F

"Far awa'" by Mrs. H.H.A. (Amy) Beach

1899

From Five Burns Songs, op. 43

This choral work for women's voices was dedicated to the chorus of the Women's Musical Club of Toronto, a group founded in 1899 and still in existence today. Far Awa' was originally composed for solo voice in 1899 as the fourth in a group of Five Burns Songs, op. 43, which sets verses by Robert Burns. She wrote this choral arrangement for the Toronto chorus, Peter Kennedy, conductor, in 1918. The piece was so popular that Beach also wrote a version for two solo voices and, in 1937, an organ version.

Beach's thirty works for women's chorus are a significant part of her output. They include major choral/orchestra cantatas such as The Chambered Nautilus, op. 66, (1907), commissioned by the St. Cecilia Club of New York. The demand for women's chorus repertoire grew exponentially in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Women's musical clubs flourished in the years following the 1893 meeting of the Woman's Musical Congress at the Chicago World Fair, where Beach played a prominent role. She later credited the proliferation of women's clubs with spreading musical taste and fostering more frequent performance of music by women composers.

Related Resources

• Far awa' : (trio) : op. 43, no. 4

"Festival Hymn" by Dudley Buck

1872

Buck composed his Festival Hymn, according to the octavo published by Oliver Ditson, for the "World's Musical Jubilee" of 1872. The formal title of this "monster" event staged in Boston by Patrick Gilmore was "The World Peace Jubilee and International Musical Festival." Gilmore had staged a very successful, large-scale Jubilee three years earlier in the same city. For the 1872 event, however, he increased the size of the performing forces to a chorus of 20,000 persons and an orchestra of 2,000, requiring 100 assistant conductors. He also imported military bands and virtuosos from Europe. Johann Strauss the younger headlined the event and wrote a special Jubilee Waltz for the occasion.

Buck's grand Festival Hymn for orchestra and chorus is published by Oliver Ditson with a piano reduction, which includes some orchestra cue indications. The chorus scoring is unusual in the octavo: the top stave is marked "soprano and alto," the next is designated "alto--tenor," and the last reads "tenor and bass." The middle line, written in the treble clef throughout, doubles exactly the tenor part on the bottom system written in bass clef. The texture is, therefore, only four parts.

The composer provides his own celebratory text that extols the power of music to unite nations. At the midpoint, Buck's music climaxes on the words "O blessed bond 'twixt the high and the lowly," which is answered more prayerfully, "Thy language is known to each nation." In the quietest moment women sing on a simple tonic triad, "O Music," which is answered by men, "O Peace." The women respond, "Happy blending of voices and hearts in sweet lays." The accompaniment then builds with continuous triplets to a fortissimo hymn of praise, "O Jehovah! Thou Sovereign of nations! Be Thy praises eternally chanted in music for evermore!"

Related Resources

• Festival Hymn

"The Friends We Love" by Septimus Winner

1868

The Friends We Love was published in 1868 under Winner's pseudonym Alice Hawthorne. Winner's music store, established with one of his brothers shortly after they completed high school in Philadelphia, published this simple strophic choral ballad. The music store provided Winner, who was proficient on the violin and guitar, a place to teach music lessons and to market his own songs and methods books. In 1888, Oliver Ditson and Company purchased the entire catalog, and the Winner firm dissolved.

This ballad features a classical style accompaniment that begins and ends the piece. Its musical theme, though typically limited to one octave, is uncharacteristically complex both in rhythm and melodic shape. The choral refrain, also slightly more complicated than most of Winner's refrains, is written in a duet style.

Winner wrote many such ballads during the civil war years. They were perhaps even more popular than those of his contemporary, Stephen Foster. According to Charles Claghorn, author of The Mocking Bird: The Life and Diary of Its Author, Septimus Winner, President Abraham Lincoln's favorite song was Winner's Listen to the Mockingbird, another simple ballad. The appeal of these popular songs was not only their sentimentality but that they were readily understood, comfortable to sing, and easily appreciated by all classes of the musical public.

Related Resources

• The friends we love : song and chorus