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Katharine Barry C Dorothy Gaynor Blake C Jane Van Etten Jesslie L. Gaynor CDaisy McGeoch CMary Turner Salter
Ella May Smith CLily Strickland CHarriet Ware
Jenni Frost, soprano C Julie Frost, piano
Songs of American Women Composers: 1900-1920
At the turn of the century, nice women didn't appear in public, fraternize with men outside the family circle, publish under their own names, or study anything unrelated to the home arts. Women interested in music theory and composition were looked on as deranged. It was illegal in many states for women to own property or keep their own earnings. Numerous laws against "unfeminine behavior" snared independent women, who could not even be seated in most restaurants without a male escort.
By 1920 women were acknowledged professionals in the field of music. Women composers were respected and encouraged by their male peers, if still considered eccentrics by the hard-liners, and the opportunities for obtaining patronage, a serious education, and an audience were growing. They could hold office; they could vote. The men and women of the World War I generation enjoyed an easy camaraderie reflected in sprightly vernacular tunes which often parodied old times.
The piano was the mainstay of American popular culture; there was one for every fifteen Americans. Ten-cent stores were crowded with people waiting in line to buy the latest sheet music, or to try it out on the store piano.
These examples of Barry's work are the sort of pleasing salon tunes that linger in the memory. It's easy to picture the heroine of these little vignettes as a plucky Gibson Girl. Winking, perhaps, from her seat at the piano. They have a lilting, mildly Tin Pan Alley sound, well-suited to vaudeville. Unfortunately Barry herself remains behind the curtain. Beyond the fact that she was admired by her contemporaries for composing The Silent Lute in 1922, we know next to nothing about her.
Dorothy Gaynor Blake (b. St. Joseph, Missouri, 1893)
Blake began her formal training as a two year old in the kindergarten where her mother, Jessie Love Gaynor, was testing her theories of musical education. Blake was improvising melodies by the time she was four, as well as singing and playing the piano like a trouper. By the time she was fourteen, she was a popular concert singer, performing in Berlin where her mother and sister were also in demand, and where she studied voice, piano and composition.
Eventually Blake took up where Jessie Gaynor left off, writing and composing for children. In this she was widely successful.
The cheery June, a collaboration with Gaynor dedicated to Blake's husband, was published a year after her marriage.
Blake dedicated The Evening of Life to Jessie Gaynor, who died shortly after the song was published in 1920. This was also the year Prohibition went into effect; no doubt some found in it a meaning to suit themselves.
These ethereal, somewhat complex pieces written by Daisy McGeoch were meant to be performed, not hummed, and by a talented and capable singer. The hauntingly lovely Forest Lovers would have been particularly poignant to those who heard it when first published, on the outbreak in Europe of the First World War.
McGeoch was a poet and a playwright. But though her music is accessible, she is largely unknown.
Mary Elizabeth turner Salter (b. Peoria, Illinois, 1856)
Salter was a well-known soprano soloist whose concerts were eagerly attended. She studied singing privately, and at the College of Music at Boston University. But although she taught at Wellesley College for a couple of years before marrying composer Sumner Salter, she was never given lessons in harmony, theory or composition, or taught to play the piano beyond the few lessons received as a small child. Regardless, she composed more than 200 songs, anthems and choral works, half of which were published and she achieved a respectable success while raising five children and catering to a famous husband.
Once becoming a mother, she apparently limited her public performances mainly to churches, appearing regularly for twenty years in Boston, New York, New Haven, Syracuse, Buffalo and Atlanta.
A Boat Song was one of her more popular songs, and one of the few featuring lyrics not her own.
Ella May Smith (b. Uhrichsville, Ohio, 1860)
Edgar Stillman Kelley was chief among Smith's teachers.
Smith was a booster where music was concerned. The national music club movement was in its heyday, and she was very much involved on local, national and international levels. She taught music and musical history publicly and privately throughout her life, played the organ in various churches for more than forty years, and was for twenty years the musical editor and critic of the Ohio State Journal and the Columbus Evening Dispatch, and a special correspondent for Musical America. Smith took an active part in numerous other musical enterprises such as concert series and community music schools, and promoted operas and other works written in English. In 1933, the year before her death, she was honored by Capital University with the degree of Doctor of Music.
Smith's own compositions were well-received. Because I Love You was her greatest hit.
Jessie Love Gaynor (b. St. Louis, Missouri, 1863)
Kindergartens were a revolutionary concept when Gaynor began instructing Free Kindergarten Association pupils in
singing and ear training. Gaynor taught in a number of schools before establishing one of her own in Chicago. Considered in her time one of America's most gifted composers and performers and a pioneer in teaching music and music appreciation to children, some of Gaynor's educational pieces are still in use. However, she also wrote fifty or so more sophisticated songs, as well as several operettas and cantatas, and these have been largely lost.
Gaynor graduated from Pritchett College in 1881, when even American progressives were just beginning to take women graduates in stride. She was privileged to study theory in Chicago with Goodrich and Weidig.
A Coodle Doon Song was the lullaby, the year the Model "T" arrived, giving lucky parents a brand-new place to rock the baby.
Lily Teresa Strickland (b. Anderson, South Carolina, 1887)
Strickland attended Converse College and completed her education with William Henry Humiston at the Institute of Musical Art in New York, on a scholarship. She began composing while in her teens, and eventually wrote three operas, a symphonic suite, cantatas, and just under a hundred songs, several of which became popular standards at recitals.
During the war Strickland volunteered to entertain at the Y.M.C.A. at Camp McArthur, Texas. Her husband was the Army Educational Director there. Afterwards, when business took him to Calcutta, she was his enthusiastic companion. Strickland was much impressed by the music she heard while traveling in India and the Orient, where the couple spent the next ten years. She published a number of articles about Eastern music, and its influence is apparent in much of what she composed after 1930.
Also a joiner and a Doctor of Music, she belonged to the Society of American Women Composers; the Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; the League of American Pen Women and the Society of Asiatic Research.
Strickland was as proficient a writer of dramatic ballads as she was expert in achieving the sound that was the Edwardian version of Top Ten. His Voice was dedicated to her father.
Jane Van Etten (b. St. Paul, Minnesota, A.K.A. Mrs. Alfred Andrews)
As an operatic singer, Jane Van Etten made a name for herself before turning to composing after her marriage. Van Etten made a stunning debut in Faust in 1895, and toured in England and the United States. She studied voice with Marchesi in Paris and composition with Ziehn and von Fielitz in Chicago.
Van Etten wrote a one-act opera, Guido Ferranti, based on Oscar Wilde's play, The Duchess of Padua. This was performed in Chicago on December 29, 1914 by the Aborn Brothers' Century Opera Company, making it the first serious opera by an American woman composer staged by a well-known company. Guido Ferranti won critical acclaim, and in 1926 it won Van Etten the David Bispham Medal, awarded by the American Opera Society of Chicago.
These playful melodies were published in 1906, the year in which music was first broadcast by radio.
Harriet Ware (b. Waupun, Wisconsin, A.K.A. Mrs. Hugh M. Krumbhaar)
Harriet Ware graduated from the Pillsbury Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota. She studied piano, voice and composition in New York, Paris and Berlin.
As a composer, Ware was immediately drawn to the larger forms. Even the simplest of the hundred or so songs she wrote were often met with surprise; they were considered too vigorous and powerful to have been written by a woman. The quiet strength of her personality seems to have won over many of her critics. She became internationally prominent. Among her best-sellers was This Day Is Mine, once rated the official favorite of the World War II GI's, and sung at Buckingham Palace by an Australian prima donna. Her cantata, Sir Oluf, written for women's voices, was widely performed, as were her piano concerti. Her Women's Triumphal March became the national song of the Federation of Women's Clubs in 1927. Her symphonic poem, The Artisan, was performed by the New York Symphony Orchestra in 1929. Ware wrote a number of things for the stage, including three operettas. One of these, Undine with a libretto written by Edwin Markham, a friend and poet at the height of his career, was something of a smash hit.
April is also based on Markham's verse.
Vocalist Jenni Frost is a graduate of Furman University with a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance. The extremely versatile Ms. Frost is also an experienced actress and a dancer; she began her career in musical theatre as a five-year old. She has performed in a chamber singers ensemble, with a jazz quartet, and as a member of the Furman Singers. This is her debut album.
Pianist Julie Frost holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from St. Olaf College. She's been involved in church music as a choir member, handbell choir member, children's choir director, vocal soloist and organist. Jenni Frost is her oldest daughter.
Words and Music by Daisy McGeoch
When I die, bring me hame!
To the moor, where the wild winds stir
Let me lie calm and still,
At the foot of some lone scotch fir.
Put no stone at my head, no name,
Let the grim moorland tree say one word over me,
Carve it deep in the bark, just "Home!"
Words and Music by Daisy McGeoch
Mirrored by some limpid forest stream,
Through the summer days to dream;
Through the forest, on to meet the sea;
Happy little willow tree.
Never would the maiden be a bride,
Close against the willow side!
Then the willow, bending,
Drooping, through the years that were to be,
Still the maiden's sleeping,
Neath the willow weeping,
Broken-hearted weeping willow tree.
Words and Music by Daisy McGeoch
"Lovely lady of the forest,
In your gown of silver grey,
Won't you tell me all your story?"
I enquired one Summer day,
But she only just repeated,
Oh! Conceited little thing!
"I'm the belle of all the woodland,
All the other trees I've met,
Call me little forest fairy,
And the jealous ones 'Coquette!'
But you'll never find a sweeter,
I'm the belle of all the forest,"
Said the pretty silver birch.
But you'll never find a sweeter,
Though a thousand woods you search!
I'm the belle of all the forest,"
Said the pretty silver birch.
"Lovely lady, don't you weary
Of the forest now and then?
Have you p'raps an understanding
With the fir-tree in the glen?
Don't you feel the cold in winter?
Don't you glory in the spring?"
But she only just repeated,
Oh! Conceited little thing!
"I'm the belle of all the woodland,
All the other trees I've met,
Call me little forest fairy,
And the jealous ones 'Coquette!'
But you'll never find a sweeter,
Though a thousand woods you search!
I'm the belle of all the forest,"
Said the pretty silver birch.
But you'll never find a sweeter,
Though a thousand woods you search!
I'm the belle of all the forest,"
Said the pretty silver birch.
Words and Music by Daisy McGeoch
The tree of knowledge shades your path,
And you must pluck the poisoned blooms,
And eat the fruit, and Know!
Its roots lie deep in aching hearts,
So dear and bitter-sweet, there grows,
The perfect fruit of love!
Words and Music by Daisy McGeoch
I wonder if Time has altered
The home that I loved so well.
I wonder if down in the orchard
There's a swing in the old apple tree.
I wish I knew if there's a pathway still
Through the cornfield to the sea.
Is my old boat still lying
Are the sea gulls still nesting
By the Loch on the shore?
Do you still find wild roses
These are all trifles light as thistle down,
I wonder if Time has altered
The fact that I loved so well.
Through the long, long years
Filled with pain and tears
I can feel the old sweet spell.
I wonder if Youth when he left you
Stole the dreams from your sunshiny eyes.
I wish I knew what you have paid the years
Are you still just as charming,
Just as foolish and wise?
Is there still all the sunshine of the world
Am I still "all that matters"
God grant you're faithful
For you're all the world to me.
Words and Music by Daisy McGeoch
Dear eyes, why did you tell me
All that my heart wished true?
Why did you seek to find the answer
My tell-tale eyes tell you?
Dear voice, why did you sing me,
Songs that were only for you and for me!
Dear hands, why did you hold me
Close to the heart where I long to be?
Dear eyes, why did you show me
Sweetheart of mine, I find my answer
Deep in your lovelit eyes.
Words and Music by Daisy McGeoch
We must not wander through the Forest
When every leaf upon the trees
Is nodding to a wooing breeze
And mated things the shadows hide
Will spend the glad day side by side.
While you and I, my dearest heart,
Must spend the golden day apart!
We must not wander through the Forest
When every beast and forest bird
Lies fast asleep and there is heard
The nightingale who sings above
His frenzied liquid hymn of love.
And you are fair, too fair to see
And far too deeply dear to me.
We must not wander through the Forest
Words and Music by Daisy McGeoch
There is a little rugged path.
There's hardly room for two.
And those that walk in safety there
There is a little rugged path.
If you would climb you'll find true love
The only steadfast guide.
There is a little rugged path.
Quite dangerous 'tis true.
But if you just walk close enough
There's surely room for two!
Words by S. Weir Mitchell
Music by Dorothy Gaynor Blake
I know the night is near at hand,
The mists lie low on hill and bay.
The autumn leaves are drifting by,
Yes, I have had, dear Lord, the day.
When at Thy call I have the night,
Brief be the twilight as I pass
From light to dark, from dark to light.
Words by Jessie L. Gaynor
Ring, ring, ye merry bells of summer,
Ye blue-bells and ye lilies tinkle forth your tune,
For all the birds and flowers in fields and shady bowers,
Are happy in the coming of the lovely month of June.
Sing, sing, ye birds among the branches,
Ye blue birds and ye thrushes trill your sweetest tune,
And wake the forest chorus, till round about and o'er us,
The air is filled with melody, to welcome lovely June,
Words from the French by Rose Henniker Heato
I have taken your picture out of its frame,
And out of my prayers I have taken your name,
I have crumpled your letters into the flame
And yet in my heart you are there just the same!
Does the good God, I wonder,
I wonder, commend me, or blame.
The Flower That You Gave Me
Words by Lilian Scott · Music by Katharine Barry
The flower that you gave me lies faded and dead,
And the vows that we made, are as faint echoes fled;
Yet the memories I cherish are still tender and green,
For the hours that we loved and the dreams that have been.
Alone in the twilight ere fall of the dew,
I shall seek out the paths where I wandered with you;
And though life lead through shadow, there is sunlight between
For the flower that you gave me, and the dreams that have been.
Words by H.D. Banning · Music by Katharine Barry
Good-bye! Good-bye! The little moon
Weeps veiled behind a fleecy cloud;
All white as death the lilies swoon,
The roses all with grief are bowed,
And sorrowing the breezes sigh,
Good-bye! Good-bye! Oh little moon,
Is Love so hard a thing as this?
Oh! Love is brief as flowers of June,
A sudden thrill, an hour of bliss;
A fleeting hour, a kiss, a sigh!
Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!
Words by William Wordsworth
There is a change, and I am poor;
Your love hath been, not long ago
A fountain at my heart's fond door,
Whose only business was to flow;
And flow it did, not taking heed
Of its own bounty or my need.
What happy moments did I count!
Blest was I then all bliss above,
Now for that consecrated fount
Of murmuring, sparkling, living love.
What have I? Shall I dare tell,
A comfortless and hidden well,
A well of love; It may be deep
What matter if the waters sleep,
In silence and obscurity,
In silence and obscurity.
Such change and at the door,
Of my fond heart, hath made me poor,
Of my fond heart hath made me poor.
Words and Music by Lily T. Strickland
Rain and wind, rain and wind,
And the billows lashing the shore;
Desolate darkness, deep and cold,
And the pain in my heart evermore.
For my love's gone a-sailing,
And the wild wind is wailing,
For his voice I will hear, nevermore!
Wind and rain, wind and rain,
And the billows tossing the sea.
Oh, restless ocean bear him gently
On thy surging bosom, back to me,
For my love's gone a-sailing,
And the wild wind is wailing,
His voice I will hear, nevermore.
Home They Brought Her Warrior
Words from Tennyson's Princess · Music by Lily Strickland
Home they brought her warrior, dead!
She nor swooned nor uttered cry.
All her maidens, watching, said:
"She must weep or she will die;
She must weep or she will die,
She must weep or she will die,
Then they praised him soft and low.
Then they praised him soft and low.
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe.
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stept,
Took the face-cloth from his face!
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee,
Like summer tempest came her tears.
Sweet, my child, I live for thee,
Words and Music by Lily Strickland
Blessings on thy bonnie head, my Jeanie
Angel visions guard thy bed, my Jeanie.
Smiles with thee e'er come apace,
And like little sun-beams chase
All the clouds from every face, my Jeanie.
All the lads who near thee dwell, my Jeanie,
Know thy face and love it well, my Jeanie.
Not a soul for miles around
Ever saw thee in a frown,
Better that than silken gown, my Jeanie.
When life's shadows on thee fall, my Jeanie,
May they harm thee not at all, my Jeanie.
If you'll meet them with your smile,
Sure they'll vanish in a while,
All the world could it beguile, my Jeanie!
Words by William Ernest Henley
The nightingale has a lyre of gold,
The lark's is a clarion call.
And the black bird plays but a boxwood flute,
But I love him best of all.
For his song is all of the joy of life,
And we in the mad spring weather,
The two have listened till he sang
Our hearts and lips together.
It Was A Lover And His Lass
Words by William Shakespeare · Music by Jane Van Etten
It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey and a ho and a hey-no-ni-no!
That o'er in the green cornfield did pass
In the spring-time, the only pretty ring-time,
ding a ding, ding a ding,
And therefore take the present time,
For love is crowned in the prime,
When love is crowned in the prime,
With a hey and a ho, and a hey and a ho,
And a hey and a ho and a no-ni-no!
It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey and a ho and a no-ni-no!
That o'er the green cornfield did pass.
In the spring-time, the only pretty ring-time,
hey ding a ding, ding a ding, ah!
When birds sing, ah! When birds sing,
Sweet lovers love the Spring.
Music by Mary Turner Salter
The sunset light is on the sail,
And on the billow up and down
The boat rocks to and fro.
Birds float upward to the sky,
Oh, how I long for wings to fly.
The boat has wings, the bird has wings,
Save wings of kind and loving thought,
On these I come, and still repeat,
I love, I love you, I love you, sweet.
The Image Of The Moon At Night
Words by Eugene Field · Music by Ella May Smith
The image of the moon at night,
All trembling in the ocean lies.
But she, with calm and steadfast light,
Moves proudly through the radiant skies.
How like the tranquil moon thou art,
Thou fairest flower of woman-kind.
And, look, within my fluttering heart,
They image trembling is enshrined,
I cannot bring you fame or place
Among the noted of the race.
But I can love you, I can love you.
When trials come to test you sweet,
I can bring sunlight to your feet;
My kiss your precious lips shall greet.
When daylight dies along the west,
You will come home to me to rest,
And I shall sleep upon your breast.
Because I love you, because I love you.
As dew clings to the violet
Making the fragrant chalice wet,
So my life into yours is set.
Only myself, my all I bring,
But count it, sweet, a precious thing.
To give my life and offering.
I bow before no other shrine.
If I go first across death's line,
I will return to claim you mine.
Because I love you, because I love you.
Words by Eugene Field · Music by Ella May Smith
Many a beauteous flower doth spring
From the tears that flood mine eyes,
And the nightingale doth sing
In the burthen of my sighs.
If O child thou lovest me
Take these flowrets fair and frail.
And my soul shall waft to thee
Love songs of the nightingale,
Love songs of the nightingale.
Words by Roscoe Gilmore Stott
Music by Jessie L. Gaynor
The nicht wind bla's ower cauld, stane wa's,
An' the mither bird cheeps tae three;
The sun's gang low but the wee things know
They are safe in the ta', ta' tree.
"Coodle doon! Coodle doon!" is the song she'll croon,
Tae the wee bicher bairnies three;
"Ah coodle doon, coodle doon!" wi' a low, sweet tune,
"Coodle doon tae the he'rt o' me."
the nicht wind bla's ower cauld, stane wa's,
An' the mither oak sings tae three;
For vines are sma' an' she luves them a'
Wi' a luve that is guid an' free.
"Coodle doon! Coodle doon!" is the song she'll croon,
Tae the wee bicher bairnies three;
"Ah coodle doon, coodle doon!" wi' a low, sweet tune,
"Coodle doon tae the he'rt o' me."
The nicht wind bla's ower cauld, stane wa's,
An' a mither who nestles three;
"Ill kiss each ane wi' a silent pain,
As they kneel at her luvin' knee.
"Coodle doon! Coodle doon!" is the song she'll croon,
Tae the wee bicher bairnies three;
"Ah coodle doon, coodle doon!" wi' a low, sweet tune,
"Coodle doon tae the he'rt o' me."
Alone I wander, for 'tis so decreed.
My only peace is from the stars above,
And yet, with all my heart and soul, I plead
Mem'ry alone is all I have to guide me,
Mem'ry and you, ah love of all the world,
And then the night, her welcome shade to hide me,
When all my sails are furled.
Words by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
I love thee to the level of every day's
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
And with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with the breath,
The smiles, tears, of all my life;
I shall but love thee better after death.
Words by Frederick H. Martens
The violins swayed the languorous waltz,
With a cadence in haunting minor strain,
In haunting minor strain;
Ah, 'twas our last dance.
At the sound of an old refrain.
Fragrance of roses, rustle of lace,
And the throbbing of pleading,
The fragrance of roses, rustle of lace,
And the throbbing of pleading,
Ah, 'twas our last dance. Ah,
Grant us a heart-beat's grace
To the joy that a memory brings.
'Tis April and the blossoms start
And youth must take the chance,
The wander pain is in the heart,
The ache of young Romance.
Out now to far adventuring,
And take your dreams along,
For every pang that fortunes bring
For every pang that fortunes bring
When Romance comes with dewy rose,
For should you spurn him, lo, he goes
This recording is sponsored in part by the Bala Cynwyd Symphony Orchestra Association, whose music director, Matthew H. Phillips, acted as producer for the disc. Mr. Phillips and his organization are commited to discovering, performing and recording music by America's earlier generation of composers, concentrating most often on composers who are unknown or whose music has gone unrecognized.
Engineer: Michael E. Harmon · Editing: Howard Fievel · Recorded at Studio P, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania on October 31, and December 12, 1994 and January 2, 1995 · Piano Technician: Daniel J. Chelius
All the works on this recording were published by the John Church Company. The John Church Company was purchased in the late 1930s by the Theodore Presser Company. The fame of the John Church Company came through the publishing of the music of John Philip Sousa. It was to Church's credit that he published American music, especially American women. Theodore Presser Company graciously allowed access to its archives for this project.
Support for this recording was provided in part by Herr Foods, Inc., Midlantic Bank, Dean Orloff, Bala Cynwyd Symphony Orchestration, Real Help Communications, Inc., Magic of Richard & Mary Ellen, Movies Unlimited, Daniel Nightingale, Joseph Rhode and Donald P. Phillips.
Cover art by Samuel Allen Zimmerman.
Jenni Frost, soprano C Julie Frost, piano
The Weeping Willow (2:23)
The Tree of Knowledge (:49)
The Little Rugged Path (1:17)
The Evening of Life (1:31)
The Flower That You Gave Me (1:20)
Home They Brought Her (4:23)
It Was A Lover and His Lass (3:14)
Because I Love You (3:20)
The Image Of The Moon At Night (1:00)
Many A Beauteous Flower (1:10)
A Coodle Doon Song (3:20)
How Do I Love Thee (2:53)
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