In the decades leading up to the Civil War, most Americans encountered European classical music primarily through psalms and hymn tunes. Hymnody was the most popular and commercially successful genre of the antebellum period in the United States, and the unquenchable thirst for new tunes tosing led to a phenomenon that is largely unknown: in their search for fresh material, hymnody editors lifted the tunes of major classical composers to use them in hundreds of psalms and hymns. The few that remain popular today - millions have sung "Joyful, joyful we adore thee" to Beethoven and"Hark, the herald angels sing" to Mendelssohn - are vestiges of one of the most distinctive trends in antebellum music-making. Gems of Exquisite Beauty is the first in-depth study of the historical rise and fall of this adaptation practice, its artistic achievements, and its place in nineteenth-century American musical life. It traces the contributions of pioneering figures like Arthur Clifton and the impact of bestsellerslike the Handel and Haydn Society Collection that turned Lowell Mason into America's most influential musician. By telling the tales of these hymns and those who brought them into the world, author Peter Mercer-Taylor reveals the important history of how the American public first came to meet andcreatively engage with Europe's rich musical practices. | Gems of Exquisite Beauty by Peter Mercer-taylor, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters