Cashaway Psalmody

Stephen A. Marini is the Elisabeth Luce Moore Professor of Christian Studies and a professor of American religion and ethics at Wellesley College. He is the author of Sacred Song in America: Religion, Music, and Public Culture and contributing editor for sacred music for The Grove Dictionary of American Music, second edition, and singing-master of Norumbega Harmony, a choral ensemble specializing in eighteenth-century Anglo-American psalmody.

"Offering a microhistory of meticulous precision, Marini forges through it a study of broad interdisciplinary scope, a rare synthesizing perspective on the musical, religious, commercial, and educational cultures of the eighteenth-century colonies. I know of no one else in the field who could have pulled off this feat the way Marini has-an exceptional combination of indefatigable archival research with practiced musical expertise."--Leigh Eric Schmidt, author of Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality "Stephen Marini's careful research into an extraordinary eighteenth-century tunemaster and the extraordinary collection of texts and music he gathered into the Cashaway psalter has resulted in an extraordinary book. Tight focus on this one manuscript-musical object yields a rich harvest of insight on transatlantic cultural exchange, unexpected cooperation among churches, the economics of artistic production, and (most of all) the absolutely central place of singing in early American history. It is a rich and rewarding study."--Mark Noll, author of A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, second edition