Part 1 — SOME HOLIDAY MUSIC.
Reading edition
Fine fun can be had out of two action songs by William Younge and Lionel Elliott (J. Williams). They just suit the merry season for youngsters of the family who must have amusing and interesting ideas to keep themselves and others happy. One is called “Home for the Holidays,” and the other, “Making the Pudding.”
For our tiny nursery people there is a really capital shilling book by Florence Wickins, consisting of “Merry little tunes, including all the original melodies to the nursery rhymes and a complete set of dance music for little folk” (Wickins & Co.). It is in clear, big print, with a gay cover, and there are some dear old favourites therein, such as the undying Miss Muffet, Tom Tucker, Lucy Locket, Baby Bunting, and other heroes and heroines of nursery lore in days of yore.
Schoolboys and schoolgirls too will join with fervour in Scott-Gatty’s new “Country House Songs” on “Golf” and “Cricket” (Boosey), and these will not fail to attract boys and girls of an older growth, so admirable are they.
Some stirring ditties suitable for musical entertainments after schoolroom teas are two rousing naval and military lays with telling refrains, namely, “Beresford’s Boys,” by Lionel Hume (Weekes), and “The Life of a Soldier,” by Gerald Lane (Enoch); “Two Gay Owls,” by M. Van Lennep (Doremi), with characteristic “tu-whit to-whoos” capable of expressive rendering, and “De Blue-Tailed Fly,” a plantation song by G. H. Clutsam (Stanley Lucas), the buzzing chorus of which can be given with much dramatic feeling!
Pretty little light pieces, all suitable for bright occasions, interludes for tableaux, charades, &c., are the following: “Danse Chic,” by Arnold Olding (Cramer); “Mountain Gnomes,” by Wilhelm Popp (Ashdown); “La Lucette,” by Gladys Hope (Weekes); “Vous Dansez Marquise,” by Augusta de Kabath (J. Williams); “Chanson de Louis Seize,” by G. Bachmann (Ashdown); and a small book of “Three Dances” by Corelli Windeatt (J. Williams).
These popular marches are desirable for the same purposes, namely, “Santiago,” by Walter von Joel (Ashdown); “The Charge at Dargai” (Cramer); and the “British Outpost,” by Lionel Hume (Weekes); while the quicker polka marches of “Gringalet” and “Automobiles,” both by Ad. Gauwin (Chappell), are spirited in music and in dashing frontispieces. Two nice little operettas for children are “Cock Robin and Jenny Wren,” by Florian Pascal, and “The Maid and the Blackbird,” by Ed. Solomon (J. Williams).
James C. Beazley writes a humorous and useful little partsong entitled, “There was a Little Man” (Doremi), who, as we know, “had a little gun,” and this sporting episode is facetiously and effectually carried out in the music.
Songs from Lewis Carroll’s “Sylvie and Bruno” (all in one small cover) are most amusingly quaint. Listen to the euphony of “King Fisher’s Song.”
“‘Needles have eyes,’ said Lady Bird— Sing Cats, sing Corks, sing Cowslip Tea— ‘And they are sharp—just what Your Majesty is not. So get you gone—’tis too absurd To come a-courting me!’”
And other lines linger in our memories like—
“Sing Prunes, sing Prawns, sing Primrose Hill,”
and so on in the inimitable spirit of “Alice in Wonderland” again.
The “Witch o’ the Broom” Lancers and Quadrilles by Fabian Rose (Phillips and Page) are as easy as easy to play from sight, so is “The Farmyard” Barn-dance, with a racy title-page for small folk (Phillips and Page), and in a loftier sphere the “Malmaison” Waltz by Caroline Lowthian (Metzler), and “Poppyland” Waltz by Cyril Dare (Cramer).
There are four “Characteristic Dances” by H. J. Taylor (Weekes), all of which might be prettily danced in character, the Grecian (No. 2) and the Japanese (No. 4) especially.
Some exceedingly facile and effective violin solos are No. 1, “The Children’s Home” of Cowen’s, and No. 10, Canzonetta by C. Borelli, of Morley’s Melodious Gems; “Sunny Memories” and “Good Wishes,” by Henry Tolhurst (Phillips and Page); a “Song Without Words,” by M. Marigold (Novello), and a convenient shilling book (Wickins) containing the beautiful “Träumerei” of Schumann and other choice little pieces for pleasurable performance. “Twelve Carols,” by M. C. Gillington and F. Pascal, are full of interest and of beautiful and original ideas in words and music (J. Williams).
Mary Augusta Salmond.
