Beautiful Dreamer: A Song History

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Stephen Foster wrote both words and music of "Beautiful Dreamer," a parlor song issued in New York by Wm. A. Pond & Co. in 1864. Pond deposited it for copyright on March 10 of that year, about two months after Foster died on January 13, and its title page billed it as the last song he ever wrote, composed only days before his death.[1][2]

Camille Corot painting of a young woman in a headscarf and embroidered blouse resting her head on her hand, lost in thought

Camille Corot, Reverie, oil on wood, 1857 or later. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its dreamy mood; it has no connection to the song.

That billing deserves caution. The University of Pittsburgh's Center for American Music notes that the song was already listed on the cover of "Willie Has Gone to War," copyrighted in July 1863. The copyright line in the 1864 Pond edition also looks altered, apparently from an 1862 date and from the name of Firth, Pond & Co., a firm dissolved in January 1863, which suggests the plates were engraved well before Foster's death and set aside.[1] The Ballad Index adds that another publisher, Horace Waters, had marketed a different Foster song as his "last" about two weeks before Pond's release, and, citing Saunders and Root, that a number of songs credited to Foster first appeared after his death, many of them by other writers.[3] The fairest summary is that "Beautiful Dreamer" was probably one of Foster's late songs, written by mid-1863 at the latest, but not demonstrably his final one.[1][3]

The song caught on quickly. Pond was already selling a piano setting with variations by A. Baumbach in 1865, and the Pittsburgh catalogue lists further Pond editions dated 1865, 1866 and 1877, along with appearances in popular songsters.[4][1] In 1937 the tenor Richard Crooks recorded it for Victor, with Frank La Forge at the piano.[5] The Ballad Index observes that, for all its lasting popularity, there is little sign the song entered oral folk tradition.[3]

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Sources

  1. University of Pittsburgh, Center for American Music (American Music at Pitt): "Beautiful Dreamer".
  2. The Morgan Library & Museum: "Beautiful Dreamer" (New York: Wm. A. Pond & Co., c1864), Record ID 248401.
  3. Traditional Ballad Index: "Beautiful Dreamer".
  4. Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection (Johns Hopkins University): "Foster's Beautiful Melody. Beautiful Dreamer" (Pond, 1865).
  5. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BS-010346. Beautiful dreamer / Richard Crooks ; Frank La Forge".