Sung by Derek B. Scott, Professor of Critical Musicology, University of Leeds, to his own piano accompaniment. Professor Scott comments that his song was an early success for singer Stephen Adams (real name, Michael Maybrick) who became the publisher Boosey’s most popular composer by the end of the 1880s, even though he wrote mainly for the male voice. In “The Little Hero,” which is a long narrative ballad, we find Adams modifying the strophic structure to include a recitative-like section in which the young boy prays. A section of quasi-recitative just before the third verse was a feature of some of his later songs, for instance, "The Star of Bethlehem" (1887) and "The Holy City" (1892).
Bibliography
Scott, Derek B. The Singing Bourgeois: Songs of the Victorian Drawing Room and Parlour. 2nd ed. Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001.
Last modified 7 September 2007