Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the editor
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Introduction
- Source Editions and Abbreviations
- Song Texts and Notes to the Songs
- Part 1 The English Songbook
- Part 2 The Foreign Language Songbook
- Part 3 Original Duets arr. Sir John Stevenson
Introduction
This new critical edition collects together for the first time in one volume selected original arrangements of Thomas Moore’s world-famous Irish Melodies for solo voice and duet along with other successful English-language songs by Moore and foreign-language settings of his texts by Schumann, Mendelssohn, Berlioz and Duparc.
Moore’s songs were enormously popular during and after his lifetime. The poet’s celebrity might be summed up in the words of his friend, Lord Byron, who declared him: ‘The poet of all circles and the idol of his own’; this caption formed the inscription on the tall Celtic cross erected in 1906 above Moore’s grave at Bromham Church, Wiltshire. Byron adored the Irish Melodies: ‘I have them by heart … they are my matins and my vespers’, and in this he was clearly not alone for the songs captured public imagination to an extraordinary degree both at home and abroad. Moore moved easily in the privileged circles of the English aristocracy where his performances were legendary but their currency among the ordinary people of Ireland and other nations was equally assured.
In making the choice of songs for the volume, several issues were considered such as their usefulness to the performer, their merit and impact in performance, their historical significance and their sheer beauty both in terms of vocal content and the partnering accompaniments. Singers and singing teachers have long expressed interest in a collected edition of Moore’s songs which, it is hoped, this publication goes some distance towards providing. Despite Moore’s celebrity during his lifetime and the endurance of a significant number of songs up to the present, there exist few modern editions and, until now, none have made available within a single issue the earliest piano arrangements published during Moore’s lifetime and the decades following his death in 1852.
The English language songs in this edition focus inevitably on the cycle of Irish Melodies with its 124 songs providing more than ample material from which to choose. While most of the famous songs are to be found in Moore’s earlier collections, the reader is directed towards several beautiful but relatively unknown ones in the late numbers, here represented by two gems: ‘The dream of those days’ (in its original setting by Henry Rowley Bishop) and ‘’Twas one of those dreams’ (in an arrangement by Charles Villiers Stanford). Among the most famous Irish Melodies included are ‘The song of Fionnuala’ (better known as ‘Silent, oh Moyle’), ‘Avenging and bright’ and ‘The farewell to my harp’ (or ‘Dear harp of my country!’), all in their original settings by Stevenson. In addition, three of Stevenson’s excellent duets are given at the end of the album – ‘Oh! Breathe not his name’, ‘Believe me if all those endearing young charms’ and ‘It is not the tear at this moment shed’.
Details
- Pages
- VI, 128
- Publication Year
- 2022
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781800795136
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781800795143
- ISBN (MOBI)
- 9781800795150
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9781789979763
- DOI
- 10.3726/b18470
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2021 (December)
- Published
- Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Wien, 2022. VI, 128 pp.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG