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:
“... the majority of colored men do not yet think it worth while that women aspire to higher education.... The three R’s, a little music and a good deal of dancing, a first rate dress-maker and a bottle of magnolia balm, are quite enough generally to render charming any woman possessed of tact and the capacity for worshipping masculinity.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing.
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung, as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)