"If thou wilt remember me" [Alice Mary Smith]

"If thou wilt remember me" [Alice Mary Smith]

Smith, Alice Mary; music (English, 1839-1884)

Rossetti, Christina Georgina; text (English, 1830-1894)

1864

genre: song

origin: United Kingdom

female composer

English

Rossetti poem(s): "Song" ("When I am dead, my dearest")

Composition history: Ives notes: "In December 1864, Rossetti wrote that 'A Miss Smith has asked and obtained Mac's leave to melodize one of my things, I know not which' (Letters 1:211, DM1). A note by John B. Wainewright in "Notes and Queries" on 10 March 1917 references Smith's setting as having preceded Malcolm Lawson's, but Wainewright could not remember the publisher (12 s. III p, 192). In his biography of Alice Mary Smith, Ian Graham-Jones notes that a letter to her contains a transcription of a press notice of her song "If thou wilt remember me" (words by Christina Rossetti) from "The Morning Post" of 10 April 1865 (22).

Format 1: musical score

In reference to the published works below: Ives DM1

Reference: Ives, Maura. Christina Rossetti: A Descriptive Bibliography. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2011.

Other data reference(s): Graham-Jones, Ian. "The Life and Music of Alice Mary Smith (1839-1884): A Woman Composer of the Victorian Era: A Critical Assessment of her Achievement." With a Foreword by Roger Parker. Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010.

Cataloguer: Stephanie Malette, University of Ottawa

Record: CRM-songwheniamdead-smith

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