A CENTURY OF AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN’S MUSIC
A collection of 550 sheets, albums and booklets of music written for children by Australian composers. The earliest piece is a Cantata written for Arbour Day in 1891. Other early works are, "Australian Songs for Australian Children" of 1902, and "Real Australian Children Songs" by May Brahe, written in 1909. The collection has been closed at the year 1978.
Evocative Australian titles include “Gum-Trees”, "In the Bush", "Jolly Bush Cobbers”, "Kookaburra", “A Day in the Bush”, and “Percy Platypus”.
The illustrations are very charming. There are colour and black and white cover illustrations by such famous Australian artists as Pixie O'Harris, May Gibbs, and Norman Lindsay. Ida Rentoul Outhwaite is well represented, and there are appealing drawings of native animals by lesser known artists.
Musically, the range is very broad: - from easy piano pieces ("Tiny Tunes for Wee Australians", "Ten Busy Fingers" ), to choral works, small operettas and musical plays. There are songs for very tiny children ("Kindergarten of the Air"), educational songs for older children ("Safety First Songs for Little Children"), and songs of national icons ("Ginger Meggs", "Skippy", "The Magic Pudding").Australian adults could sing along with many of these songs.
There is a broad representation of composers well established in the main stream musical life of Australia. Some names are Frank Hutchens, Peter Sculthorpe, Lindley Evans, May Willis (who was very prolific in this field), Edith Harrhy, Alfred Wheeler, William James, Varney Monk, Mirrie Hill. Indeed it is hard to find a known composer who did not also write specifically for children.
Da Capo, as an important second-hand music dealer in the country, has been uniquely placed to put together this collection, which contains some items not to be found in the major national collections.
For all sales enquiries please do not contact Da Capo Music. Instead, please email Patricia at PB@patriciab.com
Full details on request.
$20000