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The Worlds of Gilbert and Sullivan

Home! Sweet Home! is probably one of the most endearing and enduring popular songs of all time. It has been, and still is, one of the favourites (for both audiences and artists) in concert halls, pubs, clubs, drawing room soirées, sing-alongs, church halls, and on orchestral platforms.

The tune was composed by Henry R Bishop in 1821. Using a libretto by the American lyricist John Howard Payne, Henry arranged it as a 'Sicilian' song to be included in his opera Clari, or The Maid of Milan, performed in the Theatre Royal Covent Garden on 8th May 1823. The song was sung in the part of Clari by the soprano Maria Tree. It immediately became a tremendous hit and has remained so ever since. Clari was the first opera to be staged in Australia in 1834. The tune mysteriously appeared (altered) in Donizetti's opera Anna Bolena, which brought an action from Bishop for 'piracy and breach of copyright'.

In fact it is almost certainly the most famous encore. It was a favourite of the great Italian operatic soprano Adelina Patti (1843-1919) who performed it specially for the US President James Buchanan. The 'Swedish Nightingale' Jenny Lind (1820-1887) sang it in all her concerts from 1850. And the distinguished Australian prima donna Dame Nellie Melba (1861-1931) whose concert audiences insisted on the song as her encore by chanting 'Home Sweet Home!' to return her to the platform, obliged at every performance. Its fame continues as an orchestral solo in The Last Night of the Proms, where audiences tenderly join in with the poignant strains.

Home! Sweet Home!
(Brief Intro)

Mid pleasures and Palaces
Though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble,
There's no place like home!
A charm from the skies
Seems to hallow us there,
Which seek through the world,
Is ne'er met with elsewhere.

Home! Home! sweet sweet Home!
There's no place like Home!
There's no place like . . . Home!
(Very brief Interlude)

An exile from Home!
Splendour dazzles in vain.
Oh! give me my lowly thatch'd 
Cottage again!
The Birds singing gaily
That came at my call,
Give me them with the peace of mind
Dearer to all.

Home! Home! sweet sweet Home!
There's no place like Home!
There's no place like . . . Home!

We hope you enjoyed it and sang along with Henry, John, Adelina, Jenny, and Dame Nellie, and all the others down the ages who helped to make 'Home! Sweet Home!' such a superb encore . . .

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