Sweet Innisfallen (Charles Villiers Stanford)
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- Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2024-03-17). Score information: Letter, 4 pages, 384 kB Copyright: Personal
- Edition notes: This edition is the first since its original U.S. printing, transcribed and edited by the discovering researcher.
General Information
Title: Sweet Innisfallen
Composer: Charles Villiers Stanford
Lyricist: Thomas Moore
Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong, Folksong
Language: English
Instruments: A cappella
First published: 1923 Silver, Burdett and Company
Description: AIR: THE CAPTIVATING YOUTH
Commissioned for use by school choirs in the U.S., this Irish folksong setting was never published in the UK and was unknown to scholars for nearly a century.
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
(Stanford’s setting includes only stanzas 1, 2, and 8 of Moore’s nine-stanza poem.)
Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well,
May calm and sunshine long be thine!
How fair thou art let others tell,—
To feel how fair shall long be mine.
Sweet Innisfallen, long shall dwell
In memory’s dream that sunny smile,
Which o’er thee on that evening fell,
When first I saw thy fairy isle.
Weeping or smiling, lovely isle!
And all the lovelier for thy tears—
For though but rare thy sunny smile,
’Tis heav’n’s own glance when it appears.