| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
STORIES OF
Malibran and Anna Tree, to whom they were respectively dedicated. The melody of " Kath-leen Mavourneen," according to Crouch, came as an inspiration one day when he was riding along the banks of the Tamar. Soon after-wards he sang it at Plymouth—for he was a capital ballad singer—and for more than half a century it has continued to find a place in con-cert programmes. The Queen of Song, Adelina Patti, often gives it to this day. But although the song is said to have brought in profits to the extent of fifteen thousand pounds it did not enrich the composer who only received a small sum down for it originally. Sb hard were the times with Crouch, and so unwind his country to him, that he who was a friend of the great Rossini when George the Fourth was king, had to emigrate to America in 1849 to earn a living. But matters did not seem to mend, and he was reported to be starving at Baltimore some few years ago when subscriptions were raised for his relief. Apparently the tide turned at last, for in the early autumn of 1892 a grand banquet,was given in honour of the anniversary of the veteran's birthday at Portland, in the State of Maine, when the grand old composer sang his own glorious song, he being then eighty-four years of age.
162 |
||