Speranza
D. Scott
So far, Roman Catholicism does not feature large, except as
a passing reference in connection with the Oxford Movement.
Before mid-century
no publisher sees much potential for sales of songs espousing Roman Catholic
sentiment, however attractive the music, and despite the Catholic Emancipation
Act of 1829.
Of course, the tradition of comic monks and friars as seen in
London's Black Friar Pub continues to resonate in nineteenth-century song.
For
example, 'The Syren and the Friar' (1842), 'The Monks Were Jolly Boys' (1862),
'Friar Cupid' (1884).
And for the whole century a perennial favourite was 'The
Friar of Orders Grey', from O'Keefe and Reeve's opera 'Merry Sherwood' (1796).
Sometimes a means can be found to draw attention away from Roman Catholic
sentiment by emphasizing that the text came from a Romantic literary source.
Schubert's 'Ave Maria' was published by Wessel & Co. of London in the early
1840s as 'Ellen's Hymn! Ave Maria!' from Sir Walter Scott's "Lady of the Lake".
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Today, ironically, the fact that Schubert set a German translation of Ellen's
'Hymn to the Virgin' from Canto III of that work is almost unknown.
Another
way Roman Catholicismfinds favour in the drawing rooms of the 1840s is if
it arrives in the form of a prayer or aria from a Romantic opera.
Hence, 'Holy
Mother, Guide His Footsteps', from Wallace's opera "Montana" (1845), is accepted as a
delightful and inoffensive duet.
In the 1850s, with the drift towards
Catholicism of many Tractarians, the climate is sufficiently changed for
settings of the actual "Ave Maria" prayer rather than the outpourings of a
fictional character to prove capable of attracting large sales.
Such a one was
Virginia Gabriel's 'Ave Maria' of 1857, though Boosey seeks to boost sales
figures by issuing it as 'Nightfall at Sea' with secular words by A. Matthison
in the mid-1860s.
The famous 'Ave Maria' melody by Gounod, composed to the
accompaniment of a Bach prelude, also belongs to the 1850s.
It is published in
London in 1859.
However, even when the sacred song was a| well-established
species of drawing-room ballad in the 1870s, the content was still strongly "protestant".
James Molloy, one of the best-selling ballad composers of this
period, and a Roman Catholic, very obviously steers clear of religious subject
matter in his output.
In the 1880s the ballad of Roman Catholic character
gains an unshakable footing in the drawing room, thanks to the efforts of
Theodore Auguste Marie Joseph Piccolomini (1835-1902).
Piccolomini, who,
incidentally, was born in Dublin, had his first real success in 1884 with a song
of broad religious sentiment, 'Saved by a Child' (words by 'Nemo').
In 1889 Piccolomini
makes his religious convictions plain in what becomes his most celebrated song,
'Ora Pro Nobis' (words by A. Horspool).
In a previous ballad, 'The Toilers'
(1888), for which he provides his own words, Piccolomini has the idea
of making the refrain a prayer.
There he quoted part of the Lord's Prayer; but
in 'Ora Pro Nobis', the words of the title, which form the refrain, are part of
a uniquely Catholic prayer, the Ave Maria.
The combination of dramatic gran
scena treatment and lyrical effusiveness had also featured in some of his
earlier ballads, but the touching tale of an orphan girl who dies at her
mother's graveside contrived to make this one irresistible.
There is a
difference, although it may be only of degree, between ballads of this nature,
designed largely for the sentimental self-indulgence of a drawing-room audience,
and ballads such as John Blockley's setting of Longfellow's 'The Reaper and the
Flowers' (1855) where the intention seems to be to provide comfort for those who
have lost children of their own.
The character of the angel is worth noting in
this respect, too.
In both Britain and America, where urbanization took a
similar toll of young lives, there develops an image of the angel as a quite
specific kind of being.
Many sheet-music covers of songs about dying show a
pretty, white-robed girl with large feathery wings, who may be playing a harp,
or carrying a child to heaven.
That these comforting creatures are invariably
feminine in the nineteenth century, thereby reflecting gender roles in the
earthly home, is as true of nonconformist angels as of Roman Catholic angels
('Queen of Angels' is the title of a 'Vesper Song' composed by Piccolomini to
words by 'Nemo' in 1897).
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Finally, some words need to be added
concerning the special religious festival of Christmas.
The Victorian period
certainly saw the construction of a new meaning and ritual around Christmas, and
many of the changes in celebrating Christmas may be related to the need to
organize and control the leisure activity of a large urban population.
The slow
build-up to the festival, however, and the vast display of conspicuous
consumption are of more recent date.
New publications of old carols began to
appear in the 1840s and were soon being aimed at the family; the ideology of the
family was reinforced at Christmas by the example of the Holy Family.
Songs of
Christmas for Family Choirs, selected and adapted by a Clergyman of the Church
of England was published in London in 1847.
Henry John Gauntlett then published
some new carols, in Christmas Carols, Old and New (1850).
His most well-known
carol is 'Once in Royal David's City', a setting of verse by Mrs C. F.
Alexander.
In the same way that one of the early varieties of sacred song for
the drawing-room developed from the hymn a related kind developed from the
carol.
One of the first to win widespread favour was Brinley Richards'
'Christmas Chimes' (words by R.B.), published by A. Hammond & Co. in 1854,
and reaching its twelfth edition before being reissued by Chappell in the late
1860s.
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Christmas theme, like
any other sacred theme, was just one more option open to songwriters, as the
diverse musical strands of the drawing-room ballad moved towards a uniformity of
idiom under the influence of Boosey's Ballad Concerts.
One of
the most celebrated of the ballads from this period to deal with Christmas time
was 'The Star of Bethlehem' (1887), words by Frederic Weatherly, music by
Michael Maybrick.
REFERENCES:
The First Vocal Album of Schubert songs published as part of
Schirmer's Library of Musical Classics, for example, makes no mention of Scott's
authorship of the 'Ave Maria'.
This song may be found in Turner and
Miall 1972: 189-95.
A selection of Christmas piano music, songs, and
musical games can be found in Graves 1980.
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