Music Sampler

English 232: A Romantic Era Music SamplerMP3 Files downloadable at bottom of page.

1. Dear Harp of My Country Thomas Moore [1]

2. She Walks in Beauty. . . Byron/Nathan [2]

3. La Belle Dame Sans Merci Keats/Stanford [3]

4. No lo diro col labbro G. F. Händel [4]

5. Come o’er the sea Thomas Moore

6. Go and on my truth relying Charles Dibdin [5]

7. We Sate Down and Wept Byron/Nathan

8. The Destruction of Sennacharib Byron/Nathan

9. The Harp that Once. . . Thomas Moore

10. Sun of the Sleepless Byron/Nathan

11. ‘Tis the Last Rose of Summer Thomas Moore

12. Proud Maisie Walter Scott

[1] All selections by Thomas Moore (1779-1852) are from his highly successful ten-volume collection Irish Melodies (1807-34), which consisted of 130 poems set to music composed by Moore and his partner Sir John Stevenson. Much (but not all) of the music was based on older Irish airs. Irish Melodies was so popular that Moore earned 500 pounds annually for more than 25 years for it's publication. Performed here by Rufus Müller from Timothy Roberts' album, Thomas Moore: Irish Melodies (Hyperion Records).

[2] All selections by Byron and Nathan are from their 24-song collection, A Selection of Hebrew Melodies, Ancient and Modern (2 vols., 1815-1816). A facsimile edition of this effort was published in 1988 under the editorship of Frederick Burwick and Paul Douglass. You can download thirteen of the songs at Hebrew Melodies.

[3] This song was composed in a later period and is not contemporary with the Romantics, but it shows how the art-song developed around romantic lyrics by Byron, Keats, Scott, Shelley, and Wordsworth.

[4] Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759) was immensely popular in England during the Regency/Romantic period. This song premiered at the King's Theatre, London April 30, 1728 with Antonio Baldi (alto castrato) in the role of Alessandro (brother of Tolomeo). Performed here by Julianne Baird and Mary Jane Newman, from the album Jane's Hand: The Jane Austen Songbooks.

[5] Charles Dibdin (1745-1814), the eighteenth son of a poor silvermaker became one of the most celebrated songwriters in Britain. Dibdin wrote prolifically, and though he is often dismissed as a composer and lyricist living in a period of low-calibre music, some of his compositions still sound resonant.