Click on arrow to hear the song performed by Derek B. Scott, Professor of Critical Musicology, University of Leeds, to his own piano accompaniment.
Professor Scott explains that after having leaving London temporarily in the mid-1830s, Russell became the first of many Jewish composers to have a huge impact on popular music. This song was first published in New York, where John Singer Sargent was inspired to thoughts of adventure while gazing at ships sailing into the Battery harbour.
It became one of Russell's most popular songs in the UK and USA, and was republished continually throughout the next few decades. In the UK, today, the melody remains well known as the regimental march of the Royal Marines (who adopted it in 1889).
Bibliography
Scott, Derek B. The Singing Bourgeois: Songs of the Victorian Drawing Room and Parlour. 2nd ed. Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001.
Created 7 January 2016