ADD: Songs My Mother Taught Me (Antonín Dvorák

Subject: Songs My Mother Taught Me...
From: Murph10566
Date: 09 Jan 02 - 04:12 PM

Hi All - I've been prevailed upon to try to come up with this number; the only line my friend remembers is: "Songs My Mother Taught Me In The Days Long Gone..." So far, I've exhausted my usual sources, and would really appreciate some direction...

Many thanks, Murph

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs My Mother Taught Me...
From: Gareth
Date: 09 Jan 02 - 04:17 PM

Try the Haughton Weavers - Ive got the tape in the car, ill try and transcribe it tommorrow, bit late tonite to start.

Gareth

Subject: Lyr Add: SONGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME
From: Sorcha
Date: 09 Jan 02 - 04:23 PM

SONGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME
Charlotte Church

Songs my mother taught me
In the days long vanish'd
Seldom from her eyelids
Were the teardrops banish'd.

Now I teach my children
Each melodious measure;
Oft the tears are flowing;
Oft they flow from my mem'ry's treasure

(Is there more?)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs My Mother Taught Me...
From: MMario
Date: 09 Jan 02 - 04:36 PM

this?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs My Mother Taught Me...
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 11 Jan 02 - 02:03 PM

I've pieced together the following information from several web sites, and it's all a bit iffy, but here goes:

There is a song called "Als die alte Mutter," opus 55 no. 1 ("Songs my mother taught me") by Antonin Dvorák. A midi file is available on this page. The words by Adolf Heyduk (1835-1923) in German are as follows:

Als die alte Mutter mich noch lehrte singen,
Traenen in den Wimpern gar so oft ihr hingen.

Jetzt wo ich die Kleinen selber ueb' im Sange,
reiselt's in den Bart oft, rieselt's oft von der braunen Wange!

An English translation was written by Mrs. Natalia Macfarren and published in 1880. The Library of Congress has this song listed on this page but they don't have the sheet music on-line.

I assume this is the same text that Sorcha quoted above, and which Charlotte Church sings. Some version has also been recorded by Glenn Miller and Paul Robeson, among others.

To make things a bit more complicated, it seems that the same text was also set to music by Charles Ives (1874-1954) in 1895.

Also, the phrase "songs my mother taught me" has been used for a lot of different things. Marlon Brando made it the title of his autobiography! This makes it hard to sort through all the Google hits. (2,970 of them!)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs My Mother Taught Me...
From: masato sakurai
Date: 11 Jan 02 - 10:18 PM

Score (piano arrangement with English words) is HERE.

Score (melody only) and MIDI (without words) are HERE.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs My Mother Taught Me...
From: masato sakurai
Date: 12 Jan 02 - 05:45 AM

According to James J. Fuld (The Book of World-Famous Music, 4th ed., p. 521):

m. Anton Dvorák. w. Adolf Heyduk [Czech poet, 1835-1923]. Published Aug. 20, 1880, as Als die Alte Mutter, no. 4, in Zigeunermelodien op. 55, or Gypsy Songs, for piano and voice, by N. Simrock, Berlin. Probable first edition. [...] The words are in German and English. [...] The Zigeunermelodien were composed in Jan. and Feb., 1880.

~Masato

Subject: Lyr Add: SONGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME (Antonín Dvořák
From: Alice
Date: 12 Jan 02 - 11:28 AM

You can reach the words eventually by following the links provided by Masato. This is a song I studied when I was taking voice lessons. To add the lyrics here for any future searches (and the DT):

SONGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME
Antonín Dvořák

Songs my mother taught me
In the days long vanished
Seldom from her eyelids
Were the teardrops banished
Now I teach my children
Each melodious measure
Oft' the tears are flowing
Oft' they flow from my mem'ry's treasure.

Alice Flynn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs My Mother Taught Me (Antonín Dvorák
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 09 Mar 24 - 01:48 PM

Songs My Mother Taught Me
Soul Music - BBC Radio4 - 2023
Soul Music hears the stories of musicians, poets and singers from around the world of why they are so drawn to it.
The poet Raine Geoghegan is the daughter of a Romany woman whose life was weighed down with the loss of her father at a young age. Raine identifies with the sadness of the music because it not only represents grief at the loss of her father but also for the loss of a way of life for the gypsy people.
For Emily MacGregor it's all about the music we inherit from our parents. She is writing a book about music and grief and says this piece perfectly represents the bittersweet feeling of listening to music associated with the loss of a loved one. Dvorak had already lost three children in infancy by the time he wrote his Zigeuner Lieder.
Paris based violinist and conductor Bartu Elci-Ozsoy associates Songs with the innocence of childhood and was moved to perform it at a benefit concert he organised in aid of the children affected by the devastating earthquake in his native Turkey and Syria in early 2023.
The Korean soprano Sumi Jo recorded it in honour of her mother and presented it to her a year before she died in gratitude for her determination to see her daughter become a professional singer.
When The Scotsman newspaper commissioned a series of lockdown concerts in Spring 2020 cellist Sua-Lee chose to recreate the concert by Beatrice Harrison a century earlier when she played the piece accompanied by nightingales in her garden in Surrey. Sua set up her cello in woodland near her home in Grantown- on-Spey and performed Songs My Mother Taught Me to a collection of woodland creatures.
Singer Ruby Hughes performed the American composer Charles Ives' version of the piece for a collection called Bright Travellers - music curated and composed by Helen Grimes from poems by Fiona Benson. Ives wrote his own version of Dvorak's piece not long after the Czech composer had settled in America. She loves the rocking gentle lullaby sensation created by the lilting melodies of both Ives' and Dvorak's compositions.   

Featuring additional recordings by Sua Lee and Zoe Challenor

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001schk