Music
In the nineteenth century, most sources for the lyrics do not include music, and those that do often include music different from what has become the standard melody. Cecil Sharp's Folk Songs from Somerset (1905) contains two different melodies for the song, both distinct from the now-standard melody.
In 1909, English composer Frederic Austin wrote an arrangement, published by Novello & Co., in which he added, to a traditional melody, his own 2-bar motif for "Five gold rings". The melody from Austin's arrangement has since become standard. Austin's was also one of the earliest, and possibly the earliest, to substitute "Four calling birds" for the earlier "Colly birds".
Read more about this topic: The Twelve Days Of Christmas (song)
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around—the music and the ideas.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“The harp that once through Tara’s halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls As if that soul were fled.”
—Thomas Moore (1779–1852)