| |
| Id |
26590 |
| Category |
antiquarian music |
| Author / Composer |
BILLINGTON, Thomas (1754-1832?) |
| Title |
Gray's Elegy, set to music by Thomas Billington, Opera VIII, Harpsichord & Singing Master. ['Elegy written in a country church-yard'. For voice and piano]. |
| Place |
London |
| Publisher |
Printed for the Author |
| Publication Date |
[1786?] |
| ISBN / Plate No. |
|
| Series |
|
| Size |
Folio. [i (title)], 17pp. |
| Description |
Disbound, two leaves detached. Engraved. Thomas Gray’s (1716-1771) popular Elegy written in a country churchyard is set for two voices (solo and duet) and harp or piano; the epitaph is also arranged for three men’s voices on pp.16-17. The complete text is given on p.1. Thomas Billington was the brother of James who married the famous soprano Elisabeth (née Weichsel (1765-1818)). Thomas started life as a chorister at Exeter cathedral. Thomas Gray’s Elegy is one of the best loved poems in the English language; over half of its 128 lines appear in the Oxford Book of Quotations. It is thought to have been written in the churchyard at Stoke Poges Church (Buckinghamshire, England) where the poet’s tomb is. “Billington began with chamber works, but was soon concentrating on secular cantatas for soloists, chorus and orchestra, and setting poems of consistently high quality, undeterred either by length or by unwieldy decasyllabic lines … Billington usually eked out his own fitful invention with borrowed items; Young’s Night Thoughts includes music by Handel and Arne, Gray’s Elegy (1784) music by Haydn” (New Grove). The work actually contains two airs by Haydn and one by Johann Vanhal (1739-1813). |
| Reference |
RISM A/I/1 and A/I/11 B 2674. BUC p.108. WorldCat references just 7 copies. |
| Price |
£200.00 |
|
