The deliciously ethereal and seductive close harmonies of Anonymous 4, which its fans (including this reviewer) have come to expect, always executed with a unique blend of precision and panache, have heretofore used as their starting point ancient written (or printed) notes whose original sound can only be faintly imagined and recreated from sparse sources. Not so obscure is the raw material of 1865: a mixture of nineteenth-century parlour songs, ballads, fiddle tunes and hymns. Despite this relatively modern repertory, however, it is still fair to say that imaginative presentation – along with exquisite musicality – continues to be a dominant theme for Anonymous 4; they are concerned with but not obsessed by historical data.

Thousands of songs aimed at domestic consumption were published in the United States during the Civil War years. If reporting the emotional reactions on the home front in time of war were the sole object of this CD, it could have dispensed with a few of its 20 parts, but Anonymous 4’s goals are somewhat more expansive. The full set of songs feels carefully, almost obsessively, even-handed, with respect to its timbres, stylistic inclusiveness and politics. A brief historical essay by Marsha Genensky tells us that, ‘1865 focuses on the personal experience of men, women, and children from the North and from the South, toward the end of the Civil War and its immediate aftermath … in songs originally written for the stage and parlor, and in songs and instrumental tunes from the back roads of America’ (p. 5). Their list includes one theatre song (‘Home, Sweet Home’), two hymns (‘Abide with Me’ and ‘Shall We Gather at the River?’), two traditional ballads (‘The Maiden in the Garden’ and ‘The True Lover’s Farewell’) and three instrumental solos (‘Rebel Raid’, ‘Camp Chase’ and ‘Polly Put the Kettle On’). Six songs refer rather more directly to the war than the others, by quietly naming the ‘South’ or ‘Union’ as ideal places, but no truly bellicose war whoops appear. (Absent are familiar standards, such as Work’s ‘Marching Through Georgia’ or Root’s ‘The Battle Cry of Freedom’ – with their sturdy isometers and trumpeting triads.) Regardless of political slant, Anonymous 4’s thematic emphasis is always placed on the personal and emotional impact on families, victims or survivors of the war as viewed, felt and recalled in the parlour or on the back porch. The cool, high blends of Anonymous 4 impart a distancing that resembles but does not really imitate the 1930s country sounds of the Carter Family in, for example, ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken?’ which tells a poignant story in plain words, simple textures and strict tempos. No sentimental indulgence allowed.

The Carter vocal trio typically included autoharp and guitar, and as if to confirm their knowledge of the earlier group, Anonymous 4 is joined on most of their numbers by Bruce Molsky. His contributions – made variously on fiddle, banjo, guitar and voice, both as a soloist in contrast with the women’s timbres and to provide fuller five-part homorhythmic harmony – are absolutely indispensable to the balance and cumulative effect of this meticulously conceived disc. Most of the happy surprises on this CD have to do with his contribution. Only three songs (‘Sweet Evelina’, ‘Tenting on the Old Camp Ground’ and ‘Abide with Me’) fail to include him.

The songs are ordered with conspicuously contrasting colours piece to piece. One can certainly quibble that Anonymous 4+1’s rendition of these gems lacks any historical analogue with respect to vocal performance practice, but Anonymous 4’s unique presentation more than makes up for this. The gentle bass of Molsky’s voice when it enters on ‘Shall We Gather at the River?’ and the rich, even startling harmonic event that happens when the women join his opening solo on Foster’s ‘Hard Times Come Again No More’ are distinctive master strokes. Molsky’s fiddle solos stand out for their unaffected directness, and his frequent plucked instrumental riffs are nearly flawless. His subtle banjo pizzicato on ‘Darling Nelly Gray’ helps to make this abolitionist plaint into an extraordinarily delicate musical moment – but with a sound more modern than of the period when it was written.

This variety of timbres encountered in 1865 is essential to its overall effectiveness given the basic similarities in song form and harmonic language shared by the full slate of numbers. And although they also include a mixture of tempi, it must be admitted that a certain unavoidable sameness sometimes overtakes the uniformly strong musicianship of the performers. ‘Faded Coat of Blue’, for example, seems overly bright sounding and upbeat for its rather grim text of battlefield death: ‘He sank faint and hungry among the famish’d brave/And they laid him sad and lonely within his nameless grave’.

The Civil War commenced at a moment that coincided with a tremendous expansion of the domestic music printing industry. Genensky notes, ‘songwriters and composers jumped into action, producing several thousand songs during the war years – about 700 [of the lot were] released by Southern publishers … ‘ (p. 6). Many tunes, regardless of their place of publication, were popular in both regions of the country. The nineteenth century’s most ubiquitous song, ‘Home, Sweet Home’, was originally written, published and sung on-stage in 1823, as part of an English-language opera Clari, or The Maid of Milan. By 1865 it had become a universal favourite, and it continued to be reprinted, re-arranged and catalogued in dozens of versions decade after decade well into the twentieth century.

‘The Picture on the Wall’, by Henry Clay Work (better known for his quirky sentimental ‘My Grandfather’s Clock’), evokes the haunted memory of a parent, presumably a mother, whose son died in the war. The rich suggestiveness of Mother and Home are among the handful of inescapable evocative images of mid-century. After the war, songs of nostalgia, painful losses recalled, and the hope for encounters with loved ones in the hereafter are presented in many guises, but all sustain the same general mood. The limited range of emotional themes in this repertory presents a challenge that Anonymous 4 generally meets effectively.

The complex lineage and subtext of America’s popular songs, illustrated in many of 1865’s selections, is perhaps best exemplified by the hit ‘Listen to the Mocking Bird’, first published as ‘a sentimental Ethiopian ballad’ in 1855. The melody was first attributed by its lyricist/arranger, Septimus Winner – his preferred pen name was Alice Hawthorne – to black barber/whistler/guitarist Richard Milburn. The entrepreneurial Winner paid Milburn with 20 free copies and in turn sold his arrangement of it for five dollars to the prominent Philadelphia publisher Lee and Walker, who over the next half century sold some twenty million copies.Footnote ¹ (The first promotion of the song as ‘Ethiopian’ marks it being aimed at the blackface minstrel show market, which was booming at the time.) How ironic then that Milburn’s name has been almost entirely expunged from successive publications up to the present day (including this one) and that his merry tune – done chirpily up-tempo in Anonymous 4’s rendition with Molsky’s masterful banjo playing – has remained among the few songs here (with ‘Home, Sweet Home’ and the two hymns) with the longest shelf life.

1865’s accompanying booklet comes in at 83 pages and features more than two dozen period prints, photographs and silhouettes, and 18 sets of song lyrics in English, French and German, besides the biographies of the performers.