Byron as You've Never Heard Him

Did you know that nearly 30 of Byron's poems were meant not as stand-alone poems, but as song lyrics? According to Paul Douglass of San Jose State University in California, Byron composed around 29 poems as lyrics for music to be composed by Isaac Nathan (1790-1864), reputedly England's first popular Jewish composer. Among the poems, compiled as A Selection of Hebrew Melodies, Ancient and Modern, are She Walks in Beauty Like the Night, The Destruction of Sennacharib, Jephtha's Daughter, The Wild Gazelle, and We Sate Down and Wept.

Some of the Byron-Nathan songs have been recorded, and samples are available on Mr. Douglass's Website, Romantic Era Songs, at www.sjsu.edu/faculty/douglass/music

The same site, by the way, also features selections from Stephen Storace's music for The Haunted Tower (1789).

Dibdin: Georgian-Regency Renaissance Man

Charles Dibdin (c.1745-1814)

Dibdin flourished in London during the Georgian years and early Regency as something of an artistic Renaissance man. Poet, actor, songwriter, singer, he wrote around 1,400 songs and 30 theater pieces, including operas, and allegedly created the form of the one-man show.

1762
The Shepherd's Artifice
Songs for the plays Love in the City and Love in a Village, by Isaac Bickerstaffe

1768
Music for the play The Padlock

1774
The Waterman

1775
The Quaker
The Comic Mirror

1785
Liberty Hall

Late 1780s-Early 1800s
Popular songs, often of a patriotic nature:
Poor Jack
'Twas on the Good Ship "Rover"
Saturday Night at Sea
Tom Bowling

Music in Jane Austen's Works

After playing some Italian songs, Miss Bingley varied the charm by a lively Scotch air...
--Chapter 10, Pride & Prejudice (1813)

Storace: The King of Drury Lane

Stephen Storace (1762-1796)

In terms of commercial success, Storace, whose works were produced at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, was the Andrew Lloyd Webber of his day, meeting popular tastes largely with ballad operas that featured visual spectacle, bold vocal turns and trendy, exotic themes. Most of his works survive only as reductions for voice and piano. Many were never printed in full score, largely from the fear of piracy, there being no copyright laws to protect artists' rights. Dido Queen of Carthage, a serious opera, was the rare Storace work rejected by the public. According to some sources, lack of demand rendered it unworthy of printing.

Despite "Dido," Storace was hugely popular well into the 19th century. "Of plighted faith," an air from his opera The Siege of Belgrade, may be heard on the recording Jane Austen's Songbook.

Selections from The Haunted Tower, which was modified after the original French text by the Marquis de Sade, may be heard at Romantic Era Songs, a Website by Paul Douglass of San Jose State University in California. The URL is www.sjsu.edu/faculty/douglass/music

1789
The Haunted Tower

1790
No Song, No Supper (One-act)

1791
The Siege of Belgrade

1792
The Music of the Pirates

1794
The Cherokee

1795
The Three and the Deuce
Dido, Queen of Carthage

1796
The Iron Chest
Mahmoud, Prince of Persia

Field: Irish Regency Romantic

John Field (1782-1837)

Dublin-born Field, a concert pianist and composer popularly called "the Irish Romantic," lived in Russia between 1801 and 1830. He reputedly developed the nocturne, a short musical form that usually showcases one particular mood. The first three of the nocturnes were published in 1812. The remaining appeared at various times throughout his career.

Field also wrote six piano concertos.

1811
Piano Concerto No. 2 in A flat
Piano Concerto No. 3 in E flat

1814
Piano Concerto No. 4 in E flat (revised in 1819)

1817
Piano Concerto No. 5 in C

1819-1820
Piano Concerto No. 6 in C

Nightingale Sounds

It may not be music as such, but one of the most famous birdsongs was the subject of a poem written by John Keats in May 1819.

If you've ever read Ode to a Nightingale and wondered what the bird sounds like, click on Nightingale Sounds in the Links column. You'll be taken to a site that will offer a collection of nightingale vocalizations to choose from. Enjoy!

Regency Rossini, 1812-1820

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)

Rossini, whose career is as fabled as his sense of humor, composed some of his greatest operas by 1820, before he was 30 years old. Here are the most significant hits. I believe all have been recorded.

1812
La Scala di Seta (“The Silken Ladder”)

1813
Il Signor Bruschino
L'Italiana in Algeri (“The Italian Girl in Algiers”)
Tancredi

1814
Il Turco in Italia (‘The Turk in Italy”)

1815
Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra (“Elizabeth, Queen of England”)

1816
Il Barbiere di Siviglia (“The Barber of Seville”)

1817
La Cenerentola (“Cinderella”)
La Gazza Ladra (“The Thieving Magpie”)

1818
Mosè in Egitto (“Moses in Egypt”)

1819
La Donna del Lago (“The Lady of the Lake”)