Sweet Nell

Lyricist. Desmond Carter

Publisher. Chappell & Co., Harms Inc.

Date. 1926

Key/Range. E♭ Major (c' -- e♭" [g” ossia])

This song was composed for the 1926 opening of the Plaza Theatre, Paramount Studios’ premiere movie palace in London. Frank Tours was hired as the music director for the Plaza, which involved composing music to be performed live for films (which were still silent at that time) in addition to music for the pre-screening entertainment. “Sweet Nell” is an homage to Nell Gwyn, the woman who during the British Restoration (late-17th century) rose from being a poor orange seller to becoming a celebrated actress on the London stage and then the mistress of Charles II and a figure of renown. Her story was the subject of the film Nell Gwyn starring Dorothy Gish, and Tours’ song was likely also woven into the scoring for the film. The music is a tender and elegant waltz that could have been composed 25 years earlier and thus was likely considered a plausible musical icon for a historical figure in a 1920s costume drama, despite the setting for the movie being from a period 200 years earlier.