Song of the Day - 28th October
Today is my birthday! 21 again, natch 😀 Mark this day, for in years (or decades, or centuries) to come, when I am dead and famous, people will say "In honour of Julie Cavanagh, who would have been however many years old today, we play her beloved setting of 'To My Daughter on her Birthday'!" Well, a girl can dream, can't she?? "To My Daughter on her Birthday" was written by Thomas Hood, an English poet, author and humorist, best known for poems such as "The Bridge of Sighs" and "The Song of the Shirt". Hood wrote regularly for The London Magazine, Athenaeum, and Punch. He later published a magazine largely consisting of his own works. Hood, never robust, had lapsed into invalidism by the age of 41 and died at the age of 45. He wrote this poem for his daughter Frances for her ninth birthday, in 1839. He was to die only 6 years later. I have annotated the score so that, with a little judicious jiggery-pokery...