Charles Dickens and Music

The numerous songs and vocal works referred to by Dickens in his novels and other writings furnish perhaps the most interesting, certainly the most instructive, branch of this s...

Set to the tune of 'Greensleeves,' which dates from 1580. This tune is twice mentioned by Shakespeare in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. An earlier 'Tyburn' version is a song enti...

The attempts to instil the elements of music into Charles Dickens when he was a small boy do not appear to have been attended with success. Mr. Kitton tells us that he learnt th...

We find several references to the flute, and Dickens contrives to get much innocent fun out of it. First comes Mr. Mell, who used to carry his instrument about with him and who,...

Dickens presents us with such an array of characters who reckon singing amongst their various accomplishments that it is difficult to know where to begin. Perhaps the marvellous...

Will you come to the Bower I've shaded for you, Our bed shall be roses, all spangled with dew. Will you, will you, will you, will you come to the Bower? Will you, will you, will...

Dickens has not much to say about church music as such, but the references are interesting, inasmuch as they throw some light upon it during the earlier years of his life. In _O...

Dickens' orchestras are limited, both in resources and in the number of performers; in fact, it would be more correct to call them combinations of instruments. Some of them are...

Many musical instruments and terms are mentioned by way of illustration. Blathers, the Bow Street officer (_O.T._), plays carelessly with his handcuffs as if they were a pair of...

'Do you recollect the date,' said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at me, and taking up his pen to note it down, 'when the bull got into the china warehouse and did so much mischief?'

Nae falsehood to dread, nae malice to fear, But truth to delight me, and kindness to cheer; O' a' roads to pleasure that ever were tried, There's nane half so sure as one's own...

Beside that cottage porch A girl was on her knees; She held aloft a snowy scarf Which fluttered in the breeze. She breath'd a prayer for him, A prayer he could not hear; But he...

Thrown on the wide world, doom'd to wander and roam, Bereft of his parents, bereft of his home, A stranger to pleasure, to comfort and joy, Behold little Edmund, the poor Peasan...

And you needn't, Mr. Venus, be your black bottle, For surely I'll be mine, And we'll take a glass with a slice of lemon in it, to which you're partial, For auld lang syne.