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Dudley Buck.

Article Excerpt
Dudley Buck. American Victorian Choral Music. Edited by N. Lee Orr. Middleton, WI: Published for the American Musicological Society by A-R Editions, Inc., c2005. (Recent Researches in American Music, 53.) (Music of the United States of America, 14.) [Frontispiece (Dudley Buck, n.d.); foreword (Richard Crawford), p. ix; acknowledgments, p. xi; essay "Dudley Buck: Victorian American Composer," p. xiii-xlvi; 2 plates; scores, 285 p.; apparatus (sources, editorial methods, crit. commentary), p. 287-97; literature cited, p. 298-302. ISBN 0-89579-573-6; 978-0-89579-573-1. $195.] Contains: The Forty-sixth Psalm, op. 57; The Centennial Meditation of Columbia; Festival Te Deum, op. 63, no. 1; Rock of Ages, op. 65, no. 3; Grant to Us Thy Grace; In Absence; The Signal Resounds from Afar.

This impressive edition published by A-R Editions in Recent Researches in American Music includes a representative selection of works by Dudley Buck (1839-1909) reproduced in corrected scores, and an informative, well-written, and thoroughly researched essay by N. Lee Orr. The reemergence of Buck and his music, in both this volume of Music in the United States of America (MUSA), as well as Orr's article "Dudley Buck and the Secular Cantata" (American Music 21, no. 4 [Winter 2003]: 410-43) and his forthcoming monograph for the University of Illinois Press's American Composers series, signals welcome recognition of the popular teacher, organist, and composer who wrote choral, organ, and instrumental works intended primarily for amateur performance. The edition itself refocuses our attention on a musical culture that valued professional versatility and accessibility for its performers, educators, and composers.

Buck was a typical musician of his time, a fact that has proven detrimental for the later reception of his works. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, he traveled to Germany at...