The Songs of Charles Dibdin: Chronologically Arranged, with Notes, Historical, Biographical, and Critical; and the Music of the Best and Most Popular of the Melodies with New Piano-forte Accompaniments, Volume 2

Charles Dibdin, George Hogarth

Davidson, 1848 - Songs with piano - 686 pages

What people are saying

User Review -

This is the second volume of the definitive collection of Dibdin's songs, including piano arrangements. For Dibdin fans, this is it. I've recorded several with these arrangements as part of the album "The Top Hits of 1776" which may be seen/heard complete for free at http://www.astrococktail.com/tophits1776.html. This volume has both words and music to major hits not included in the first volume, such as "Lovely Nan", "Tom Tackle", "and "While Up The Shrouds", mainly because it includes more from the Entertainments Sans Souci, one of Dibdin's most delectable offerings. Still there are many for which one longs for the tunes, such as "The Hare Hunt", where only the lyrics are included, so earlier texts have to be sought out, as is the case for many of his less-famous songs.
If there is any downside to the collection, it is the style of the arrangements, which though florid are a bit overly Victorian in that respect, whereas earlier arrangements closer to Dibdin's time are a bit more fluid and closer to the original, informal style in which he performed them. But that is a small thing, considering how wonderful it is to have so much of Britain's most prolific and talented pop songwriter in one place.
-- John Townley, Sea Cliff, NY, USA
www.astrococktail.com/music.html 

Contents

• A bard in yonder corner: 92
• A gardner I be and that is my trade: 169
• Ah listen to a hapless story: 226
• Allan Ramsay and Burns 310 Farewell thou fair day thou green enrth and ye skies 383: 289
• An ignorant peasant callid Murdoch Macmora 338 Father one day to the mill were gone: 300
• And now being come to your bar to be tried 35 From the gridirn of love Im come off piping hot: 323
• As dulcet sound on ether tioals: 404
• Bacchus come thy votry own: 413

Popular passages

Page 418 - In the grave where a Briton has laid him ! But half of our heavy task was done When the clock struck the hour for retiring, And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory.

Page 418 - By the struggling moonbeam's misty light, And the lantern dimly burning. No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him ; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest With his martial cloak around him.

Page 190 - WHY, what's that to you, if my eyes I'ma wiping ? A tear is a pleasure, d'ye see in its way ; Tis nonsense for trifles, I own, to be piping! But they that han't pity, why I pities they. Says the captain, says he (I shall never forget it), " If of courage you'd know, lads, the true from the sham, 'Tis a furious lion in battle, so let it, But, duty appeased, 'tis in mercy a lamb.

Page 41 - I'd all the world in lovely Nan. I love my duty, love my friend, Love truth and merit to defend, — To...

Page 418 - NOT a drum was heard, nor a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried ; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

Page 49 - Sweet sailing with a favoring breeze ; But, oh ! much sweeter than all these, Is Jack's delight — his lovely Nan. The needle, faithful to the north, To show of constancy the worth, A curious lesson teaches man ; The needle, time may rust — a squall Capsize the binnacle and all, Let seamanship do all it can; My love in worth shall higher rise : Nor time shall rust, nor squalls capsize My faith and truth to lovely Nan.

Page 147 - The ploughman whistles o'er the furrow, The hedger joins the vacant strain, The woodman sings the woodland thorough, The shepherd's pipe delights the plain. Where'er the anxious eye can roam, Or ear receive the jocund pleasure, Myriads of beings thronging, flock, Of Nature's song to join the measure; Till, to keep time, the village clock Sounds sweet the...

Page 418 - We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed And smoothed down his lonely pillow, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow!

Page 173 - In deaf ning concert shall their pond'rous hammers clang, And into symmetry the mass incongruous beat, To save from adverse winds and waves the gallant British fleet.

Page 41 - But, oh ! much sweeter than all these, Is Jack's delight, — his lovely Nan. The needle, faithful to the north, To show of constancy the worth, A curious lesson teaches man ; The needle, time may rust, — a squall Capsize the binnacle and all, Let seamanship do all it can : My love in worth shall higher rise, — Nor time shall rust, nor squalls capsize My faith and truth to lovely Nan.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Songs of Charles Dibdin: Chronologically Arranged, with Notes, Historical, Biographical, and Critical; and the Music of the Best and Most Popular of the Melodies with New Piano-forte Accompaniments, Volume 2; The Songs of Charles Dibdin: Chronologically Arranged, with Notes, Historical, Biographical, and Critical; and the Music of the Best and Most Popular of the Melodies with New Piano-forte Accompaniments, Charles Dibdin
• Authors: Charles Dibdin, George Hogarth
• Publisher: Davidson, 1848
• Original from: Oxford University
• Digitized: Jul 20, 2007
• Length: 686 pages