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Listen to special Mayflower 400 music performances in a ‘virtual church’

Oct 01, 2020

Music lovers were invited to attend a ‘virtual church’ in October 2020 to enjoy an online recital that featured two special Mayflower 400 pieces.

Two new pieces - one American and one British - were shown on Monday, 12 October: Carson Cooman’s Plymouth Soundings and Clive Jenkins’ Four Mayflower Portraits.

The Cooman-Jenkins collaboration arose after Carson found old organ music by Clive in a second-hand shop during a visit to London. He liked it and later had it republished in the USA.

Carson is organist-composer in the Memorial Church at Harvard University, just up the coast from Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Plymouth, Devon, is Clive’s birthplace – and it was he who suggested writing new music for Mayflower 400, and the publication of Carson’s work in the UK by Goodmusic, his British publisher.

Carson Cooman

Carson’s Plymouth Soundings (2019) is dedicated to Clive and Richard Line, originators of this project from Plymouth, UK; and to Michael Eaton, organist at Church of the Pilgrimage in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

The piece was a free fantasy on motives from psalm tunes found in the Ainsworth Psalter. This psalter, published in Amsterdam in 1612, was brought by the colonists on their voyage. The collection proved seminal in the development of future American psalters and hymnody.

Meanwhile, Clive's Four Mayflower Portraits were composed especially for performances as part of Mayflower 400 celebrations on both sides of the Atlantic.

Clive Jenkins

The people in the Four Mayflower Portraits are:

Myles Standish - an English military officer hired as military adviser for Plymouth Colony. He accompanied the group on the Mayflower journey and played a leading role in the administration and defence of Plymouth Colony from its inception.

Peregrine White - born after the Mayflower had anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor, Cape Cod. He was the second baby born on the Mayflower's historic voyage and the first known English child born to the colonists in America. His cradle can be seen in the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Priscilla Mullins - the object of two men's affections. Myles Standish wanted to marry her but, shy and awkward in romantic matters, he asked his friend John Alden to propose on his behalf. But her response to the proposal was "Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?"

John Howland - came on the Mayflower as manservant to John Carver who later became Governor of Plymouth Colony. During the voyage, Howland fell overboard in a storm, and was almost lost at sea but he managed to grab hold of the topsail halyards and was pulled back on board with a boat-hook. His many descendants include Mrs Theodore Roosevelt and Presidents George Bush and George W. Bush.