ข้อมูลทรัพยากร

เนื้อหาย่อ : If FREDERICK WILLIAM NICHOLLS CROUCH ( 1808-1896) had post. poned writing Kathleen Mavourneen for twelve years we might have been able to claim it as an American song. Crouch was an Englishman who came here in 1849 at the age of forty, and lived here until his death in 1896. An excellent cellist, he had been a member of the Drury Lane Theatre in London, and had taught singing. Kathleen Mavourneen was first published in 1839, and scored an immediate success. in New York. Later he went to Boston. Next to Portland, Maine, where The composer came to America as cellist in the Astor Place Theatre he gave an excellent series of chamber music concerts; then to Phila- delphia as conductor of a series of Saturday concerts, and afterwards to Washington, where he started an unsuccessful music school. At the time of the Civil War he was in Richmond, and joined the Confederate Army as a trumpeter. If Stonewall Jackson, on a forced march, had not ordered burned all superfuous baggage of officers and troops, Crouch would have published his manuscript notes as a history of the Civil War. After the war he settled in Baltimore as a singing teacher, and many years later died in Portland. Among the songs he wrote in America was The Blind Piper, published in Philadelphia in 1856. He was also the composer of two operas, Sir Roger de Coverley and The Fifth of November. Many of the songs of the day were published anonymously, and it is difficult to determine which were of American origin, and which were reprinted by American publishers from British editions. A great variety of subjects were treated. Love predominates, of course, and sometimes such renunciation of worldly joys as was expressed in I Will Be a Nun: I've been long enough in mischief, 'tis suficient I have done And my Mother's often told me that I must be a Nun. My Mother now is sntisfed; and men must let me be, The Nuns will surely like to have a Novice mild as me. Sometimes the songs dealt with more practical subjects, such as the Multiplicarion Table, published by John G. Klemm in Philadelphia, which covered all items up to twelve times twelve.