William Billings (b. 1746, Boston; d. 1800, Boston)

William Billings is considered by many to be the foremost representative of early American music, as well as one of its most picturesque figures. He was mostly self-trained in music and was a tanner by trade. Billings was friends with several Revolutionary War figures including Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. The latter engraved Billings’s first collection of music, New England Psalm Singer; or, American Chorister, in 1770.

Billings was the first American composer to set hymns and anthems in the fuguing style, imported from England. Audiences and singers liked the style because of its vivacity, with the voice parts moving rapidly in imitation, chasing each other around. Billings considered himself individualistic as a composer, proclaiming, “I don’t think myself confined to any rules for composition laid down by any that went before me.” He was also known for his sense of humor. His notoriously dissonant “Jargon,” with its hilarious performance instructions, is believed to have been written in response to critics who felt some of his earlier work was too conservative or uninspired.

Among Billings’s best-known compositions are his canon “When Jesus Wept,” the anthem “David’s Lamentation,” and the hymn “Chester.” The latter, for which Billings wrote both the music and the fervently patriotic text, became the unofficial hymn of the American Revolution.