songs of Sherlock Holmes' day?

[k0k0peli]

A challenge was thrust upon me yesterday. I was inducted into the local Sherlockian group, Baker Street West (100 members maximum and I'm #92). Each member must assume the character of someone named in a Sherlock tale, create a fleshed-out backstory, and present a "character study" to the membership.

I am a non-aristocratic junior officer in Her Majesty's Royal Navy accused of murder in A STUDY IN SCARLET. My challenge is to assume that character and to develop a set-list of songs a gentleman (just barely!) might sing while addressing a 'proper' mixed gathering in circa-1900 London. I'll carry my mandola or the satin-finish Celtic mandolin but call them 'citterns' to avoid dubious Italian scents. Mandolinists would NOT have passed muster with 'decent' English society then, or so I gather. And no Irish need apply.

Anyway, I need songs. I cannot seem to find 1890's-era English popular / music-hall songs etc in my library. I have collections of Shakespearean songs, old (pre-1850) English folk songs, ribald sea chanteys, and 1890's USA popular songs, none of which would really be appropriate. Your suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!

[foldedpath]

Hmmm.... sea shanties won't cut it, eh?

If it's parlor music for the upper crust of the era, then what you might be looking for is light comic opera. See the Wiki page on Savoy Opera... Gilbert & Sullivan being probably the most well-known example.

Maybe something from "HMS Pinafore" or "Pirates of Penzance" to fit the character's background?

[Kevin Stueve]

hmmm "I am the very model of a modern major general" I can hear that in my head on mandolin right now :D.

[M.Marmot]

http://www.victorianweb.org/victoria...orsongs/4.html

http://www.songsofthevictorians.com/#songs

[Beanzy]

You were misinformed by whoever told you the mandolin wouldn't have been appropriate. It would be a Neapolitan bowl-backed instrument bought while visiting Naples which was the bulls-eye destination for the romantic young English man of the era. You'd need to spell it mandoline, pronounce it mandoleen or mandolyne and check out Schumann, Schubert and Lizst. Singing of Lieder would have been popular and piano accompaniment most likely.
On the lighter side are Gilbert and Sullivan numbers, as a Navy man you'd be drawn to HMS Pinnafore like a moth to the firelight.
Roger Quilter wrote O Mistress Mine, Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal, Love's Philosophy, Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes which would be worth a listen to put you in the right frame for the part especially his Songs of The Sea (Moonlight, By the Sea)
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/w/244986
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5GoYiHcGHkk
Mind you depending on which part of the AC Doyle writing period it occurs, I think Quilter was just from the turn of the century, but Doyle was over a long period.

[liestman]

Perhaps "Holmes, Holmes on the Range"?

[David Lewis]

Be it ever so humble there's no police like Holmes.

Seriously, if you have a look at baring goulds annotated collection, there's a strong bias towards the music. Also h r f keatings world of Sherlock Holmes

From memory trial by jury and patience by Gilbert and Sullivan should do you well

[Ray(T)]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Yi762sQTo

[k0k0peli]

Hmmm.... sea shanties won't cut it, eh?

If it's parlor music for the upper crust of the era, then what you might be looking for is light comic opera. See the Wiki page on Savoy Opera... Gilbert & Sullivan being probably the most well-known example.

Nope, sea chanteys aren't polite. I see my audience as upper-middle rather than upper-crust but of course *aspiring* to crustiness. So there can be hints of broad humor but no crudity. I fortunately have the Gilbert & Sullivan scores and will mine them carefully.

http://www.victorianweb.org/victoria...orsongs/4.html

http://www.songsofthevictorians.com/#songs

I came across THE THREE FISHERS just yesterday in my Joan Baez songbook and flagged it. Both victorianweb.org and songsofthevictorians.com look like great resources! Thanks so much!

You were misinformed by whoever told you the mandolin wouldn't have been appropriate. It would be a Neapolitan bowl-backed instrument bought while visiting Naples which was the bulls-eye destination for the romantic young English man of the era.

Ah, this makes a great excuse to buy a bowlback! (Better than taping a cut-down basketball to the back of my cheap Russian mando.) And thanks for the Roger Quilter references.

Perhaps "Holmes, Holmes on the Range"?

Oh, quite, quite. That should be a nice finale.

Seriously, if you have a look at baring goulds annotated collection, there's a strong bias towards the music. Also h r f keatings world of Sherlock Holmes

Hmmm, the only Baring-Gould in my library is CURIOUS MYTHS OF THE MIDDLE AGES so I guess I'll have to hit the bookstore, eh?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Yi762sQTo

Ah yes, I remember that one. Very evocative, but it would be rather anachronistic.

I'm still developing the character himself. I can create any backstory I want that doesn't contradict Conan-Doyle. What's known: Arthur Charpentier is a Royal Navy sub-lieutenant wrongly accused of murder for defending his sister's honor; and their mother runs a boardinghouse. My invention so far: His father was minor landed gentry who managed to buy his son a Naval commission but then died (scandalously?). The mother had to sell the country estate and take boarders in their London townhouse. Arthur is thus *marginally* a gentleman, with a second-tier public (private) school education and a modicum of manners. He hides the tattoo he obtained in Malta. He does wish to climb in society; his Naval discipline struggles with his romantic urges. He *will* amount to something, dammee! At least he can hold him rum.

All this (and a few songs) emerge during his "character study" presentation. I luckily have plenty of time to put it together. Yes, plenty of time to find a bowlback...

[Eddie Sheehy]

The drawing room Moore's Melodies were popular at that time. While no "common Irishman" need apply, London Society abounded with aristocratic Irishman and Thomas Moore was the darling of them all. His melodies would still have been popular in the Sherlockian age.

[EdSherry]

Percy French was an Irish songwriter of the 1875-1915 period whose material was very popular. You might check his songs out. My personal favorites: The Mountains of Mourne and The Pride of Petrovar (Eileen Oge).

The reference to "Baring-Gould" is to "The Annotated Sherlock Holmes" -- a great compendium and companion to the Canon.

[Eddie Sheehy]

Ah yes, Percy French - The Shortcut Through the Rushes, Are you right there, Michael?, Abdul Abulbul Amir, Phil The Fluter's Ball...
His epitaph:
Remember me is all I ask,
And yet,
If the remembrance prove a task -
Forget!

[k0k0peli]

Ah yes, Percy French - The Shortcut Through the Rushes, Are you right there, Michael?, Abdul Abulbul Amir, Phil The Fluter's Ball...

ABDUL ABULBUL AMIR!?!?! Takes me back to childhood summercamp days and 85 verses that *somebody* remembered. I don't know how much of that I could get away with. And of course IN A TURKISH GARDEN would be anachronistic. But such are so tempting...

[Ray(T)]

Check out duo "Cosmotheka" on youtube. Brothers Dave and Al Sealey; although only one of them still alive - I can never remember which one - and named after a well known music hall. My particular favourite is "If it wasn't for the houses in between" (If it's there).

[journeybear]

It's too bad you aren't portraying the main Holmes-boy himself. Then you could play the violin.

[k0k0peli]

It's too bad you aren't portraying the main Holmes-boy himself. Then you could play the violin.

Oh no,you would not like that, not at all. Me, with a fiddle? Might as well trust me with a trombone. (I had to give it away.) I don't know yet which of Holmes' Hounds (that's us) will be The Man himself. The main organizer has assigned herself the position of Mrs Hudson. Well, she *is* the landlady!

The situation: Baker Street West is located in a small town's large bookstore building. The store owners (including "Mrs Hudson") are turning much of it into an event space including a recreation of Sherlockian London, with small shops: tea, apothecary, print (duh!), clothing, toys, music, etc. Yes, they'll sell tinwhistles, hurdy-gurdies, harmonicas, who knows what else? (I'm pushing for banjo-ukes and Sherlock-brand violins.) The other main organizer, my wife's cousin, pretty much runs a local theatre group. Local historical fantasy author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has written a Sherlockian play or two for the troupe. All these efforts merge for fun and profit (for the bookstore). We members of Holmes' Hounds are entertained, of course, with lectures, presentations, skits, costume dinners and dinner-theatre; and Holmes' and Watson's quarters are available to us as a private club space. I can lounge in Sherlock's study and sip fortified tea after a hard day's cruising the antique stores.

As I said, I've just been inducted into this group. I'll meet 'Sherlock' soon enough. Or his ghost.

You were misinformed by whoever told you the mandolin wouldn't have been appropriate. It would be a Neapolitan bowl-backed instrument bought while visiting Naples which was the bulls-eye destination for the romantic young English man of the era.

I should have known that. I have no excuse -- I've been to Sorrento (on the Bay of Naples) which was a favored English hangout since the 1820's. I know Neapolitans have been entertaining and exploiting the English for a long, long time. It's a tradition.

[journeybear]

Seems to me Holmes wasn't too accomplished on the violin, at least as portrayed on film - so you'd fit right in. The BBC production, "Sherlock," set in modern times with Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role, is an exception in this matter, AFAIK, though he's still no virtuoso. I recently discovered this, being shown in reruns on my local PBS, and have been enjoying it. Even if it's often over-the-top, it presents an intriguing interpretation.

[David Lewis]

Seems to me Holmes wasn't too accomplished on the violin, at least as portrayed on film - so you'd fit right in. The BBC production, "Sherlock," set in modern times with Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role, is an exception in this matter, AFAIK, though he's still no virtuoso. I recently discovered this, being shown in reruns on my local PBS, and have been enjoying it. Even if it's often over-the-top, it presents an intriguing interpretation.

The jury is out. In the original stories, Watson complains about holmes' atonal scrapings but is mollified when Holmes plays some more mainstream stuff. This has led Keating, among others, to suggest Holmes liked modern music: r Strauss etc. the fact he could play standards suggests a level of training.

Others of course suggest that Holmes couldn't play.

Given the art galleries Holmes went to, I tend to the former.

[journeybear]

It's been a long time since I read any Doyle, and it certainly was well before I was so immersed in music playing myself. I thought he played the violin more as a distraction in order to sort through whatever mystery was currently confounding him than to play music. At any rate, not a central theme.

[Purdy Bear]

I can't add anything to the music side of things, but I do love Sherlock Holmes but more so Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I've read most of his bios/autobios. I have a fair few of his religious works, that doesn't come up a lot. For me Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are my favourite Sherlock and Holmes, although Jeremy Brett is said to be the most accurate to the books.

As far as I can remember Sir Arthur did play an instrument while he lived in Europe during his educational years. I can't remember if it was a string instrument or brass.

PS Since ACD came from Edinburgh wouldn't a good Scottish jig or reel be in tune with it all. For Sherlock, it would have to be some classical violin music, such as this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7XziEnE1xU

[k0k0peli]

I am a bit over halfway through reading Baring-Gould's two-volume THE ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES. Great fun! Dazzling! Those annotations are indispensable, if sometimes a bit much.

PS Since ACD came from Edinburgh wouldn't a good Scottish jig or reel be in tune with it all. For Sherlock, it would have to be some classical violin music...

Ah, the music. It is for a character presentation I am to give to a gathering of Holmes' Hounds, the local Sherlockian society I was dragged into, not unwillingly. My character was an innocent suspect in the first Holmes novel set in 1881; I shall recount my life and the events from a vantage two decades later.

I was a young naval officer at the time, a hot-headed romantic, and I will sing and play a couple of tunes appropriate to my history. (No, not the w@nker version of FUNICULI FUNICULA. ) I am no fiddler so there will be none of that, hey? My owner / finance director will do a character presentation of another innocent suspect (from an 1888 story) and I have almost convinced her that I *need* a bowlback mandolin to be authentic.

Anyway, I still have not yet selected the songs, other than ending with HOLMES, HOLMES ON THE RANGE. I will probably devote an upcoming weekend to screening all the suggestions above and working myself into a frenzy to get it all just right. Whew.

[allenhopkins]

As a naval officer, you might be familiar with some naval/patriotic songs, such as Rule! Britannia and A Life On the Ocean Wave. The latter, penned by Henry Russell who spent years as an ex-pat Brit music teacher here in Rochester, is still the official marching tune of the Royal Marines.

Here's a listing of "parlor songs" that might prove useful. It includes MP3's of the songs, so you can hear what they sound like. I'd second the suggestion of Thomas Moore's "hits," such as Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms, and you might even venture "across the pond" to select some of the non-minstrel Foster repertoire, such as Beautiful Dreamer and Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair. And, since you picked up the mandolin when your ship visited Napoli, you might add an Italian air or two, such as Santa Lucia.

[derbex]

A bit of music hall social comment?

Stretching it a bit (1909), but All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor.

[Purdy Bear]

I wonder if a Naval Officer at that time would have sung the songs from the Good Ship Venus. WARNING NOT FOR CHILDRENS EARS - ADULT CONTENT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLotX3HE-4c

Second thoughts that may well be way to risky for a Sherlock Holmes lot.

[k0k0peli]

I wonder if a Naval Officer at that time would have sung the songs from the Good Ship Venus. WARNING NOT FOR CHILDRENS EARS - ADULT CONTENT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLotX3HE-4c

Second thoughts that may well be way to risky for a Sherlock Holmes lot.

As it happens, I have accumulated a number of 'ribald' songs and collections over the decades and am rather familiar with Venus. Our naval officer might sing that with a bunch of drunken mates but not in front of a mixed crowd in a 'respectable' situation, same as the aforementioned piece sung to Funiculi Funicula about, um, self-abuse. And if I get kicked out of the group I won't have my dues refunded.