American Sheet Music: ca. 1820-1860
Table of Contents
Music Copyrighted in Federal District Courts, ca. 1820-1860: |
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OTHER ETHNIC MATERIAL
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Three other ethnic groups are represented by a significant number of pieces: the
Scots,
the
Irish,
and
Native Americans.
Pieces representing
Scots are typically pastoral folksongs. Images of the Irish are more complex--besides songs that
champion
independence for Ireland,
there are comic songs and
sentimental songs, many of the latter involving the separation of lovers when the man emigrates
to America. The most powerful of these songs,
"Kathleen Mavourneen,"
is frequently still sung. The most popular "Irish song" of the period,
"Katy Darling"
is, in fact, an Italian song by
Vincenzo Bellini
(1801-1835, composer of Norma, and La Sonnambula), and
"Vaga luna che inargenti." "Katy Darling" was popular enough to generate a number of
answer songs.
Several of the
songs referring to Native Americans were inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1855 epic
poem
"The Song of Hiawatha;"
one song,
"The Grave of Uncas,"
was inspired by James
Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans.
American Sheet Music: ca. 1820-1860