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IRISH SONGS 241
O'Neill, are haunting in themselves, even apart from the music.
To hear Plunket Greene sing this song is a revelation. He himself cites it as a perfect example of the true relation of the voice and the so-called accompaniment. In this song the voice gives the atmosphere, and the piano part supplies the illustration. "The little waves running up the shore and retreating, the call of the curlew, the rustling of the reeds, the water whispering over the stones, the fairy horsemen, all these find vivid illustration in the accompaniment, while the repetition of the words * Lough-areema' at the end, dying away to nothing, leaves you with a sense of utter remoteness." Other songs from the Irish Idyll are " Cuttin' Rushes," " Johneen," and " A Broken Song."
Plunket Greene's enthusiasm for the song-cycle Cushendall is equally great. " The third number, 'Cushendall,'" he says, "for pure melodic beauty, and the fifth, ' Daddy Long-legs,' for sheer fun, would be hard to beat."
Of Stanford's other songs, apart from his Irish songs, the Songs of the Sea, which include "Homeward Bound," "Drake's Drum," and "The Old Superb," are characteristic examples, and to these may be added his settings of BrownÂing's Three Cavalier Songs.
To hark back to the subject of traditional Irish
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