An Introduction to America’s Music

180 PART 2 | FROM THE CIVIL WAR THROUGH WORLD WAR I

throughout its sixty-four-bar length, yielding to a catchier, faster-moving mel-

ody at the thirty-two-bar chorus. Evenly divided into four sections (aa'a"b), t he

chorus consists of three varied statements of that catchy tune, with the fi nal

section returning to the sustained notes of the verse to set the title line.

The Irish tenor George J. Gaskin, who had a successful career in the United

States in the 1890s, was one of the fi rst artists to record commercially produced

cylinders for Thomas Edison. Among them is his 1893 rendition of “After the

Ball.” Gaskin’s strong voice and clear diction, which may strike present-day

listeners as overenunciated, enabled him to surmount the limitations of early

recording technology.

Because the fi rst music cylinders ran no longer than two and a half min-

utes, Gaskin and his unnamed accompanist perform a shortened version of

the song: only two of the three verses and a single statement of the chorus at

the end, all sung at a somewhat rushed tempo. As is evident from the full text—

reproduced here with only a few corrections of the original sheet music’s incon-

sistent punctuation—the story is not complete without the third verse. W hile

there is time for a piano introduction, the sheet music’s framing coda, or tag, at

the end—an instrumental repeat of the last eight bars of the refrain—is absent.

POPULAR SONGS AT THE TURN

OF THE CENTURY

As the opera and minstrel stage had done in an earlier day, musical comedy (see

chapter 10) and vaudeville now provided the sheet music business’s main mar-

keting arm. But for all the changes in songwriting that took place—new subjects,

fresh cover designs, more stars’ endorsements, a growing emphasis on female

Listen & Refl ect

1. Does the character of the music suit the emotional content of the lyrics? Why or why not?


2. How does the story, as told here in a two-verse version, differ from the complete three-
   verse version?


3. Is the difference signifi cant?

CD 1.24 Listening Guide 7.3 “After the Ball” CHARLES K. HARRIS

timing section text comments

I would not listen, pleadings were vain.

One day a letter came from that man,

He was her brother—the letter ran.

That’s why I’m lonely, no home at all;

I broke her heart, pet, after the ball.

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