The Witching Hour Arrives...

It's October! That means we can start with Halloween-themed posts, right? 

     I was recently made aware of the fact that there are a number of sheet music covers with witches in the Lester S. Levy Collection at the Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries Special Collections. So just in time for Halloween, I'll share some of them here! 

     The Celebrated Witches Dance crops up in sheet music archives across the country, especially this edition transcribed by Wm. Vincent Wallace, and printed in New York City in the 1850s.
      Originally titled "Le Streghe," or The Witches, it was published in 1813 for violin accompanied by piano. (You can hear and see a performance of the original arrangement here.) The flighty staccato notes and quick runs punctuated by longer, more melodic sections definitely evokes what the cover to the right depicts. 
     This edition was published by William Hall & Son in New York City. Hall seems typical of sheet music publishers during the mid 1850s - he not only published this Americanized European classical music, but sold the instruments (pianos, guitars, melodeons, and woodwinds) to play it. 

Snakes, lizards, bats, and cauldrons: this image has it all. And we all know the fiddle is the devil's instrument, so it's no surprise he's playing, but who's that other fellow in the tree? Paganini? 

     Dedicated to composer and violin virtuoso Nicolo Paganini, this work inspired by The Celebrated Witches' Dance was apparently first performed in London. The inside reads, "It is however due to state, that among some composers of eminence in the British Capital, the celebrated Thomas Welsh, Esq. has treated the Italian subject, but was compelled to leave it unfinished in consequence of numerous avocations, and at his earnest and complimentary request, A.P. Heinrich continued & completed it." 

Thomas Welsh, 1831. Original engraving from the British Museum, London.

A.P. Heinrich

     Thomas Welsh was born in 1780 in England, and by the age of six was singing in the choir. He performed professionally in the opera and theater as a young man, and by 1796, started composing music. He then taught and published music, and died in England in 1848. 
     A.P. Heinrich was born in Bohemia in 1781, and floated back and forth between Europe and the United States. (Heinrich has popped up in other research I'm doing, and I promise there will be more on him later...) 

     The original of this piece was probably performed sometime between 1827 and 1832, when Heinrich was in London and Welsh owned the publishing for the Royal Harmonic Institution where it was first performed. This American version may have been performed as early as 1831, when Mrs. Sophia Ostinelli played a benefit for Mr. James Kendall. 

Here, the devil on a white horse chases the witch on her broomstick as bats flock around them. And is that a cherub? 

      The Witches Flight; Galop Caprice is another tune with force and might, that gives the sense of a witch on a broomstick, zipping through the air.  I couldn't find a lot about H.M. Russell or this piece of music. 

"Sisters all embrace, midnight comes apace,
Hasten our decoys for the human race,
We have all combined, 
With our arts refined,
and our magic spells, To bewitch mankind. .... 
We must bait our traps. 
Ere the night elapse
or our victims wake from their morning naps."

     From 1880, this song warns of the dangers of the four witches - women, wine, gold, and fame. The composer, Harry Banks, seems to have been based in St. Louis and wrote a few other pieces that I could find. 

And there is one more cover, but it get's a whole different post... Stay tuned.