Tune Req: Lorraine Loree

Subject: ADD: Lorraine (Chas. Kingsley)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Nov 11 - 03:08 AM

Somebody told me about this poem this evening, and asked if we could find a melody for it - she thinks she's heard it sung. This message says the poem was written by Charles Kingsley (published in 1863). I found it at http://wynnespecial.tripod.com/vincents.htm, but the text had grammatical errors that made me wonder if it's correct and complete. I looked further and found the poem at bartleby.com:

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908).  A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895.  1895.   Lorraine   Charles Kingsley (1819–75)     “ARE you ready for your steeplechase, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe?   Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree. You’re booked to ride your capping race to-day at Coulterlee, You’re booked to ride Vindictive, for all the world to see, To keep him straight, and keep him first, and win the run for me.”         5   Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree.   She clasp’d her newborn baby, poor Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe,   Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree. “I cannot ride Vindictive, as any man might see, And I will not ride Vindictive, with this baby on my knee;         10 He ’s kill’d a boy, he ’s kill’d a man, and why must he kill me?”   “Unless you ride Vindictive, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe, Unless you ride Vindictive to-day at Coulterlee, And land him safe across the brook, and win the blank for me, It ’s you may keep your baby, for you ’ll get no keep from me.”         15   “That husbands could be cruel,” said Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe, “That husbands could be cruel, I have known for seasons three; But oh, to ride Vindictive while a baby cries for me, And be kill’d across a fence at last for all the world to see!”   She master’d young Vindictive—O, the gallant lass was she!         20 And kept him straight and won the race as near as near could be; But he kill’d her at the brook against a pollard willow tree; Oh! he kill’d her at the brook, the brute, for all the world to see, And no one but the baby cried for poor Lorraine, Lorrèe.

This page says that John Mals Capel wrote a melody for "Lorraine-Lorraine-Loree"
I found a parody of the poem, set to music, in a PDF document at this URL (click).

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lorraine Loree
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Nov 11 - 12:17 PM

[PDF] WMVC Music Library Catalogue-Alpha Order

www.warringtonchoir.org.uk/WMVC_Music_Catalogue_Alpha_Ord...


Top of p 13, the music to LLL is attributed to Fletcher.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lorraine Loree
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Nov 11 - 01:42 PM

Joe, my Internet Explorer blocked access to the URL with the parody? Any risk?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lorraine Loree
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Nov 11 - 07:42 PM

Q, I checked the parody page, and it checked out OK. It's a 50-page PDF file, and many virus checkers routinely mark PDF files as questionable.
I figure the parody melody ought to be close to the melody of the actual song.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lorraine Loree
From: GUEST,Tony
Date: 05 Nov 11 - 10:41 PM

Here's a generic folk version mp3, if that helps.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lorraine Loree
From: GUEST,Tony
Date: 05 Nov 11 - 11:51 PM

By the way, I think the part about the poem being published in 1863 is incorrect. I saw it in one of the many later editions of Water Babies, which I found at my local library, but it couldn't have been in the original 1863 edition. It was probably first published posthumously, in 1877, in a memoir by his wife. You'll see there (just above the text) that she says he wrote it during a severe illness he had while in Colorado during July of 1874. He was visiting the US on a lecture tour. And she says that it was the last thing he ever wrote. He apparently never fully recovered, and died the next year.

And its being written in Colorado raises the question of whether it might have been based on a true story he heard while in the US. The story seems too bizarre to have been made up, which is the way I always felt about the ballad of Omie Wise before I learned that it was in fact based on a true story. There are a lot of places in the US called Coulter, including a creek, lake, and mesa in Colorado and a brook in New York, though there are apparently none in England (the parody you cited comments on that). And a horse race might well have been held in a meadow (lea) at Coulter Brook or at one of the towns or lakes of that name.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lorraine Loree
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Nov 11 - 12:44 AM

Thanks a lot, Tony. That fits things together quite nicely.

Sounds like there may be two tunes, one by John Mals Capel and the other by Fletcher.

Who did the recording, Tony?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lorraine Loree
From: GUEST,Tony
Date: 06 Nov 11 - 07:59 PM

Looking through my old notes, I found a reference to a score by Charles Gilbert Spross (1874-1961). I don't read music, so I'd forgotten about that, but maybe your friend can use it. It's available as a free PDF at the Univ of Rochester.

It was published one year before the Fletcher score, and two years before the parody score, and when Capel was 50 years old. The bio you cited says Capel was an actor, and later in life became a conductor. So it's possible that all these scores were published at about the same time. Spross was an American (it looks like Capel, Fletcher, and Lehmann worked in England) and he toured as an accompanist for popular singers, including Enrico Caruso, Nellie Melba, and Alma Gluck.

I learned about the existence of the Spross score from the credits of the documentary film "The Beales of Grey Gardens." The poem was only recited in that film, not sung. The woman reciting it, Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (1895 - 1977, and Jackie Kennedy's aunt), was 17 when the score was published, and of a wealthy New York family, so she may very well have heard it sung. And she was an amateur singer, so she may even have owned a copy of the score. Her recitation is on YouTube.