Read, Daniel

Read, Daniel , important American tunebook compiler and composer; b. Attleboro, Mass., Nov. 16, 1757; d. New Haven, Conn., Dec. 4, 1836. He worked on a farm as a youth. He studied mechanics, and was employed as a surveyor at 18; began to compose at 17. He served in the Continental Army as a private, and at 21 settled at New Stratford; later went to New Haven, hi 1782–83 he maintained a singing school on the North River. He also was a comb maker. At his death, he left a collection of some 400 tunes by him and other composers. He publ. The American Singing Book, or a New and Easy Guide to the Art of Psalmody, devised for the use of Singing Schools in America (New Haven, 1785; subsequent eds., 1786, 1792, 1793, 1795), the American Musical Magazine (containing New England church music; compiled with Amos Doolittle; New Haven, 12 numbers, May 1786 to Sept. 1787; reprinted, Scarsdale, N.Y., 1961), Supplement to The American Singing Book (New Haven, 1787), The Columbian Harmonist, in 3 books: No. 1 (New Haven, 1793), No. 2 (New Haven, 1794; 2^nd ed., with numerous additions, 1798; 3^rd ed., with further additions, 1801), and No. 3 (New Haven, 1795); all 3 books in 1 vol. (New Haven, 1795; 2^nd ed., completely rev., Dedham, Mass., 1804; 3^rd ed., Boston, 1807; 4^th ed., Boston, 1810), and The New Haven Collection of Sacred Music (New Haven, 1818).

Bibliography

V. Bushnell, D. R. of New Haven (1757–1836): The Man and His Musical Activities (diss., Harvard Univ., 1979).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire