripts for significant textual variations and annotate the texts.
  • scan all texts for meter and rhyme and compile an index
  • research and write a mini-biography for each hymn writer including a bibliography of primary and secondary literature on each writer.
  • compile music indices of both relative and absolute pitch for each air.
  • annotate each hymn and tune as necessary.
    •

    Return↑

     

     

     

    SCHOLAR IN RESIDENCE AT THE SCHWENKFELDER LIBRARY

    As Scholar in Residence, I have agreed to provide some services to the Library which include:

  • Assisting Curator of Collections Ms Candace Perry with documentation and presentation of the exhibit: "Schwenkfelder and Pennsylvania German Music Traditions" to be presented summer and fall 2004. As part of the exhibit programming, I will work with local high school students to illustrate through their singing a lecture on Schwenkfelder Hymn traditions.
  • Searching the Schwenkfelder collection to further develop my German American hymnology database. This will provide progress in understanding Schwenkfelder hymnology and update the 1909 publication by Allen Seipt on Schwenkfelder hymnology
  • Conducting monthly book discussions on Schwenkfelder and other local Pennsylvania German books
  • Working with the Schwenkfelder Library staff in a supervised German to English translation independent study course based on the Library’s manuscript collection.
  • Presenting a lecture to the Exile Society on the Hoffmann Correspondence.
  • Cooperating with the local high school German teaching in guiding a German AP course.
    •

    Return↑