Here's the Anglo/Irish traditional classic folk song "She Moved Through The Fair" sung by Robert Irwin the Irish Bari Irish Baritone from a 78 rpm shellac record.
"She Moved Through the Fair" (or "She Moves Through the Fair") is a traditional English Irish folk song, which exists in a number of versions and has been recorded many times. The narrator sees his lover move away from him through the fair, after telling him that since her family will approve, "it will not be long, love, 'til our wedding day". She returns as a ghost at night, and repeats the words "it will not be long, love, 'til our wedding day", intimating her own tragic death (possibly at the hands of her disapproving family), as well as the couple's potential reunion in the afterlife.
The lyrics were first published in Hughes's Irish Country Songs, published by Boosey & Hawkes in 1909.[4]
In a letter published in The Irish Times (22 April 1970)[5] Colum claimed that he was the author of all but the final verse. He also described how Herbert Hughes collected the tune and then he, Colum, had kept the last verse of a traditional song and written a couple of verses to fit the music.
One verse was not included in the first publication: Colum soon realised that he had not put in the poem the fact that the woman had died before the marriage, and so he wrote the verse that begins: "The people were saying, that no two were e'er wed, but one had a sorrow that never was said ..." and sent it on to Hughes, too late for publication in that particular collection. This extra verse was subsequently published in other collections, along with the other three verses. The lyrics were also published in Colum's collection Wild Earth: And Other Poems (1916), though their traditional origin is not mentioned there.[6]
No earlier version of the three verses written by Colum has ever been found, so there is little doubt that he is the author of those three verses.
Born: September 20, 1905 - Dublin, Ireland
Died: 1983
The Irish tenor, Robert Irwin, sang as an amateur at various music festivals in Ireland and won Gold Medal at a singing competition there in 1930.
Following that he had given concerts in Dublin and broadcasts in the Irish Radio. With the help of the famous Irish tenor John McCormack he could travel in 1937 to the USA and started then a professional singer career. He studied in London with George Reeves and appeared before the public there in concerts and in particular in Lieder recitals. During the years of World War II, he could be heard in the "National Gallery Concerts" in London, which were organised by Myra Hess. He also sang as a soloist in oratorios and sacred vocal works, however remained interpreter primarily a well-known Lieder interpreter. He participated repeatedly in broadcasts of the English Radio BBC. After his active singer career was over, he immigrated to Canada and received a Professor (Supervisor of Vocal Studies) at the University of Manitoba. He was married with the pianist Vera Stewart.
