Old American Country Set: “Charivari”

• Old American Country Set is a suite for orchestra in 5 movements, completed in 1939.¹

“My Old American Country Set was written in nostalgic memory of the period during my childhood spent with relatives in Western Kansas, Oklahoma and Southern Iowa. The tunes are all my own, but they are in the manner of the music heard at the time.”

From Cowell’s program notes for Old American Country Set²

4. Charivari

• Pronunciation:
  • IPA [ˌʃɪv əˈri]
  • phonetic: SHIV-uh-ree or shiv-uh-REE
  • The word is sometimes spelled “shivaree” in American English. It is thought to derive from the Latin word for “headache” (by way of Mississippi Valley French ) because the din of a charivari would cause a headache.[3]

“The charivari is usually an improvised din by a group of merry noise-makers outside the home of newly-weds on their wedding night, but on the night my cousin was married, the crowd outside his house … played and sand a slow, rather lugubrious melody.”

From Cowell’s program notes for Old American Country Set ³

1. David Nicholls and Joel Sachs, “Cowell, Henry” Grove Music Online (2013), acccesed August 27, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002249182.
2. Dana Paul Perna, liner notes to Persian Set: Henry Cowell, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, Richard Auldon Clark, KOCK3-7720-2, CD, 1992.
3. Ibid.