Make certain that you read right to the bottom for a complete listing and links to My Father’s Music, specific to pieces you hope to explore!

Every family has some one interested in archiving history.  I hope that it’s to my sibling’s benefit and enjoyment that I should write some notations about our father’s music.  Nothing gives me chills like the memory of hearing my father singing solo music, especially through the years when I had Mom’s hand to hold onto at the very same time.

I’m hoping that my blog gives my family opportunity to enjoy the history and perhaps my father’s narratives as they relate to each piece of music.  My images are all scans from my father’s old black paged album…the kind with licked corner pieces.

Having attended the opera, The Magic Flute, with Doug and Erin this past Friday night, I was remembering the fact that both my mother and father had periods of their life when they were on stage.  My father, in musicals and operettas, and my mother in Mystery Plays in Sherbrooke, Quebec.  I’m posting a few photographs here.  The first photographs…The Wishing Well Operetta.

Mom in 2 Mystery Plays in Sherbrooke.

Dad, singing in choir in Sherbrooke, Quebec…the United Church.  Dad remembers that the photograph was taken by the newspaper because the choir was performing Handel’s sacred Cantatas.  Dad is third from the right, back row.  (Dad, if you remember any names for any of the other people in the image, please let me know, k?)  This image is 1953 and they were performing, Stainer’s Crucifixion. From Dad…

“So, John Stainer was a great musical writer. The Crucifixion was not a Contata, as I said, but a sacred Oratorio. You can find it on Youtube. I will listen and remember the parts I sang solo–I know I loved it.”

Later, Dad added that he must have labeled the picture incorrectly, because their choir was singing, Stainers Sacred Oratorio “God So Loved the World”.

 

For histories and narratives on My Father’s Music, click on the link below.  The pull down menu on my main page is becoming too cumbersome.

A Perfect Day: Carrie Jacobs-Bond

Cheery Song: David Dick Slater

Chonita: A Gypsy Romance

Duna by Josephine McGill

For You Alone written by P. J. O’Reilly and composed by Henry E. Geehl

Gypsy Love Song by Victor Herbert

Jesus Only: Written by Frances K. Havergal and Music by A. Ratoli

Passing By: Written by Robert Herrick, Music by Edward Purcell

Prayer Perfect poem by James Whitcomb Riley; Music by Ervine J. Stenson

Stout Hearted Men by Sigmund Romberg

The Holy City  Text: F.E. Weatherly (1848-1929) Music: Stephen Adams (1844-1913)

The Kerry Dance by James Lynam Molloy

Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral by James Royce Shannon

When Sweet Ann Sings by Michael Head

Clorinda by  Robert Orlando Morgan 

The Snowy Breasted Pearl by Turlough O’Carolan

Schubert

Daniel: A Sacred Cantata by George F. Root and Wm. B. Bradbury

The Creation: An Oratorio by Joseph Haydn

The Holy City by A. R. Gaul

The Rose of Tralee

“Vale” (Farewell) Song Words by DeBurgh, D’Archy and music by Kennedy Russell

Danny Boy by Frederic Weatherly

Macushla by  Dermot MacMurrough

The Little Irish Girl by Hermann Lohr

Where E’er You Walk by Handel

Then You’ll Remember Me, an Aria from The Bohemian Girl

Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes

I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen

The Rose of Tralee

I Hear You Calling Me by Harold Harford and Charles Marshall