INTRODUCTION

In 1832 a Mennonite named Joseph Funk published a remarkable songbook that would have a profound influence on Mennonite singing for the following four or five generations. Its name, Genuine Church Music, indicated the compiler's intention that the contents be songs that, in his words, "have stood the test of time and survived the changes of fashion."

Its oblong, horizontal format, as well as its distinctive shape notes of the fasola system, linked it with dozens of songbooks published in America at the time to encourage musical literacy. The variety of musical content, ranging from simple psalm tunes and American folk melodies to complex early American anthems, offered ideal materials for singing schools. To reach his educational goals, Funk introduced his music with a lengthy "Elucidation of the Science of Vocal Music" (later called "Rudiments of Music"). Here he taught note reading of pitches by the fasola system: mi, fa, sol, and la each had a unique shape to help the learner hear pitch relationships. In addition, he described in detail the reading and conducting of rhythm.

The book's organization by poetic meter-L.M. (long meter: 8.8.8.8. syllables per line), C.M. (common meter: 8.6.8.6.), and S.M. (short meter: 6.6.8.6.), for example-made it a useful complement to books of hymn texts. In 1847 it was the tune book chosen for the first Mennonite book of hymn texts in English, A Selection of Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs. Each text was assigned one of the tunes from Genuine Church Music.

Funk's book was accepted immediately. Within fifteen years, four editions had been published and 28,000 copies sold, and by the seventeenth edition in 1878, 80,000 copies had been printed. The twenty-four editions over 161 years stayed close to Funk's original vision, with a few dramatic changes:

By the fifth edition (1851), Funk and his sons decided to expand the shape-note system to include all seven notes of the octave. They added distinctive shapes for do, re, and ti to thefasola system. They also changed the name of the book to Harmonia Sacra.
In the twelfth edition (1867), the three voices with melody in the middle expanded to four, with the melody in the tenor voice.
Various editions introduced new pieces and removed others. The fifteenth edition (1876), for example, introduced an early nineteenth-century anthem, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," known to users of The Mennonite Hymnal (1969) as "606."
After the seventeenth edition (1878), the material on the rudiments of music was omitted.
The twenty-fourth edition (1980) changed the entire format, from a horizontal to a vertical, hymnal-type book. Even more striking was the exchanging of soprano and tenor voices, making the notation match the practice of Harmonia Sacra singers in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, where sopranos sing the tenor melody and tenors take the accompanying soprano line. This "Legacy Edition" made it easier for people to read and hear the songs because they look and sound much more like hymns in standard hymnals oftoday.

The present edition, the twenty-fifth, restores the format of the twenty-third and previous editions. It brings back the full "Rudiments of Music" section. The music begins on page 53, with Part I, "Containing the most appropriate tunes of the different metres, for public worship." Part II, "Containing the longer tunes of different metres, set pieces, and anthems" begins on page 249. The current edition's compilers have included at the end of this section twenty-six pieces (pages 355-80) that had moved in and out of earlier editions. Finally, Part III (pages 381-98) offers twenty-seven three-voice hymns from the first and second editions. These permit singers to try the fasola method of reading notes and thus to hear the textures that were important to Joseph Funk in 1832.

We hope this new edition will help perpetuate community music-making among Mennonites by reinvigorating traditional Harmonia Sacra singing.

Mary K. Oyer
Goshen, Indiana
Fall, 1993