Music from England 1840's

Subject: Music from England 1840's
From: Rosebrook
Date: 27 Jul 00 - 11:35 PM

I've been asked by a local theater group about music from England around the 1840's for an upcoming production. Any ideas on where I could begin doing this kind of research on line?

Rose

Subject: RE: Music from England 1840's
From: Sorcha
Date: 28 Jul 00 - 03:36 AM

Try "Brighton Camp", aka "The Girl Left Behind Me". Or "Saint (St.) James Infirmary" songs/tunes. "Van Diemens Land" (sp--which?) might also be a good starting place.

Subject: RE: Music from England 1840's
From: Gervase
Date: 28 Jul 00 - 05:56 AM

Rosebrook,

Anything about the murder of Maria Martin would be topical, so a search through one of the online broadsheet collections might yield something. There's a link in the Mudcat Links section (in fact there's a few links there which might yield useful material for traditional English material from your period).
Otherwise there's some good Crimean War songs, but they're a decade and more later than your historical brief (but the rules cd be bent, surely).
Popular music of the day was pretty eclectic, so you'd get away with quite a lot of earlier 19th and later 18th century material - which is a much richer vein (all those ballad about Napoleon, Nelson,Wolfe etc). Nursery songs and rhymes should be fairly straightforwad, as they've hardly changed since then and long before.
There aren't so many lovesongs and tearjerkers that spring to mind - possibly because the fashion for the more maudlin and sentimental stuff came later in the Victorian era, but there should be plenty of stuff in the Digitrad which would fit the bill.
Try searching using the keywords - @ballad, @tearjerker, @british etc.
Much of the material from A.L.Loyd's Penguin collection of English Folk Songs, gathered as it was at the end of the 19th Century, was probably first learned by the singer's parents in the early 1840s, and there are plenty of good songs there - uploaded just a few weeks back. Try a forum search on Penguin (and I can guarantee you a few unexpected sniggers at some of the posts that come up!)

GW Good luck

Subject: RE: Music from England 1840's
From: Albatross
Date: 28 Jul 00 - 08:02 AM

1840 sounds like the music hall period. Jenny Lind is a well played folk tune named after a victorian swedish music hall performer. Thomas Hardy's collection of folk tunes stem from this time.

Subject: RE: Music from England 1840's
From: Kim C
Date: 28 Jul 00 - 09:28 AM

Just about anything by Thomas Moore.

Subject: RE: Music from England 1840's
From: Hollowfox
Date: 28 Jul 00 - 10:09 AM

What play are they putting on? If the context is a nursery, a parlor, or a pub will make a difference in which pieces will be most useful.

Subject: RE: Music from England 1840's
From: MMario
Date: 28 Jul 00 - 10:11 AM

Try the Lester Levy Sheet Music site, which allows you to search by date.

Subject: RE: Music from England 1840's
From: Rosebrook
Date: 28 Jul 00 - 12:26 PM

Great suggestions - thank you all. The play is 'Hard Times' (Charles Dickens) and the theme is equality.

Diving back into those links, Rose

Subject: RE: Music from England 1840's
From: GUEST,Len Wallace
Date: 28 Jul 00 - 05:08 PM

hmmmm, not sure about online. But one song is "Blackleg Miner" about the unsuccesful miner's strike in the "black year of '44".

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