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The Reputation of Thomas Moore in the Belfast Newsletter

An interesting indication of Thomas Moore’s reputation is discovered by consulting historical newspapers. The Belfast Newsletter, as the major source of news and reviews for the city of Belfast since 1828, offers a view of Moore’s profile in a neighbouring city to his birth-place of Dublin. It’s notable that coverage during Moore’s life was more often confined to short references in passing to him, but the final decades of the nineteenth century yielded a few detailed considerations, including a substantial article, “RECOLLECTIONS OF THE POET MOORE”, apparently written by one who had met the poet  in 1830 through an acquaintance struck with Moore’s sister Ellen:

…  I learned she was Miss Ellen Moore, a sister of the  famous Thomas; and great I remember was my gratification when I received one evening an invitation to drink tea with her. … Upon a certain evening I observed preparations being carried on for an entertainment of a more pretentious character; and I learned that Mr. Thomas Moore, having arrived that morning in Dublin, was expected to join our company. A large party was assembled to meet him. I must own to feeling great astonishment at his appearance, as, if his sister was small, he was smaller still-that is, for a man. He was what Charles Dickens would have called a “mite.” He came into the room on tiptoe, at a sort of run, with his head thrown back; and first he kissed his sister Ellen most affectionately, then he kissed nearly every other pretty girl he could get at. His manner was delightfully frank, genial, and winning. He was full of the gossip of the day, and looked like a well-to-do little gentleman who had no other occupation except amusing himself. …  In society it was almost impossible to get at him: for he was generally the centre of a perfect galaxy of petticoats. All the prettiest women seemed to fondle and caress him, and treat him much as they would a large wax doll; but when he sang, as he did on that particular evening, two of his famous melodies, the “Last Rose of Summer.” and “Oft in the stilly Night” there was a sensation, a flatter, and a tendency to hysterical emotion instantly perceptible …  I cannot attempt to describe either the singing or its electrical effect …

The writer continues by affirming Moore’s standing within Dublin high society at the time:

He was in prodigious request at that time, I remember, in Dublin. The Marchioness of Normandy used to send her carriage to fetch him out for airings in the Phoenix Park, and he was continually receiving invitations to dine with the Lord Lieutenant, or Lord Morpeth, then the Secretary. A covered car, which is a species of conveyance peculiar to Dublin, used to fetch him to these entertainments …

Moore’s reputation extended to his person, for according to this account

In all the relations of private life Mr. Moore’s conduct was unexceptionable ; a better husband, a kinder father never existed; and he allowed his only sister, at whose house I made his acquaintance, out of his own slender income, sufficient for her comfortable support. … –Belgravia

(Belfast Newsletter, 29 December 1874)

Moore was still a subject of academic interest in Belfast over forty years after his death. Reporting on the second of a series of four lectures on Ireland’s contribution  delivered by the Rev. C. E. Pike at the First Presbyterian Church, Holywood, the Belfast Newsletter (10 January 1898) recorded the following claim:

Moore is a lyrical poet, and he is one of the greatest of our lyrical poets. No one can read ” The Irish Peasant to his Mistress,” or that weird pathetic wail, ” 0, ye Dead,” without perceiving that though Moore uses English and purer English he has filled it with a passion which is not English; which is rather the transmitted feeling of a long-subjugated race, which has suffered in mute patience, and found consolation in dreams.

This affirmation of Moore’s Irishness – not universally perceived in the decades following his death –  is an interesting facet of his posthumous reputation.

All newspaper quotes sourced from https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/, 29 April 2018.

An Oriental Romance : Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh.

In an earlier blog post, Tríona O’Hanlon announced the immediate airing of  the ERIN radio documentary “An oriental romance: Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh” on RTÉ Lyric. An icloud account for this recording is now available at:

https://soundcloud.com/the-lyric-feature/an-oriental-romance-thomas-moores-lalla-rookh

Technician & Technical Assistant: Dr David Bird (QUB), Oisín Hughes (QUB)

Producer & Presenter: Claire Cunningham (Rockfinch Ltd.)

 

This documentary, which marked the 200th anniversary of the first edition, includes excerpts of rarely-heard music inspired by Thomas Moore’s ‘oriental romance’. Mezzo soprano Helen Aiken and pianist Aoife O’Sullivan perform works by Victorian composer John Francis Barnett, the American Moravian composer George Klemm, as well as from the work that launched Robert Schumann as a composer of substance – Das Paradies und die Peri (1843). The reception of the first Irish performance of this work is discussed by Anja Bunzel, a recent PhD candidate of NUI Maynooth. We hear the mezzo soprano Martha O’Brien rehearsing Mozart-student Thomas Attwood’s cantata “Her hands were clasp’d” with O’Sullivan and Sinéad Campbell-Wallace of the Dublin Institute of Technology. Martha later performs George Kiallmark’s “Farewell to thee Araby’s Daughter” from an original edition issued by Moore’s publisher James Power. BMUS students from Queen’s University of Belfast (flautists Poppy Wheeler and Ciara Jackson, accompanied by Jenny Garrett on piano)  perform an arrangement of Sir John Stevenson’s tender response to Moore’s “‘Twas his own voice”- a text that marks a pivotal moment in the story of the star-crossed lovers Hinda and Hafed. Further contributions on  Moore’s ‘oriental romance’ itself and its cultural context are provided by Drs Daniel Roberts,   Sarah McCleave, and Tríona O’Hanlon (Queen’s University Belfast), while librarians Síobhan Fitzpatrick (Royal Irish Academy) and Gerry Long (National Library of Ireland) discuss works by Moore in their collections; the Royal Irish Academy possesses a significant portion of Moore’s own library, which is available for consultation.

 

 

 

 

Resources for Thomas Moore in the Digital Age: Music, Illustrations, and Stories

On Monday 28 May 2018 (the day of Moore’s birth in 1779), Sarah McCleave will introduce the resources of project ERIN in a public talk, “Thomas Moore in the digital age: music, illustrations, stories”, as part of the ‘Meet the Music Series’ for  Queen’s University Belfast. This will take place at 19:00 in the Old McMordie Hall, Music (University Square, Belfast). Sound files, image banks, and the catalogue will be introduced to those present. (The catalogue now has 500 of a projected circa 800 publications entered into it.) ALL are welcome and no tickets are required.

Peri with dead lovers.Jones and Warren
Peri with dead lovers.Jones and Warren

Image courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Queen’s University Belfast

Readers of the blog are reminded that the image banks (four collections) and associated narrative online exhibitions are already available  (http://omeka.qub.ac.uk/). NEWLY available are the texts and powerpoints from four presentations undertaken by Triona O’Hanlon and Sarah McCleave during May-June 2017: see the Queen’s University Belfast open access institutional repository, https://pure.qub.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/sarah-mccleave [‘Publications’ 2017].

Future posts of the blog in 2018 will make available some  recordings of the Irish Melodies featuring young singers from the BMUS at Queen’s; we will also offer features on particular pieces which can be traced across project ERIN’s resources.

New lyrics to the Irish Melodies

Project ERIN, through the OMEKA exhibition ‘Music to Moore’s Irish Melodies in Dublin and London’ (http://omeka.qub.ac.uk/exhibits/), documents the manner in which the Irish Melodies were reissued with new piano accompaniments once the copyright for the original series had expired. In all these publications Moore’s original poetry is preserved, although there is on occasion some editing of the rhythms of his melodies — which we might note were already carefully adapted by Moore from the normally instrumentally-orientated versions that were available to him. Our OMEKA exhibition ‘Moore’s Irish Melodies in Europe’ traces the publication of collected editions of Moore’s lyrics across space (Europe) and time (between 1808-1880). Most editions of the lyrics alone are in English, and faithfully preserve Moore’s poetry. The translations in Latin (Nicholas Torre) and Irish (John MacHale Archbishop of Tuam) retain the poetic form and style of Moore’s original, while Louise Swanton Belloc’s translation of these lyrics into French are rendered as prose paraphrases of the original.  Moore’s Irish Melodies also inspired purely instrumental arrangements of the tunes he had selected, where the tribute to Moore is indicated by preserving either his title or incipit- as was the case with George Schultz’s The favorite Irish melody Fly not yet, arranged as a rondo for the harp (London, c. 1815), or William Vincent Wallace’s pianoforte variations, Last Rose of Summer (London, 1846).

Given the strong association of the poet with the series, it may seem surprising that some of the responses to Moore’s Irish Melodies were in the way of songs preserving the tunes of the original but offering new lyrics. One such example was Music for the Million: consisting of the words and music with accompaniments for the piano-forte flute violin &c. of the most popular & standard songs … including …  new versions of the celebrated Irish Melodies by William Leman Rede, Esq. Issued in London by Berger of Holywell Street circa 1850, this volume included no fewer than 24 of ‘Moore’s’ Irish Melodies, with new lyrics by Rede himself or his sister, Mary Leman Rede. These often seemed to draw close inspiration from Moore’s original: for example, Moore’s  “Oh! Breathe not his name” (widely understood as an ode to the late Robert Emmett) inspired Rede’s “Oh! Come to the tomb”, which tells of a devoted friend in mourning. The Musical Bijou, an Album of Music, Poetry and Prose, was edited by F.H. Burney and issued annually by the London-based firm Goulding & D’Almaine between 1839 and 1845. Some volumes contain tributes to Moore’s Irish Melodies by offering fresh arrangements as solo songs or duets with entirely new lyrics — often written by one D. Ryan. Ryan (as did the siblings Rede), drew closely on the sentiments of Moore’s original lyrics – taking  ‘The Meeting of the Waters’, Moore’s tribute to friendship and its power to forge fond memories of a place – and rendering it as a duet with the title,‘The Home of Contentment’:

By the side of a fountain embosom’d in trees

Where the wild rose entices the kiss of the bees,

There lies with its blue smoke ascending above

My dear home of contentment, of Friendship and Love

My dear Home of contentment, of Friendship and Love.

D. Ryan, in The Musical  Bijou (1841), p. 36 (1st verse only)

 

 

 

A taster of ERIN’s collection of sound files

Lalla Rookh with Feramorz in the Vale of Cashmere

Lalla Rookh and Feramorz in the Vale of Cashmere

Image courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Queen’s University Belfast

A collection of no fewer than forty-one sound files from three performance events, promoted by and supported by project ERIN, will be made available soon through our project website. The first was a Lalla Rookh bi-cententary concert performed (and also recorded) by year 3 students in the BMus of Queen’s University Belfast, which took place in the Harty Room on 11 May 2017. We re-told the story of Lalla Rookh through a selection of songs and pieces taken from larger works inspired by, or based on, Moore’s oriental romance. The selected recording is an arrangement of the ‘Slow March’ from Frederic Clay’s 1877 cantata Lalla Rookh, performed here by flautists Ciara Jackson and Poppy Wheeler, violinist Linzi Jones, and clarinettist Gerard Mullay. The recording engineer is Jason Jackson.

Further audio files from this concert feature the music of Félicien David, Robert Schumann, Thomas Attwood, Charles Villiers Stanford, and Sir John Stevenson, among others.

The second sound file is taken from the second concert to mark the bi-centenary of Lalla Rookh, at the Sonic Lab in SARC, Queen’s University Belfast, on 17 June 2017. Performers Helen Aiken (mezzo), Martha O’Brien (mezzo), and Aoife O’Sullivan (piano) performed music by Schumann, Stanford, John Francis Barnett and George Kiallmark, among others. Fiddle player Conor Caldwell provided a medley of his own arrangements and those of Tommy Potts to tunes associated with Thomas Moore. In the sample provided here, Helen Aiken and Aoife O’Sullivan (as recorded by David Bird) perform Danish composer George Gerson’s  “Tell me not of joys above”. The lyrics are derived from an episode near the end of  Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh: the princess and her beloved poet are estranged; he sings this touching song to her whilst hidden in a tree.

Over thirty additional tracks — many of music that is rarely heard — will be available on the project website soon. We will also offer some recordings of favorite Irish Melodies in distinct settings or editions.

The future of Project ERIN

ERIN completes its funded stage today, 31 August 2017. We are grateful to the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, co-funded by the European Union, for the opportunity to work on such interesting material, and to make it available to the public.

The website for project ERIN will be launched during autumn 2017. It will serve as an ‘open access’ gateway to the following resources, some of which are already available through sites hosted by Queen’s University Belfast:

– four collections published on the OMEKA platform

– four exhibits published on the OMEKA platform

– a collection of forty-one sound files, taken from two concerts to mark the bicentenary of Lalla Rookh as well as a selection of Irish Melodies

– a catalogue of over 800 published sources of Moore’s music, drawn from no fewer than eight European repositories

– the project blog, ‘Thomas Moore in Europe’

The blog will continue to appear at least once a month to serve these functions:

1. To advise our readers regarding the publication of outputs such as the radio documentary on Lalla Rookh
2. To make available certain outputs, such as our lecture for the SMI Plenary conference in June 2017.
3. To report on progress regarding on-going outputs such as the catalogue or a planned anthology of essays, “Thomas Moore and the Global Marketplace”
4. To highlight particular items in the collections or the catalogue

Image courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Queen’s University Belfast

Irish Melodies [music and illustrations].London London, [1880].Frontispiece

Launching ERIN’S Collections and Exhibitions

We are pleased to launch four collections and four exhibitions on the OMEKA platform, as hosted by Special Collections & Archives, Queen’s University Belfast at the following link: http://omeka.qub.ac.uk

The collections, comprising a total of over 200 items largely drawn from the Moore Collection at Queen’s, are as follows:

Music to Moore’s Irish Melodies

Moore’s Irish Melodies: Texts and Illustrations
Moore’s National Airs in Europe
Lalla Rookh in 19th-century Europe

The exhibits are as follows:
Music to Moore’s Irish Melodies in Dublin and London
Moore’s Irish Melodies in Europe
The dissemination of Moore’s National Airs in Europe
The tales and travels of Lalla Rookh

 

Image courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Queen’s University Belfast

Lalla Rookh
Lalla Rookh drawn by Kenny Meadows, engraved by J. Hollis

 

 

The response of illustrators and engravers to Thomas Moore

All of Thomas Moore’s works featured in project ERIN – the Irish Melodies, the National Airs, and Lalla Rookh – were conceived to feature contributions from illustrators and engravers at an early stage. With regards to the two song series, each number thereof would sport one or two plates designed by illustrators such as as Thomas Stothard RA (“Row gently here” from the National Airs; “Lesbia hath a beaming eye” from the Irish Melodies), or William Henry Brooke (“As vanquish’d Erin”, and “Oh, ye dead!,” both from the Irish Melodies). The title pages, too each had their own illustration. These designs were executed as engravings (“a printmaking technique that involves making incisions into a metal plate which retain the ink and form the printed image” –tate.org.uk) by such as Charles Heath (1785-1848) or Henry Melville (1792-1870). While the images featured in the Irish Melodies or National Airs – whether produced by James Power in London or William Power in Dublin – were ostensibly the same (i.e. drawn by the same illustrator), the fact that the brothers employed distinct engravers is evident when copies of their works are compared. One of the most famous illustrated volume associated with Thomas Moore is the 1846 edition of the Irish Melodies as illustrated by his fellow Irishman Daniel Maclise RA (1806-1870); Maclise’s work is distinct from earlier illustrated editions in presenting one or two illustrations (or at the very least a decorative border) to each of the Melodies. The popularity of this edition (which was reissued by Longmans as late as 1876) brought Moore’s work to a new generation towards the end of his life and beyond.

Lalla Rookh has a particularly strong association with illustrators. Queen Victoria’s drawing master Richard Westall RA (1765-1836) seems to have been commissioned by the Longman firm to design Illustrations of Lalla Rookh an oriental romance—since this volume came out in the same year as Moore’s ‘oriental romance’. Charles Heath (1785-1848), also associated with illustrations for the Irish Melodies, was the engraver. More famous perhaps was the edition of Lalla Rookh with sixty-nine illustrations designed by John Tenniel (1820-1914), issued several times by Longmans between 1861 and 1880. This  edition already had a rival issued by George Routledge in 1860 that featured the illustrations of numerous artists, including George Housman Thomas (1824-1868), Kenny Meadows (1790-1874), and Edward Henry Corbould (1815-1905). Routledge promoted an illustrated edition of Moore’s Lalla Rookh until at least 1891. Some of these artists, as well as the engraver Charles Heath, were previously involved in an illustrated version of Lalla Rookh brought out by Longmans in 1838.

Much of the illustrative activity associated with Moore’s work took place in the Anglo-Irish orbit, and involved some fairly high profile artists. Project ERIN is able to document a few continental works with engraved illustrations, including Lalla Rookh : ein morganländisches Gedicht, translated by Johann Ludwig Witthaus and published by Schumann of Zwickau in 1822. This work, presumably intended for those with a modest book budget, has but two illustrations, both engraved by one J. Thaeter. We only have the surnames for the two illustrators – Rensch designed a frontispiece of Lalla Rookh, while Baumann designed an image depicting Aliris holding a faint Lalla Rookh after his identity as her beloved Feramorz is revealed. Even more obscure are the identities of the designer and engraver of the frontispiece to volume one of The Works of Thomas Moore, as issued in Paris by Arthus Bertrand in 1820. Depicting the prophet Mokanna unveiing himself to Zelica, this is designed by “Ch” and engraved by “Dx” (see below).

Mokanna unveils himself to Zelica.Paris,Arthus Bertrand, 1820d

Although lithography — “a printing process that uses a flat stone or metal plate on which the image areas are worked using a greasy substance so that the ink will adhere to them” (tate.org.uk) – was discovered in 1798 (britannica.com), the first known example of this technique being used to illustrate Moore is the 1860 illustrated edition of Paradise and the Peri issued by the London-based firm Day & Son. lllustrator Owen Jones (1809-1874) and illuminator Henry Warren (1794-1879) offer a luxuriously colourful response to this particular tale of Moore’s, a sample of which is produced below.

Peri with dead lovers.Jones and Warren

Images courtesy of Special Collections, Queen’s University Belfast

We conclude this blog by announcing that two electronic collections that will be available through project ERIN’s dedicated website by the end of this month are here given a ‘soft launch’ through their home site in omeka.qub.ac.uk.
Collection number 17, ‘Moore’s Irish Melodies” Texts and Illustrations”, includes numerous still images that document the efforts of the artists mentioned above, as well as others active in London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow in the Victorian era. See also ‘Lalla Rookh in 19th-century Europe’ (collection 15) for 71 images associated with that work. (A third collection, related to the National Airs, is still under development.) All of these collections will be interpreted through OMEKA exhibitions that will become available through the project ERIN website by the end of August 2017.

Performing the role of Feramorz

Guest contributor Matthew Campbell

Editor’s note: in May 2017, as part of the lunch series in Music at Queen’s University Belfast, Matthew performed a song as Feramorz from the 1877 cantata Lalla Rookh (W.G. Wills, text, and Frederic Clay, music).*

Perhaps a 19th-century Irish poet’s interpretation of the Kashmir Valley may seem far-fetched to students today, particularly as research indicates that Moore had never actually travelled to India in his lifetime. However, his telling of the fictional story ‘Lalla Rookh’ depicts a love story so exotic and beautiful that it really isn’t overly surprising that so many composers chose to realise it through music.

In our snapshot interpretation, I am performing the role of Feramorz and have the pleasure of performing a song from Frederic Clay’s interpretation entitled “I’ll Sing Thee Songs of Araby”. This is a love song which allows me to explore Feramorz character not only as a heroic King in disguise, but also an innocent young man in love.

 

LR.L1.1880a.Feramorz, LR, Fadladeen.Tenniel

Feramorz sings to Lalla Rookh, as depicted by John Tenniel.

Image courtesy of Special Collections, Queen’s University Belfast.

In Moore’s poem, Feramorz is actually the young King of Bucharia, Aliris, in disguise. He undertakes this disguise in an attempt to woo Lalla Rookh (his intended bride through an arranged marriage) with his poetry and music. Fran Pritchett expands on Moore’s interpretation of the character of Feramorz by writing, “He was a youth about Lalla Rookh’s own age, and graceful as that idol of women, Crishna, such as he appears to their young imaginations, heroic, beautiful, breathing music from his very eyes”.[1] I agree with this depiction as this is somewhat how I myself imagined the character, I would however add that I feel that Aliris’s choice of disguise was more than a cunning plan to woo Lalla Rookh, but rather a genuine act of love suggesting that royalty and riches could not make him happy if he was without the one he truly loved, and his willingness to demote himself of these privileges in an attempt to capture her heart suggest to me that he was more interested in love than materialist wealth and status. When performing as Feramorz I combined these descriptions along with my interpretation of the song to depict a character by implementing simple yet effective methods of characterisation.

My first entrance singing Clay’s song allows me to portray a young man in love as he gazes upon the beauty of Lalla Rookh. By standing up straight with my chest inched forward and my chin raised to allow my head to point upwards towards Lalla Rookh, I can use this body language to suggest a man who is confident and assured, both characteristics of a heroic character. I also interpret this through my gait, which as I move closer to Lalla Rookh is controlled and calm suggesting that I am unafraid of approaching the one I adore. Characterising a young lover is slightly more challenging and in an attempt to achieve this I have opted for subtlety rather than a form of melodrama. Simple extended arm gestures towards Lalla Rookh accompanied by the occasional gaze upon her face should be effective in establishing a form of attraction between the characters.

I also believe that nothing more than subtlety is necessary given the beautiful floating melody of the song, which in itself easily suggests romance. When I sing this song I tend to move a little more rubato than other performances I have heard and this is a personal choice as I believe it allows me to place emphasis on the emotive elements of the song and give it a hint more tenderness and feeling which will also help depict the innocent plea of a young lover. Winton Dean makes an interesting remark in his paper on recitative performance in late baroque opera noting that when singing “not only should there be no regular pulse; there should be no singing in the sense that arias are sung. Recitative was defined as a form of musical speech and should be delivered parlando, not with the full voice”.[2] Whilst I do not feel there are any elements of the song in which it would be appropriate to sing parlando, I do think there is merit in suggesting that the idea is adaptable and therefore also applies to the concept of singing rubato. Young love should not be rigid and restricted and for that reason I would see no benefit in observing every bar line, beat and rest with precise execution. Instead, I would respect the musical integrity of the piece but also give it an element of realism by feeling the mood of the song and adapting my performance appropriately whether that be through change in tempo or dynamics mostly or simply the overall pace of the piece.

When I rehearse Feramorz’s song a natural beauty occurs as I never seem to sing it exactly the same way twice.  For this to happen so freely and unplanned is an example within itself of how the song and the character can become one by simply allowing oneself to feel the song.

[1] Pritchett, F (2013) Lalla Rookh (1817), Available at: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/lallarookh/index.html#index

(Accessed: 23rd April 2017).

 

[2] Winton, D (1977) ‘The Performance of Recitative in Late Baroque Opera’, Music & Letters, 58(4), pp. 389 – 402.

 

The networks for Moore’s music

For Moore, socializing usually had an element of networking to it. His journal records various social encounters with Lord Burghersh (John Fane, 11th Earlof Westmorland), including an instance of dining with the latter in Florence on 23 October 1819. Burghersh was a keen composer, and his settings of many of Moore’s lyrics were published by Moore’s regular music publisher James Power. This working relationship surely strengthened Moore’s ties to an elite class whose support and regard were of considerable practical importance to him. Indeed, at this particular dinner Moore learned that Burghersh’s setting of the song ‘Bendemeer’s Stream’ from Lallla Rookh had inspired a translation of the song into Italian. Moore’s profile in Italy was likely enhanced by his association with Burghersh, as the latter held various diplomatic posts there between 1814 and 1831 and so would have been a man with contacts and influence.

 

Bendemeer's Stream Burghersh Title page

Image courtesy of Special Collections, McClay Library

Moore sometimes picked up gratifying news about how his works were faring while dining with his well-connected acquaintances. During his dinner at the Palais Royal (27 Feb. 1821) he learned a “rather flattering piece of news”— a month previous, the Court of Berlin had “represented in character” the story of Lalla Rookh, with Britain’s Duke of Cumberland assuming a small role as the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (the music, by Gasparo Spontini, is not mentioned in Moore’s account). The event was reported by Chateaubriand “as the most splendid & tasteful thing he had ever seen”.  A “Lady of Honour” at the Paris dinner even offered to translate the German programme for Moore’s benefit. Much later, in June 1847, Moore mentioned another production,  “founded upon ‘Lalla Rookh,’ [which] was brought out this year at the Queen’s Theatre; and the example was followed promptly by many of the minor theatres … “. Moore goes on to report performances of various settings of his songs from Lalla Rookh that had recently taken place at the Welsh singer-pianist John Parry’s May 1847 concert in the prestigious venue of London’s Hanover Square.

Moore’s journal and correspondence also record countless occasions where he networked by performing — particularly his Irish Melodies — at the London clubs (for which publisher James Power paid his membership fees) and private parties of the influential bon ton. This kind of socialising was a very profitable form of advertisement for Moore’s work, as he often acknowledged in his letters to Power.  Given his sociable nature, we can assume he did not find ‘singing for his supper’ a difficult chore.