I plunge on through the pages of my volume of aged music …
And these two. The Portuguese and the Sicilian. In Latin. Though we know
them today as ‘O Come all ye faithful’ (which it is posited was written by a
King of Portugal) and ‘Lord Dismiss us with thy blessing’.
‘Adieu, my native land, adieu’.
Well, it was a sentiment and an expression used often enough in song and
story at the turn of the 18th century, most famously by Lord Byron
in Childe Harold (1812). But this
song was in existence a number of years prior to that. My copy is no help. It
has no date, no writer’s nor composer’s name. Just the probably pirated music
and words. But there seem to be a good few copies of this melody combined with
these words, put out by various publishers, in libraries on both sides of the
Atlantic. Some, like mine, have no author’s name. The earliest advertisement I
have found for the piece is 1804. ‘New songs, sung at Vauxhall Gardens,
Theatres and other places of amusement’. The Bodleian catalogue includes an
uncredited copy which is recorded as dated 1797.
A pirated version. No green ink. |
This latter
piece, officially entitled ‘The Beggar Girl’ was an ultra-sentimental little
ballad, of which a trio version ‘sung by Mrs Bland, Miss Tyrer and Mr Sedgewick
in the new pantomime Love and Magic or
Harlequin’s Holiday … at Drury Lane’ (1802) was the work of one H Piercy
(sic) of no5 Windmill Street, from where self-published, autographed copies
signed in green ink could be purchased. Mr Piercy was a small time musician and
teacher (‘piano, harp and singing taught at schools of respectability’) who
published one or two other pieces under his own name, but his ‘Adieu’
apparently (I have not seen a copy) appeared just credited to the writer of ‘The
Beggar Girl’.
So, words and music for a song? Perfectly possible. Mr Chandler, when
not painting, not only wrote a vast piece of heroic poetry, Sir Hubert, but also tinkled. But how
strange to write one extremely popular song, and never again? Still, most
copies of ‘Adieu’ bear the legend ‘written and composed by J Westbrooke
Chandler’. Some affirm ‘sung by Mr Lee at Drury Lane’. Mrs Mountain and Dignum
also get mentioned … Mr Lee? Which Mr Lee? You see what I mean about a puzzle.
So, did Piercy or Chandler write our song? Or neither of them? Or were
they the same person? I think not. Because in 1802-3 Piercy is at Windmill
Street with his green ink, and Chandler is allegedly in Scotland painting the
local aristocracy. But American academia throws a spanner in the works. Mr T L
Philbrick attributes a woodcut entitled ‘The Beggar Girl’, published in York of
all places, to Chandler. It is decorated with the verse ‘Over the Mountain and
over the moor’, which we know was the work of … Mr Piercy!
Sigh.
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