Sir Henry Rowley Bishop (1787 – 1855) was an English
composer from the early Romantic era. He is most famous
for the songs "Home! Sweet Home!" and "Lo! Hear the
Gentle Lark." He was the composer or arranger of some
120 dramatic works, including 80 operas, light operas,
cantatas, and ballets. Bishop was Knighted in 1842.
Bishop worked for all the major theatres of London in
his era – including the Royal Opera House at Covent
Garden, the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Vauxhall Gardens
and the Haym...(+)
Sir Henry Rowley Bishop (1787 – 1855) was an English
composer from the early Romantic era. He is most famous
for the songs "Home! Sweet Home!" and "Lo! Hear the
Gentle Lark." He was the composer or arranger of some
120 dramatic works, including 80 operas, light operas,
cantatas, and ballets. Bishop was Knighted in 1842.
Bishop worked for all the major theatres of London in
his era – including the Royal Opera House at Covent
Garden, the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Vauxhall Gardens
and the Haymarket Theatre, and was Professor of Music
at the universities of Edinburgh and Oxford. His second
wife was the noted soprano Anna Bishop, who scandalised
British society by leaving him and conducting an open
liaison with the harpist Nicolas-Charles Bochsa until
the latter's death in Sydney.
His most successful operas were The Virgin of the Sun
(1812), The Miller and his Men (1813), Guy Mannering
(1816), and Clari, or the Maid of Milan (1823). Clari,
with a libretto by the American John Howard Payne,
included the song Home! Sweet Home!, which became
enormously popular. In 1852 Bishop 'relaunched' the
song as a parlour ballad. It was popular in the United
States throughout the American Civil War and after.
"Home! Sweet Home!" is a song adapted from American
actor and dramatist John Howard Payne's 1823 opera
Clari, or the Maid of Milan. The song's melody was
composed by Englishman Sir Henry Bishop with lyrics by
Payne. Bishop had earlier published a more elaborate
version of this melody, naming it "A Sicilian Air", but
he later confessed to having written it himself.
As early as 1827, this song was quoted by Swedish
composer Franz Berwald in his Konzertstück for Bassoon
and Orchestra (middle section, marked Andante). Gaetano
Donizetti used the theme in his opera Anna Bolena
(1830) Act 2, Scene 3 as part of Anna's Mad Scene to
underscore her longing for her childhood home. It is
also used with Sir Henry Wood's Fantasia on British Sea
Songs and in Alexandre Guilmant's Fantasy for organ Op.
43, the Fantaisie sur deux mélodies anglaises, both of
which also use "Rule, Britannia!". In 1857
composer/pianist Sigismond Thalberg wrote a series of
variations for piano (op. 72) on the theme of "Home!
Sweet Home!". The song was reputedly banned from being
played in Union Army camps during the American Civil
War for being too redolent of hearth and home and so
likely to incite desertion. Bishop's tune, though, is
perhaps most commonly recognized in the score from
MGM's The Wizard of Oz. The melody is played in a
counterpart to "Over the Rainbow" in the final scene as
Dorothy (played by Judy Garland), after she had
returned from the Land of Oz, tells her family,
"there's no place like home".
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home!_Sweet_Home!).
Although originally composed for Voice & Piano, I
created this Arrangement of "Home, Sweet Home" from the
opera "Clari, or the Maid of Milan" for Flute & Concert
(Pedal) Harp.
