State Of The Union: A Song History

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"State Of The Union" is one of the twelve titles in Ellen Pratt's Ensemble Arrangements For The Mountain Dulcimer, Volume 3, a songbook that Pratt publishes herself; DulcimerDownloads sells it as a licensed download, a 58-page PDF.[1] The listing puts the piece in DAD tuning with four dulcimer parts, and the contents page pictured on the same listing adds that it is in 4/4 time and fills pages 40 to 43.[1] Pratt's website describes the volume as a set of original and traditional multipart arrangements, but neither that description nor the DulcimerDownloads listing credits a composer for this tune, so the sources consulted here cannot say who wrote it.[1][2] Pratt dates her first dulcimer compositions to around 2004, and her ensemble writing and arranging followed once she became a member of a dulcimer orchestra in northeastern Connecticut.[3] The sources consulted here give no date for the piece and say nothing about its title.[1][2][3]

Transfer-printed earthenware platter with a central view of a domed classical building among trees, framed by a wide floral border

John & William Ridgway, CAPITOL. / WASHINGTON, earthenware, transfer-printed, ca. 1830. A view of the Capitol on a platter, shown loosely for the title; it has no connection to the tune.

Taken simply as a phrase, apart from the tune, "state of the union" goes back to Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which tells the president to inform Congress from time to time about the condition of the country.[4] George Washington gave the first such address on January 8, 1790.[4] Presidents from Thomas Jefferson on submitted the message on paper, and it was Woodrow Wilson, in 1913, who brought back the spoken address.[4] The sources consulted here do not connect the tune to the address or to any other work of the same name.[1][2][3]

Our book that contains the song "State Of The Union"

Sources

  1. Ellen Pratt: "Ensemble Arrangements For The Mountain Dulcimer, Volume 3".
  2. Ellen S. Pratt: "Ensemble Arrangements for Mountain Dulcimer Volume 3".
  3. DulcimerDownloads: "Ellen Pratt".
  4. U.S. House of Representatives: "State of the Union".
  5. Image: John & William Ridgway, CAPITOL. / WASHINGTON, earthenware, transfer-printed, ca. 1830. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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