Editor's Picks
Featured Art Song: The Moon Behind the Cottonwood
Music: Charles Wakefield Cadman
Words: Nelle Richmond Eberhart
Best known for his pioneering efforts at researching native American music, Cadman is an important
early twentieth century composer whose most successful work, the art song At Dawning, reached
publication totals matching those of the more successful popular songs. The Moon Behind the Cottonwood
is taken from his cycle of songs for all four voice parts entitled The Morning of the Year, written
in 1910. Its insistent accompaniment and wistful harmonies form a powerful evocation of thoughts of longing
on a summer night.
Featured Popular Song: Meet Me To-night
Music: Leo Friedman
Words: Tell Taylor
Friedman's most enduring song is Let Me Call You Sweetheart but this song incorporates an even
better tune, and is perfectly evocative of the era in which it was written. In our experience the composer
is one of the more consistent popular songwriters of his day, and our listing includes arrangements of the
chorus of this song for both male (barbershop) and mixed quartet.
Featured Composers
Featured Art Song Composer: Charles Beach Hawley (1858-1915)
Born in Connecticut, Hawley spent most of his career in New York City, where he worked as a bass soloist and choir director for several important churches. Almost completely forgotten today, he wrote hundreds of art songs and sacred songs. We feel strongly that these charming and tuneful miniatures deserve a fresh hearing by twenty-first century audiences.
Featured Popular Song Composer: Louis A. Hirsch (1887-1924)
Trained as a concert pianist, Hirsch worked as a demonstrator in Tin Pan Alley music shops before launching a successful career as a songwriter of popular songs and music for early Broadway shows. Collaborating with some surprising lyricists (such as P.G. Wodehouse and Earl Derr Biggers), he produced some of the finest popular music of his day. How Hirsch can have been overlooked by the Songwriters Hall of Fame will forever remain a mystery to us, as we feel that his best work ranks with that of Kern and Gershwin.