Music
Morgan was a composer, best known for his hymns and fuguing tunes. While not as famous as those by William Billings, his works share the same characteristic roughness, directness and folk-like simplicity.
Publications containing his work include The Federal Harmony (New Haven, 1790), and The Philadelphia Harmony, 4th ed. (Philadelphia, 1791). The former collection includes his perhaps most famous composition titled "Amanda," a setting of Isaac Watts's poem based on Psalm 90. The tune "Despair," in the 1791 collection, cites the death of "Amanda" (referring to his wife, Martha Day, who died in childbirth in the same year) in a paraphrase of Alexander Pope's Ode on Solitude.
Morgan's setting of Psalm 63, entitled Montgomery, was a popular fuguing tune, reprinted more than 50 times before 1811. Its voice-leading, as is common in works by early American composers, contains numerous unabashed parallel fifths, giving the music a folk-like quality. Another work of his, the Judgment Anthem, is tonally adventurous, moving back and forth between E minor and Eb major.
Read more about this topic: Justin Morgan
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