Masterpieces of American Literature
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Parlor Music

Perhaps the most common music in middle & working class homes, long before radio, movies, tv, and internet.

Parlor Music

As described earlier, Parlor Music was a central facet of American life from late 1700's through the 1870's when it went into a decline following the Civil War.  The songs survive to the present.  So much so, contemporary Americans often believe these songs to be Folk Songs.  Many songs have been resurrected into new genres.  "Aura Lee," for example, found its melody used by Elvis Presley's greatest single hit, "Love Me Tender." It can also be found recorded by jazz artists and on the CD Hawaiian Wedding Music.

Many compositions were instrumental, no lyrics or voices.  These are not pertinent here.

The major composers of this time are John Hill Hewitt, George Frederick Root, and the brilliant Stephen Foster. 
The easy style of performance, often either piano or guitar with a single voice, was easily adapted to a wide variety of instruments.  Edgar Allen Poe and his wife Virginia were fond of playing Parlor Music; she sang and he played the flute.  Many lyrics are highly sentimental but from a highly sentimental era.  A large number of the songs deal with separation, loss of love, the "war of the sexes."   Compare lyrics  to the Elements of Romanticism.
Despite the incredible success of his Black Face Minstrel tunes, Stephen Foster's first love was Parlor Music. Foster's music traveled deeper into the heart than those of other composers.  Although there is that Antebellum sentiment running through many songs, the emotional sense rings honest compared to his contemporaries.  Compare the two songs and their effects.



Picture
Gentle Annie (1856)
Stephen Collins Foster

Thou wilt come no more, gentle Annie,
Like a flow'r thy spirit did depart;
Thou art gone, alas! like the many
That have bloomed in the summer of my heart.
 
Chorus:
Shall we never more behold thee;
     Never hear thy winning voice again
     When the Springtime comes gentle Annie,
     When the wild flow'rs are scattered o'er the plain?
 
We have roamed and loved mid the bowers,
When thy downy cheeks were in their bloom;
Now I stand alone mid the flowers
While they mingle their perfumes o'er thy tomb.

Chorus
 
Ah! the hours grow sad while I ponder
Near the silent spot where thou art laid,
And my heart bows down when I wander
By the streams and the meadows where we stray'd

Chorus

From
The Stephen Foster Songbook (Dover Press)



Picture
Unknown Prairie Cemetary
Unknown Prairie Cemetery
Rosalie the Prairie Flower (1855)
George Frederick Root

On the distant prairie, where the heather wild,
In its quiet beauty liv'd and smiled,
Stands a little cottage, and a creeping vine
Loves around its porch to twine.
In that peaceful dwelling was a lovely child,
With her blue eyes beaming soft and mild,
And the wavy ringlets of her flaxen hair,
Floating in the summer air.
Fair as a lily, joyous and free
Light of that prairie home was she,
Ev'ryone who knew her felt the gentle pow'r
Of Rosalie, 'The Prairie Flower.'


On that distant prairie, when the days were long,
Tripping like a fairy, sweet her song,
With the sunny blossoms, and the birds at play,
Beautiful and bright as they.
When the twilight shadows gather'd in the west,
And the voice of Nature sank to rest,
Like a cherub kneeling, seem'd the lovely child,
With her gentle eyes so mild.
Fair as a lily, joyous and free,
Light of that prairie home was she.
Ev'ry one who knew her felt the gentle pow'r
Of Rosalie, 'The Prairie Flow'r.'


But the summer faded, and a chilly blast,
O'er that happy cottage swept at last:
When the autumn song birds woke the dewy morn,
Little 'Prairie Flow'r' was gone.
For the angels whisper'd softly in her ear,
'Child, thy Father calls thee, stay not here.'
And they gently bore her, rob'd in spotless white,
To their blissful home of light.
Though we shall never look on her more,
Gone with the love and joy she bore,
Far away she's blooming in a fadeless bow'r,
Sweet Rosalie, 'The Prairie Flow'r'.

From the Public Domain

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  • Home
    • What is STORY
    • The Elements of Fiction
    • What Is A Short Story
    • Literary Theory Guide
  • Lit. 214
    • Class Presentations
  • Colonial Period
    • Native American >
      • Red Jacket's Speech
      • Story Collections
      • Lyrics, Poems and Chants
    • Spanish Explorers
    • Early Colonial >
      • New England Primer
      • Anne Bradstreet
      • Mary Rowlandson
      • John Winthrop
      • John Smith
      • Colonial Song Lyrics
    • Colonial and Revolutionary >
      • Readings >
        • Ben Franklin >
          • Advice on the Choice of a Mistress
          • Excerpts from The Autobiography
          • A Tale
        • Phyllis Wheatly >
          • Poems
        • Thomas Paine >
          • Common Sense
        • Philip Freneau >
          • Freneau Poems
        • Thomas Jefferson >
          • Writings
        • Jupiter Hammon >
          • An Evening Thought
      • Lyrics
  • Romantic Period
    • Elements of American Romanticism
    • Authors >
      • Washington Irving >
        • Irving's Place >
          • Irving's Place2
        • Irving on the Tale
        • Rip Van Winkle
        • Rip 2
        • Rip 3
        • Poetry
      • James Fenimore Cooper >
        • LOTH Silent Movie
        • Chapter 32
        • Chapter 32 B
      • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. >
        • Selected Poems
      • Ralph Waldo Emerson >
        • Selected Writings
        • Transcendentalism
      • Edgar Allen Poe >
        • Poe's Approach to Fiction
        • Life of Poe
        • Selected Poems
        • "The Raven"
        • The Black Cat
        • The Tell-Tale Heart
      • William Cullen Bryant >
        • Bryants Poems
      • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow >
        • Selected Poetry
      • Margaret Fuller
      • Fanny Fern
      • Herman Melville >
        • Moby Dick
      • Nathaniel Hawthorne >
        • Scarlett Letter Excepts
        • Young Goodman Brown
      • C. Clement Moore
    • Lyrics >
      • Folk / Gospel
      • Parlor Music
      • Music Hall
      • Stephen Foster >
        • Music
      • George Root
  • Civil War Period
    • 1850 - 1861 >
      • Harriet Anne Jacobs
      • Francis Harper
      • Frederick Douglass
      • Songs of Protest, Freedom, Sadness
    • 1861 - 1866 >
      • Julie Ward Howe
      • Emily Dickinson
      • Walt Whitman >
        • Excerpts
      • Abraham Lincoln
      • Louisa May Alcott
      • Misc. Poets
      • Warriors & Memoirs
    • Civil War Songs