The Valley below, together with Sterne's Maria

While George Willig’s sheet music credits Ignaz Pleyel, most sources identify James Hook (1746-1827) as the composer of the sentimental love song, “The Valley Below.” The song was probably written around 1799, first performed at Vauxhall Gardens in London, and published as sheet music (Hook, She Lives; Schnapper 501). In New York it appeared in The Ladies Magazine and Musical Repository (1801) (Wolfe, Secular Music #4189-92). The theme is love at first sight and, like many songs of this nature, the lyrics glorify rural life. The text appeared in eighteen songsters between 1803 and 1820 (R. Keller, Early American Songsters).

“Sterne’s Maria” is a melancholic young girl in Laurence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey (1768). Living with her mother in Moulines, France, her father has died, she has been deserted by her lover, and she fears for her sanity. The episode displays Sterne’s romantic interest in exploring human feelings.

Maria’s lament was expressed in poetry and then set to music by at least two composers, Englishman John Moulds (d. 1801?) and an anonymous composer (Schnapper 697, 1026; Wolfe, Secular Music #6165-70, #8606). In America, William Dunlap and Victor Pelissier wrote an opera on the same theme that was published in 1799 (Porter, With an Air 490). The text appeared in fifty-six songsters between 1788 and 1820 (R. Keller, Early American Songsters).

“The Rose,” like “The Valley Below,” is a suitor’s song, an encounter ending with an unanswered request. Using the rose as a metaphor for himself, the suitor speaks to the flower, asking to be similarly positioned on his lover’s breast. The song was written by John Bray (1782-1822), an English actor, playwright-translator, and composer who came to Philadelphia in 1805 to perform with the Chestnut Street Company. In 1814 he and his wife moved to Boston and were connected with the theater there until 1820 or later (Wolfe, Secular Music 128-29). This song was written before 1807, as its title was used in the publicity for Bray’s Il Ammonitore dell’Amore; or, Love’s Remembrancer (1807) (Wolfe, Secular Music #1330-36a). The text appeared in twenty-eight songsters between 1808 and 1820 (R. Keller, Early American Songsters).