Music life in the United States must be traced back to the earliest days, those of musical activity in the churches of New England, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. In Charleston, South Carolina, in the early eighteenth century, a kind of musical drama flourished--the “ballad opera” of British origin. In New Orleans, a little later, French opera was established and survived into this century. There were ambitious composers like Francis Hopkinson, friend of Gilbert Stuart, and other personalities of the Revolutionary period. There were amateurs to whom European music was by no means unfamiliar. Even among the outstanding personalities of the period there were those who, like Thomas Jefferson, took part in performances of chamber music in their own homes; or who, like Benjamin Franklin, tried their hands at the composition of string quartets (which is something of an historic curiosity). We ourselves own a copy of Geminiani’s _The Compleat Tutor for the Violin_, published in London in the seventeen-nineties, which was owned by one of our forbears of that period in Massachusetts. Such facts, of course, are of interest from the standpoint of cultural history. Musicological research has taken due note of them, and probably the familiar error of confusing historical interest with musical value has been made: the awkwardness of this early music has been confused with originality. The music is in no sense devoid of interest; one finds very frequently a freshness, a genuineness, and a kind of naiveté which is truly attractive. We find it hard to be convinced, however, that the parallel fifths, for instance, which occur from time to time in the music of William Billings, are the result of genuine, original style, rather than of a primitive _métier_; and we well remember our curious and quite spontaneous impressions on first becoming acquainted with the music of Francis Hopkinson, in which we easily recognized eighteenth-century manner and vocabulary, but missed the technical expertise and refinement so characteristic of the European music of that period--even of that with little musical value.