Hush-a-By, Sweetie

Lyricist. Edward Oxenford

Publisher. Novello & Co.

Date. 1903

Key/Range. A♭ Major (e♭' -- a♭")

COMMENTARY

Tours’ only song published by Novello, his father’s company. The lyricist Edward Oxenford (born in 1848 and not to be confused with Edward deVere, Earl of Oxford) was a prolific poet and librettist who wrote over 2,000 lyrics for songs and contributed the texts for more than fifty operas and cantatas (his best-known lyric in the twentieth century is the English translation of “Funicula, Funiculi”). “Hush-a-by, Sweetie” is a lullaby of both musical and lyrical sweetness with no explicit suggestion of parental anxiety that is common in the genre. Accordingly, the piano dynamic throughout is accurate and should be observed. The verses are set with two contrasting sections of eight measures and the refrain is half that length. Tours fashioned a codetta from two measures of the verse, a welcome reprise of the most attractive melodic material in the song.