Parlour Music
"Parlour music" was popular music performed in the parlours of middle class homes by amateur singers and pianists. Disseminated as sheet music, its heyday came in the 19th century as a result of a steady increase in the number of households with enough surplus cash to purchase musical instruments and instruction in music and with the leisure time and cultural motivation to engage in recreational music-making. In contrast to the chord-based classical music, parlour music features melodies, which are harmonically independent or not determined by the harmony. Many of the earliest parlour songs were transcriptions for voice and keyboard of other music, such as Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies, which comprised traditional tunes with new lyrics. Other genres performed included arias from Italian operas, patriotic selections, religious songs, and pieces written for the musical stage, including excerpts from blackface minstrel shows. As the 19th century wore on, more and more songs were newly composed specifically for use by amateurs at home and these pieces began to develop a style all their own: similar in melodic and harmonic content to art songs of the day, but shorter and simpler in structure and making fewer technical demands on singer and accompanist. The high point of the parlour song came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in North America and the British Isles. Songs became more complex and sophisticated in their melodic and harmonic vocabulary and, in addition to their continuing use in the parlour, were also often sung in public recitals by professional singers. Characteristic and popular parlour songs include "Home, Sweet Home" by Henry Bishop with lyrics by John Howard Payne, "The Old Arm Chair" by Henry Russell, "The Lost Chord" composed by Arthur Sullivan with lyrics by Adelaide A. Proctor, and "Take Back the Heart" by Claribel (Mrs. Charlotte Barnard).
Read more about this topic: Early British Popular Music
Famous quotes containing the words parlour and/or music:
“Examples are cited by soldiers, of men who have seen the cannon pointed, and the fire given to it, and who have stepped aside from he path of the ball. The terrors of the storm are chiefly confined to the parlour and the cabin.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“So gladly, from the songs of modern speech
Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,
And through the music of the languid hours,
They hear like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.”
—Andrew Lang (1844–1912)