Celebrate Poe

You can hear all the music I mention in this blog at

celebratepoe.podbean.com

The emphasis in this specific blog is probably not what you expect when you think of Poe –I would like to deal with Edgar Allan Poe and Christmas - based on my CD Christmas With Edgar Allan Poe. That way I can use the music and not need to worry about getting rights. I thought the CD would be especially appropriate considering the time of year when I am recorded the audio version of this blog would serve as a good introduction to Poe’ life.

BTW – you can get the CD at:

http://Kunaki.com/Sales.asp?PID=PX00Z72XZ0

And you can see all my CDs for sale at:

http://Kunaki.com/MSales.asp?PublisherId=111714

Well – enough of that.

There will certainly be time in this blob to concentrate on Poe’s imaginative works, but this entry does NOT focus on dark music that you might associate with a tortured soul. This rest of this blog focuses on period holiday music that Poe undoubtedly knew.

Poe’s parents died when he was young, and John Allan took Poe to raise, even though Poe was not formally adopted. And the young Poe would have joined his family in their pew at Monumental Episcopal Church. Early 19th century Episcopal liturgy had few Christmas songs in the hymnbook, but one carol that Poe would have heard on the church organ was O Come All Ye Faithful.

John Allan inherited $700,000.00 (a sum today that would be worth more than 10 million dollars), so he certainly was able to give young Edgar every advantage. When Poe was six years old, his family moved to England and lived there for five years. It is not hard to imagine Poe listening to English Christmas carols on the harpsichord in England such as I Saw Three Ships. While we do not have exact records, it is highly unlikely that Fanny Allan, as the proper lady of a wealthy family, did not have a harpsichord – an instrument often used in duets with the flute for such melodies as The Holly and the Ivy.

Most historians believe that the two great loves of Poe’s life were Elmira Royster and Virginia Clemm – and both ladies played the piano, an instrument that was beginning to surpass the harpsichord in popularity. We knew that Edgar and Elmira fell in love when they were young, and Elmira frequently played the piano possibly with such carols as Joy to the World, and What Child Is This? for Poe.

In a blog in the near future, I would like to write about the duets that Virginia and Poe had – and I bet you can’t imagine what musical instrument Poe played. So next week will not only have Christmas With Edgar Allan Poe, Part Two – but a look at Poe’s earliest years and one of Poe’s most personal poems.

And please email me at celebratepoe@gmail.com

I really can’t end this blog without a credit section. I will certainly be going into more detail about my sources in future blogs, but I would like to credit the websites for the Poe Houses or Museums in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Richmond, as well as such wonderful web sites as the House of Usher and the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. Two books that I have found especially helpful are Edgar A Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance by Kenneth Silverman and Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography by Arthur Hobson Quinn and Shawn Rosenheim.