A stormy D-minor fuge-tune par excellence, replete with undulating wave patterns, and surging overlapping voices that somehow ride it out and make it to the end together...

The relentless voice crossing and tonic harmony of the fugue almost seem to prefigure Melancholy Day by J.P. Reese on pg. 419 of The Sacred Harp.

Danville is a town North of Newbury where a singing master named Uri K. Hill lived composed and taught. It is posible that he and Ingalls were acquainted.

Ill tidings never can surprise
His heart that fix'd on God relies,
Tho' waves and tempests roar around:
Safe on the rock he sits, and sees
The shipwreck of his enemies,
And all their hope and glory drown'd.

 

Beset with threatening dangers round,
Unmov'd shall he maintain his ground;
His conscience holds his courage up:
The soul that's fill'd with virtue's light,
Shines brightest in affliction's night,
And sees in darkness beams of hope.

--Isaac Watts

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