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Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790
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Subject: Origins: THE STORM, circa 1790 From: Charley Noble Date: 09 Dec 05 - 05:04 PM Here's an interesting old sea ballad that I came across that I'd like to know more about. Stevens and Leveridge are apparently Irish collaborators who produced several songs in the late 18th century. The song itself is a tribute to the power of the sea and the sailors who didn't give up when it appeared that all was lost! THE STORM (Words by G. A. Stevens; music by Leveridge, circa late 18th century, from DIBDIN'S SEA SONGS, 1854, pp. 278-280) Cease, rude Boreas, blust'ring railer! List, ye landsmen, all to me; Messmates, hear a brother sailor Sing the dangers of the sea; From bounding billows first in motion, When the distant whirlwinds rise, To the tempest-troubled ocean, Where the seas contend with skies. Hark! The boatswain hoarsely bawling, By topsai-sheets and haulyards stand, Down top gallants, quick by hauling, Down your staysails, hand boys, hand! Now it freshens, set the braces, The lee topsail-sheets let go; Luff, boys, luff! Don't make wry faces, Up your topsails nimbly clew. Now all you, on down beds sporting, Fondly lock'd in beauty's arms, Fresh enjoyments wanton courting, Safe from all but love's alarms; Round us roars the tempest louder, Think what fears our minds entral; Harder yet, it yet blows harder; Hark! Again the boatswain's call! The topsail-yards point to the wind, boys, See all clear to reef each course; Let the foresheet go, don't mind, boys, Though the weather should prove worse; Fore and aft the spritsail-yard get, Reef the mizzen, see all clear, Hands up, each preventer-brace set, Man the foreyards! Cheer, lads, cheer! Now the dreadful thunder rolling, Peal on peal, contending, clash; On our heads fierce rain falls pouring, In our eyes blue lightning flash: One wide water all around us, All above us one black sky, Different deaths at once surround us, – Hark! What means that dreadful cry? The foremast's gone! Cries every tongue out, O'er the lee, twelve feet 'bove deck; A leak beneath the chest-tree's sprung out, – Call all hands to clear the wreck; Quick! The lanyards cut to pieces; Come, my hearts, be stout and bold! Plumb the well, the leak increases, Four feet water in the hold! While o'er the ship wild waves are beating, We for wives or children mourn; Alas! from hence there's no retreating; Alas! from hence there's no return. Still the leak is gaining on us, Both chain-pumps are chok'd below; Heav'n have mercy here upon us! For only that can save us now. O'er the lee-beam is the land, boys! Let the guns o'erboard be thrown; To the pump come every hand, boys! See, our mizzen-mast is gone! The leak we've found, it cannot pour fast; We've lightened her a foot or more; Up and rig a jury foremast, – She rights! She rights, boys! We're off shore! Now once more on joys we're thinking, Since kind Fortune saved our lives; Come, the can, boys! Let's be drinking To our sweethearts and our wives: Fill it up, about ship wheel it, Close to the lips a brimmer join, – Where's the tempest now? Who feel it? None! Our danger's drown'd in wine. And, no, I haven't a clue what the tune was. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: masato sakurai Date: 09 Dec 05 - 07:31 PM Song sheet is also at American Memory. No tune is indicated. There're some differences. A NEW SONG, CALLED THE TEMPEST: TOGETHER WITH AN AMERICAN ODE ([n. p.] [n. d.]). |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: Charley Noble Date: 09 Dec 05 - 07:49 PM Masato- Very good! So even the name was changed from "The Tempest" to "The Storm" over a period of 80 or so years. Actually it's still not clear what the original date was. The words you found appear to be older. Still, it's nice to know that our heroic sailors still survived the Tempest and only drown'd themselves in wine, upon reaching shore. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: masato sakurai Date: 09 Dec 05 - 07:59 PM Charley - William Chappell wrote in Popular Music of the Olden Time (1859), vol. 2, p. 597: "The air is now commonly known as 'Cease, rude Boreas,' from a song which, according to Ritson and others, was written by George Alexander Stevens. It is an amplification of a 'Marine Medley' in Stevens's Songs, Comic and Satyrical, Oxford, 1772." The tune is quoted on p. 598. Songs, Comic and Satyrical seems to have been a well-known book in those days; Claude Simpson (in The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music) mentions Stevens passim. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: masato sakurai Date: 09 Dec 05 - 08:09 PM From Notes and Queries Vol. 4 (98) Sept 13 1851 Page 196: Geroge Alexander Stevens was born ... "in the parish of St. Andrew's Holborn, 1710." He died ... "at Baldock in Hertfordshire, Sep. 6, 1784. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: Charley Noble Date: 09 Dec 05 - 08:14 PM Masato- Well, that answers almost all my questions except what the first name of Steven's musical collaborator was. "Leveridge" is nice but not exactly a full name. You really are an incredible web researcher. I've been sifting the web for a week and getting very little. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: masato sakurai Date: 09 Dec 05 - 08:37 PM Very probably "Richard Leveridge, the base singer (and composer of the happy melody, Black-eyed Susan)" (Notes and Queries Vol. 6 3rd S. (136) Aug 6 1864 Page 106). |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 Dec 05 - 09:10 PM In "Sea Songs and Ballads," ed. Christopher Stone, introd. Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, Oxford Press, the poem "Storm" (No. XII) is credited to G. A. Stevens, as posted by Masato. Tunes mostly not noted in this book. The next poem in the book is "Blow, Boreas, Blow," first line 'Blow, Boreas, blow, and let thy surly winds Make the billows foam and roar.' Author given as R. Bradley. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: Compton Date: 10 Dec 05 - 12:37 PM Now then...correct me if I am wrong and I could be getting confused with another "storm"...but, in my formative years, once when watching Reginald Dixon on the might wurlitzer at Blackpool Tower. He always used to do something called "The Storm" with a ship on the backcloth that, I think used to sink, *twice nightly)...Incidently Reginald Dixon's Organ used to change colour...but I digress. Could these pieces of music be in anyway related? |
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Subject: LYR. ADD: A STORM (D'URFEY) From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 10 Dec 05 - 04:55 PM |
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Subject: LYR. ADD: A STORM (D'URFEY) From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 10 Dec 05 - 05:49 PM Lyr. Add: A STORM ?By Robert Bradley Thomas D'Urfey, in "Sir Barnaby Whigg" Blow, Boreas, blow, and let thy surly Winds Make the Billows foam and roar: Thou canst no Terror breed in Valiant minds, But spite of thee we'll live and find the shore: Then cheer my heart, and be not aw'd, But keep the Gun-Room clear, Though Hell's broke loose, and the Devils roar abroad; Whilst we have Sea-room here boys, never fear: Hey! how she tosses up, how far! The mounting Top-mast toucht a Star: The Meteors blaz'd as through the Clouds we came, And Salamander-like we live in Flame. But now we sink, now, now we go Down to the deepest shades below. Alas! where are we now? who, who can tell, Sure 'tis the lowest Room of Hell, Or where the Sea-gods dwell? With them we'l live, with them we'l live and raign; With them we'll laugh and sing, and drink amain: But see we mount, see, see we rise again. Through flashes af lightning and tempests of rain Do fiercely contend which shall conquer the Main; Though the Captain do's swear, instead of a Prayer, And the Sea is all fired by the Demons of the Air: We'l drink and defie, the mad spirits that fly, From the deep to the skie, And sing whilst the Thunder do's bellow; For Fate still will have a kind fate for the brave, And nere make his grave of a salt water Wave; To drown, drown, never to drown; No, never to drown a good fellow. Captain- "There now! there's life, there's soul, there's sense: as I'm a living man, Gentlemen, the Rogue fox'd me three times, one after another, only by singing this Song." From the Play, "Sir Barnaby Whigg," Thomas D'Urfey (1653-1723). Item Code: TDSBW2. Restoration Theatre Song Archive: http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/english/research/Archive/songlinepages/songline1.htm#top Also in the book cited above by Q, 09 Dec 05, 09:10 PM. |
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Subject: Tune Add: The Strom (Cease, Rude Boreas) From: masato sakurai Date: 10 Dec 05 - 11:22 PM X:1 T:The Storm T:(Cease, Rude Boreas) M:3/4 L:1/8 K:F B:Chappell, Popular Music of the Olden Time, p. 598 Ac|B2 (AG)FE|F2 G2 Ac|B2 AGFE| w:Cease, rude Bo-reas,_ blust'r-ing rai-ler! List, ye lands-men,_ all to F4 Ac|B2 (AG)FE|F2 G2 Ac| w:me! Mess-mates, hear a_ broth-er sai-lor Sing the B2 AGFE|F3 ABA|d3 c BA| w:dan-gers_ of the sea; From bound-ing bil-lows first in G3/2A/ B2 AG|F3 D EG|C4 GA| w:mo - tion, When the dis-tant whirl-winds rise, To the B2 (AG) cE|F2 G2 fd|c3 A BG|F4|| w:tem-pest - troubled_ o-cean, Where the seas con-tend with skies. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: Charley Noble Date: 11 Dec 05 - 11:11 AM What an amazing crew! Cheerily, Charley Noble, temporarily in NYC |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: masato sakurai Date: 11 Dec 05 - 12:56 PM From folktrax: CEASE RUDE BOREAS - "blustering railer/ killer" - comp by George Alexander Stevens (1710-1784) - ROUD #949 - Such Bs London #325 - GREIG-DUNCAN 1 1981 #12 (w/o) "The Whaler's Lamentation" --- HUNTINGTON SWS 1964 pp70-72 ships log 1827 (w/o) "The Tempest" - CAREY ASS 1976 pp84-87 Timothy O Connor MS songbook c1778 -- A L LLOYD TOPIC 12-T-174 1967For Roud Index, see VWML Online Home page. Go to "Folk song indexes", and then to "Roud index." |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: Hrothgar Date: 12 Dec 05 - 03:45 AM Fits to "Onward, Christian Sldiers"? |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: greg stephens Date: 12 Dec 05 - 10:26 AM Were Stevens or Leveridge actually Irish, as per Charley Noble's original post? I have never seen this suggested before. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: masato sakurai Date: 12 Dec 05 - 11:00 AM Richard Leveridge (1670 - 1758) was an "English bass singer and composer." |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: masato sakurai Date: 12 Dec 05 - 11:14 AM From Glimpses into the 19th Century Broadside Ballad Trade: The Storm was written by George Alexander Stevens (1710-1784) though one or two printers credited it to a Mrs Robinson. She, Mary Darby Robinson, was certainly an authoress, mistress of the then Prince of Wales, and known as 'Perdita' on account the popularity of her role, as an actress, in The Tempest. It is more likely, in the context of her career, that she sang the piece … it was also an Incledon favourite. It seems that Stevens' poem was first introduced as a 'Description of a Storm' and it figured in programmes at the Adelphi theatre, London, during the 1820s. Stevens had a creditable list of publications and Baring-Gould gave the immediate source as The Muses' Delight in 1754 - published again in Stevens' Songs Comic and Satyrical in 1772 - and various versions of the air as dating from the 1730s. The piece is lengthy, in 'Art' style, beginning'Cease, rude Boreas blust'ring railerbefore going into a detailed description of storm, potential shipwreck, the discovery of the dangerous leak, and safety. Certainly there are lines and phrases which might have fitted well enough into a country singer's repertoire, but one surmises too much complication overall for it to have been a popular item unless transmogrified by oral dissemination. Nonetheless, the piece could be found in numerous Songsters dating from the 1780s and extending to just after the half-way mark in the nineteenth century. One reference, crediting the piece, erroneously, to Dibdin, gave the information that the music was by one Leveridge. This was Richard Leveridge (1670-1758), English bass singer and composer who, in the latter endeavour, wrote a parody of Italian opera (at the time flooding the English theatres), Pyramus and Thisbe, based on a theme from Shakespeare; and some hundred and fifty songs, best-known of which was The Roast Beef of Old England. Another reference was also given to the John and Abraham Hume collection of songs from Kilwarlin in northern Ireland which collection was in use around 1845. In terms of performance, there is one reference to a production entitled The Masque around 1795 where it was sung by a Mr Dodd. Interestingly, the redoubtable Henry Burstow listed The Storm as one of his songs. He, though, was probably exceptional; and this is a rare example of Besley pieces which found their way into traditional sung repertoire. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Storm, The, circa 1790 From: Charley Noble Date: 12 Dec 05 - 09:00 PM I humbly withdraw my reference to Stevens and Leveridge being "Irish." That presumption was based on one mangled reference to an Irish collection which included a version of the song in my initial websearching. Now we have the harvest of far more sophisticated web searchers. Cheerily, Charley Noble, still adrift in NYC |
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