Click on arrow to hear the song performed by Derek B. Scott, Professor of Critical Musicology, University of Leeds, to his own piano accompaniment.
The composer was an Italian child prodigy brought to London by Henry Drummond MP. Pinsuti eventually became Professor of Singing at the Royal Academy of Music. This song concerns a profession that has now disappeared – that of the town watchman. There is undoubtedly a philosophic and religious atmosphere present, and a moral message is readily perceived.
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 February 2020