'Orientalism' in parlour songs

Amy Woodforde-Finden and Adela Florence Nicholson, typified the Englishwoman Abroad, living in the colonies, but as privileged foreign observers.

It was at the age of 34, that Amy Ward had married Lt Col Woodford Woodforde-Finden a brigadier and surgeon in the Indian Army; they lived in India for several years, and it was during her time there that Amy wrote and published what would become her most famous music pieces: The Lover in Damascus and her settings of Indian Love Lyrics.

Indian Love Lyrics are poems with words by Laurence Hope, which was a pseudonym for Mrs Adela Florence Nicholson. Of the four lyrics, Kashmiri Song became the most popular.

The two ladies' examples of Victorian/Edwardian Orientalism, are arabic or asian pastiche and say more about British colonial attitudes than about the subjects themselves, but I suppose Adela and Amy's intention was to transport the reader or listener to a world of exotic romance.

Adela Nicholson was married to Colonel Malcolm Hassels Nicolson, who led a Regiment in India. Her poems often used imagery from Indian and Persian poets. She became among the most popular romantic poets of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. It was in 1901, that she published Garden of Kama which included the Indian Love Lyrics. She had attempted to pass these off as translations of various poets, but the claim was suspect. Writing mournful poems about longing and death it's quite moving to know that after her husband died Adela committed suicide by poisoning herself in Madras, India, in 1904.

Woodforde-Finden's music of the Indian Love Lyrics was originally self-published in 1902 but eventually published by Boosey & Co. In the years that followed the success of Kashmiri Song, Amy composed On Jhelum River, The Pagoda of Flowers and Stars of the Desert. In 1916 Amy lost her husband in the war in France but that same year her work was featured in the film Less Than The Dust. Woodforde-Finden may have inspired Albert Ketelbey and other British composers as well as many tin pan alley songsters who featured Oriental subjects in their popular tunes in the 1920s.

What really distinguishes the music of Woodforde-Finden from the other parlour songs of the day are the beautiful sentimental melodies.

The first example of Woodforde-Finden's music featured in my Parlour Song programmes was the Zonophone record of Less Than The Dust, sung by Foster Richardson, and with a beautifully played orchestral accompaniment. The matrix number Yy13203 suggests a date of 17 or 18 April 1928, and that the conductor may have been the Zonophone dance band leader Bert Firman who recorded (on the 18th) a couple of light music items My Dainty Lady (Leo Peter) and Community Lancers.

What a fine singer was Foster Richardson!

Listen to Less Than The Dust
(featured in Parlour Songs programme #5)

Less Than the Dust

Less than the dust, beneath thy Chariot wheel,
Less than the rust, that never stained thy Sword,
Less than the trust thou hast in me, O Lord,
Even less than these!

Less than the weed, that grows beside thy door,
Less than the speed of hours spent far from thee,
Less than the need thou hast in life of me.
Even less am I.

Since I, my Lord, am nothing unto thee,
See here thy Sword, I make it keen and bright,
Love's last reward, Death, comes to me to-night,
Farewell, Zahir-u-din.

I assume this refers to 'Babar' Zahir-u-Din Muhammad (1483-1531) a Muslim conqueror of Central Asia.


John Wright