Deck The Halls
Thomas Oliphant
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Browse piano sheets by Thomas Oliphant on Zen Virtual Piano. Thomas Oliphant was born on 25 December 1799 at Condie, Strathearn, Perthshire, in the house of his father, Ebenezer Oliphant. He was schooled at Winchester College and by private tutors, spent a short time as a member of the Stock Exchange in London, and soon gave up commerce to devote himself to literature and music. Giving up the Stock Exchange for literature and music can be read as a calling outweighing a steady trade. In 1834 he sang bass in the chorus at the great Handel festival in Westminster Abbey, and that same year he published, under the pseudonym “Solomon Sackbut,” Comments of a Chorus Singer at the Royal Musical Festival in Westminster Abbey. He joined the Madrigal Society of London in 1830, served for forty years as its secretary and in 1871 became its president. A chorus singer who published his comments on the festival he sang in can be read as a performer who also wanted to explain what he heard. His writing on the madrigal runs from A Brief Account of the Madrigal Society in 1834 and A Short Account of Madrigals in 1836 to La Musa Madrigalesca in 1837, a book that gathers the words of about four hundred madrigals, ballets and roundelays, mostly from the Elizabethan age. In 1837 he composed the words and music of a madrigal, “Stay one Moment, gentle Sires,” which he produced as the work of a seventeenth-century composer, Blasio Tomasi, and as such it was performed at the anniversary festival of the Madrigal Society. Passing off his own madrigal as an older composer’s work suggests he knew the style of that period well enough to imitate it. For some years he worked on cataloguing the music held in the British Museum, and now and then he gave public lectures on musical subjects. Among his works is “Deck the Halls,” in Welsh Melodies (1862). A man who catalogued music, lectured on it and is credited with “Deck the Halls” can be read as someone at home both in the library and in the songbook.
Browse piano sheets by Thomas Oliphant on Zen Virtual Piano.
Thomas Oliphant was born on 25 December 1799 at Condie, Strathearn, Perthshire, in the house of his father, Ebenezer Oliphant. He was schooled at Winchester College and by private tutors, spent a short time as a member of the Stock Exchange in London, and soon gave up commerce to devote himself to literature and music. Giving up the Stock Exchange for literature and music can be read as a calling outweighing a steady trade.
In 1834 he sang bass in the chorus at the great Handel festival in Westminster Abbey, and that same year he published, under the pseudonym “Solomon Sackbut,” Comments of a Chorus Singer at the Royal Musical Festival in Westminster Abbey. He joined the Madrigal Society of London in 1830, served for forty years as its secretary and in 1871 became its president. A chorus singer who published his comments on the festival he sang in can be read as a performer who also wanted to explain what he heard.
His writing on the madrigal runs from A Brief Account of the Madrigal Society in 1834 and A Short Account of Madrigals in 1836 to La Musa Madrigalesca in 1837, a book that gathers the words of about four hundred madrigals, ballets and roundelays, mostly from the Elizabethan age. In 1837 he composed the words and music of a madrigal, “Stay one Moment, gentle Sires,” which he produced as the work of a seventeenth-century composer, Blasio Tomasi, and as such it was performed at the anniversary festival of the Madrigal Society. Passing off his own madrigal as an older composer’s work suggests he knew the style of that period well enough to imitate it.
For some years he worked on cataloguing the music held in the British Museum, and now and then he gave public lectures on musical subjects. Among his works is “Deck the Halls,” in Welsh Melodies (1862). A man who catalogued music, lectured on it and is credited with “Deck the Halls” can be read as someone at home both in the library and in the songbook.
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Thomas Oliphant
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At Condie, Strathearn, Perthshire, on 25 December 1799, in the house of his father, Ebenezer Oliphant.
He joined the Madrigal Society of London in 1830, was its secretary for forty years and became its president in 1871.
“Stay one Moment, gentle Sires,” a madrigal Oliphant composed in 1837, words and music, and produced as the work of a seventeenth-century composer, Blasio Tomasi.