Word: songfulness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last week neither Damrosch's music nor Guiterman's libretto could make their two-act opera entirely successful. Ignoring the possibilities of a rip-snorting plot, the score abounded in old turns and phrases, was at its best when it borrowed obviously from Wagner. Set songs were brought off skilfully but they often sounded banal. The text was happy, fitted the music better than most U. S. operas permit. Since opera needs a soprano, Authors Damrosch & Guiterman interpolated a new character, Mary Rutledge, as Nolan's sweetheart. When Philip is tried by a military tribunal, she nervously...
Almost anybody who can whistle knows Listen to the Mocking Bird, the song that asks "Oh where! Oh where! is my little dog gone?" and What Is Home Without a Mother? Almost nobody knows the name of the author of any of them. It so happens that the same man wrote all three, and 112 more besides. His name was Septimus Winner, he was born no years ago last week (May 11) and some Philadelphia antiquarians took that occasion to issue a little monograph,* largely documented by Winner's diary, to bring one of the nation's notable...
...tootled encouragingly in the band that saw them off. In spite of the city's cholera plague that year and the Great Fire of the next, "Sep" Winner began to prosper, was able to open a music shop and publishing house. At 23 he wrote his first important song, How Sweet Are the Roses, under the name of Alice Hawthorne. He followed it with such lyrics as What Is Home Without a Mother?, Rebecca at the Well, Motherless Kate, There Is Wealth for Honest Labor...
...idea for his most famous song from "Whistling Dick," a Negro beggar who used to strum his guitar and whistle like a bird. But shortly after it was published in 1855 Winner sold his copyright on Listen to the Mocking Bird for $5. Lee & Walker, the purchasers, made a fortune. The song sold over 20,000,000 copies, was a favorite of Edward VII as a boy. Lincoln said: "It is as sincere and sweet as the laughter of a little girl at play." Many an ante-bellum baby was named after Hally, the fictitious girl over whom the song...
Winner was almost as successful with his I Am Dreaming of the Loved Ones and The Detacher's Dog ("Oh where! Oh where! ish mine little dog gone?"). During the Civil War another song almost undid him. Lincoln removed General McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac for being over cautious. Popular sentiment favored McClellan's reinstatement, caused "Sep" Winner to write Give Us Back Our Old Commander: Little Mac, the People's Pride. Copies of the song were confiscated; Winner was almost jailed for treason, but the song swept through the whole Union Army...