Tune Req: Byron set to music

Subject: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: bradfordian
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 02:22 PM

Hi folks; here's one for the poem lovers.

We had the fantastic Martyn Wyndham-Reed at our club last night (14 Dec.) and among his many brilliant songs, one in particular caught my ear. He said it was a sad poem written by Ron. He did clarify that it was actually Lord Byron. The poem is "When We Two Parted (or Silence and Tears)" and Martyn wrote music for it.

Now I live near where Byron (and daughter Ada) is buried, and every July we have a Byron festival. So I got to thinking how great it would be to find other poems of Byron's that someone has put to music (and recorded) in recent years, and maybe do a little presentation. I think that there must have been many efforts in various styles made over the years ever since Byron first began publishing! For example. One of the other pieces most suitable for putting to music is probably "She Walks In Beauty". Anyone done this recently?

A guy called JM schroder has done a CD for a range of romatic poets, but I would like to focus on Byron.

So if anyone does know of any other such instances, could you please let me know either through this thread or PM me. I have not yet launched on any serious research, -just had a quick fling on Google, this is really my starting point. Probably won't amount to too much but you never know!

Cheers Brad

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: Big Tim
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 03:03 PM

"So We'll Go no more a-roving" as recorded by Joan Baez in 1965. (This from memory, so better check).

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 03:19 PM

"Lochnagar." Sung by Kenneth McKellar on the LP album "The Tartan," London TW 91238. Great poem, great rendition by McKellar.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: Big Tim
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 03:25 PM

I believe Byron's mother was a Gordon from Aberdeenshire, hence, probably, his meeting with Lochnagar (on Deeside). Great poem: possibly more famously recorded by the Corries: where did the tune come from?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 03:54 PM

Just a note- Byron's "We'll Go No More A-roving" has nothing to do with "A-rovin', the shanty (see DT). (Oh, you already knew that?).
Some 34 arrangements are listed: A-roving
Now a trivia question- what singers used what version? No, don't answer that!

H. R. Bishop is credited with the tune for Lochnagar by Barry Taylor. The McKellar arrangement is by Moffat

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 04:13 PM

Robert Schumann, Op. 95, arranged Lord Byron songs.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 05:57 PM

Lord Byron's name was George Gordon, Lord Byron. There is a book about the youth of his ancestor who won the title: Byron of the Wager. If you like maritime lit, I recommend it.

Subject: Lyr Add: DARK LOCHNAGAR / LACHIN Y GAIR (Byron)
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 07:30 PM

DARK LOCHNAGAR
(attr. H. R. Bishop / Lord Byron)

Away ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses
In you let the minions of luxury rove
Restore me the rocks where the snowflake reposes
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love
Yet Caledonia, dear are thy mountains
Round their white summits though elements war
Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth-flowing fountains
I sigh for the valley of dark Lochnagar

Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy wandered
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid
On chieftains departed my memory pondered
As daily I strode through the pine-covered glade
I sought not my home till the day's dying glory
Gave way to the rays of the bright polar star
For fancy was cheered by traditional story
Disclosed by the sons of dark Lochnagar

Ill-starred, though brave, did no visions foreboding
Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause?
Ah! were you destined to die at Culloden
Victory crowned not your fall with applause
Still were you happy in death's earthly slumber
To rest with your clan in the caves of Braemar
The pibroch resounds to the piper's loud number
Your deeds on the echoes of dark Lochnagar

Years have rolled on, Lochnagar, since I left you
Years will roll on ere I see you again
Nature of verdure and flowers has bereft you
Yet still you are dearer than Albion's plain
England! thy beauties are tame and domestic
To one who has roved on the mountains afar
Oh for the crags that are wild and majestic
The steep frowning glories of dark Lochnagar


This is the Corries version. Some notes:

[?:] "Near Lachin y Gair (pronounced in the Erse, Loch Na Garr) I spent some of the early part of my life, the recollection of which has given birth to these stanzas." (Byron, quoted in Songs of Scotland II, III)

[1970:] Son of Catherine Gordon of Gight and John Byron, [George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788- 1824)] succeeded to the title in 1798. He was educated in Aberdeen, Harrow and Cambridge. The tale of his works, loves, quarrels and death in the heroic Greek cause are well enough known. He and Walter Scott were men of a kind - a gigantic kind - and that fact alone is evidence of the essential Scottishness of his genius. (Penguin Book of Scottish Verse 17)
Byron himself, son of a Scottish mother and educated during his most impressionable years in Scotland, is included here by right. [...] There are few major English poets who can be heard sung in peasant bothies among the more native fare, but Byron's Lachin A Gair is a popular favourite, and those sophisticated critics who sneer at the poem but don't know the tune should hear it sung by a farm-labourer's 'tenore robusto'. (Penguin Book of Scottish Verse 47)

For a scrap of info on the music see this thread,
for the original words this one.
Picture of Lachin y Gair,
Lord Byron

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 08:26 PM

So We'll Go No More a-Roving
(as sung by Richard Dyer-Bennet)

Tune A
So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

Tune B
For the sword outwears the sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself must rest.

Tune A
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day return too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.

So We'll Go No More a-Roving, the poem by Lord Byron, was set to music by Richard Dyer-Bennet. It has been recorded by Dyer-Bennet on Richard Dyer-Bennet No #1, Smithsonian-Folkways 40078, available HERE. The CD also contains his excellent English translation of The Joys of Love (plaisir d'amour) and the song, Three Fishers. If you want to get a clue as to where much of Joan Baez's early repertoire came from, check out the recordings of Richard Dyer-Bennet. Printed version in A New Treasury of Folk Songs compiled by Tom Glazer, Bantam Books, New York, 1961 (out of print, but a used book store may cough up a copy).

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 09:30 PM

Byron's "We'll Go No More A Roving" was set to music by Alexander Lee and published in 1852 by E. H. Wade, Boston. it was sung on tour by the soprano, Emily Coad.
Many others followed with arrangements. See American Memory for Lee's sheet music. I "believe" that this pre-dated English arrangements, but verification is needed. It looks like the one on which Dyer-Bennet based his version.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: delphinium
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 10:16 PM

There is a web page here that lists Byron's poems that have been set to music - follow the links for the text and list of composers. The site is about lieder and has a classical music orientation. Lots of versions of "So we'll go no more a roving" but I don't see the one Guest Q mentions, nor any thing for "When we two parted".

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 11:04 PM

Delphinium, that is the same web site, but different page, that lists 34 arrangements of We"ll Go...." which I noted in a previous posting.
The site also lacks Ernst Eberhard, 1881, Pub. Grand Conservatory Pub. Co., sheet music at American Memory as well. Their lists were compiled without consulting American Memory, Library of Congress.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 11:15 PM

"When We Two Parted," listed at American Memory, sheet music for Lord Byron's poem:
Dr. Jose Godoy, 1881, Brentano's Pub. NY
Fred W. Wolff, 1881, Sutro and Otto, Baltimore
Richard Stahl, 1883, W. A. Evans and Bro., Baltimore
Georgina Schuyler, 1882, arr. for mezzo-soprano, G. Schirmer, NY.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: nutty
Date: 16 Dec 02 - 04:46 AM

Thanx Guest Q ..... four very different versions ..... this is a fascinating site. Here's a link for people to bookmark ......

AMERICAN SHEET MUSIC

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: Big Tim
Date: 16 Dec 02 - 10:45 AM

Thanks Susanne: wonderful post, you know more about Scotland than most Scots, and Don too, will check out Dyer-Bennet.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: Willa
Date: 16 Dec 02 - 02:13 PM

Thanks for the site, Q. None of those versions match the one I sing; can't remember who wrote the music to it. I'll see if I can find out.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 16 Dec 02 - 02:28 PM

"She Walks in Beauty" has been set to music at least twice. The poem was one of a series Byron wrote in 1815 to be set to adaptations of traditional Jewish tunes prepared by Isaac Nathan. Some of these are sung by cantors. (Trivia- A first edition, folio, calf, signed by Nathan, is on sale for $3500).
Some of these poems are at : Songs to Hebrew Melodies
(scroll down and find links to other Byron poems)

Carl C Müller, Op. 47, "She Walks in Beauty," was again set to music in 1880 by Spear and Dehnhoff, NY. The original lyrics are suplemented by a German translation. In American Memory.

"Maid of Athens" was set to music several times (American Memory).
A. H. Rosewig, 1874, F. A. North & Co., Philadelphia
E. Mack, 1876, F. A. North, Philadelphia
The Bodleian Library has many broadsides of the song, printed in the period 1849-1880. No tunes specified.

Charles Gounod, (date?), on a recording, "Songs of Charles Gounod," Hyperion cd A66801/2 (2 cd set). Some top singers on this album.

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy set some songs by Byron to music.

At the University of Toronto website, it is suggested that "So We'll Go No More A Roving" is based in part on the refrain of the Scottish song, "The Jolly Beggar."

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 16 Dec 02 - 02:31 PM

Not clear in my post- "Maid of Athens" is the Gounod song.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Byron set to music
From: bradfordian
Date: 16 Dec 02 - 04:54 PM

Thanks 'catters. I got some sheet music from the LoC site for Maid of Athens, When we two parted, She walks in beauty & So we'll go no more a roving. I got modern sources for Lochnagar, When we two parted and So we'll go more a roving. Could do with a modern setting for She walks in beauty and Maid of Athens.

Willa, which song were you referring to?
(BTW your Last Leviathon is sensational (Whitby))
Susanne, thanks for your input. I hope to send you A PM regarding good news re Bill Price - I Sing As I Please.
Q. what can I say? STAR?

Cheers Brad.