Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories

300 traditional songs, inc sheet music with full piano accompaniment & lyrics.

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UH
OUR FAMILIAR SONGS.
WHAT ARE THE WILD WAVES SAYING?
The words of this beautiful duet, suggested by the well-known scene in " Dombey and Son," were written by Dr. Joseph Edwards Carpenter ; the music by Stephen Glover. Carpenter was born in London, November 2, 1813. He began his career as a song-writer, in 1828, and before he was seventeen years of age, London was ringing with his comic ballads. These included "That's the way the Money goes," "I'm quite a Ladies'man," "Going out a Shooting." In 1837 he went to reside in Leamington, where he was con­nected with the newspaper press. In 1851 he returned .to London, and a year later appeared as a public singer and lecturer. He is now (1880) on the editorial staff of Funny
Folks.
Dr. Carpenter has published two novels, half a dozen volumes of poems, about twenty dramas, operettas, and farces, and more than three thousand songs. He has also compiled several volumes of popular songs, and a series of " penny readings." His words have been set to music by nearly every prominent English composer of the last half century.
Stephen Glover was born in London, in 1813. He composed music correctly at the age of nine, and his life was devoted to the art. His instrumental music has had an im­mense circulation, and some of his songs have been widely popular. His own favorites were his adaptations of Scripture words, which breathe a simple trust in the Christian faith—the ruling principle of his life. His themes were characterized by a melodious sweetness, and were pathetic, lively, or tender, in accordance with the words of the song, to which they were always carefully suited. Mr. Glover was passionately fond of country life, and most of his compositions were written in rural retirement. During a visit to the seaside in 1867, he met with a severe accident, from the effects of which he never recov­ered, and which virtually closed his musical career. He travelled from place to place, in •search of health, and died on the 7th of December, 1870. A memoir of him, published in -an English journal, closes with this paragraph: " The editor can not allow this brief notice to go forth without bearing his testimony to the gentleness, the courtesy, the manifold Christian virtues of his departed friend. To the great ability which has secured for his compositions a world-wide fame, Mr. Glover added that self-negation which is even more rare than the exquisite skill of the sweet singer."
PAUL.