Juanita (Caroline Norton song)
| "Juanita" | |
|---|---|
| Sheet music cover (1855) | |
| Song | |
| Published | 1855 |
| Composer(s) | Caroline Norton |
| Lyricist(s) | Caroline Norton |
"Juanita" ("Nita Juanita") is a love song variously subtitled "A Spanish Ballad", "A Song of Spain", and others. "Juanita" was number two of a six song collection entitled Songs of Affection published December 1853 by Chappell & Co. and composed by noted Victorian society figure and social reformer Caroline Norton.[1] Juanita was the first ballad by a woman composer to achieve massive sales,[2] and its original setting (for a soprano) has been seen to be subtly subversive of gender roles (as the woman singing the song is taking the part of the wooing lover),[3] a topic of some significance to Mrs. Norton.
As composing was seen as a masculine occupation, it was typical to borrow or adapt the melodies.[3] The opening four-bar phrase of the song is taken from Handel's aria Lascia ch'io pianga from the opera Rinaldo , although the subsequent melody differs from that of the aria. The name of the song is derived from the refrains:
"Juanita" appears in numerous songbooks and has been recorded many times. Early successes were by Frank C. Stanley (1905) and by Emilio de Gogorza in 1919.[5] The song was included in the Jo Stafford and Gordon MacRae album Memory Songs (1955). A crowd of picnickers sings the song, near the 41-minute mark, in the 1955 film Picnic. Jim Reeves included the song (as 'My Juanita') in his album Girls I Have Known (1958)[6] and Bing Crosby featured the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961).
References
[edit ]- ^ Fuld, James (2000). The Book of World-famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk. Courier Corporation. p. 325. ISBN 978-0486414751.
- ^ Scott, Derek (2001). "3". The Singing Bourgeois: Songs of the Victorian Drawing Room and Parlor (2nd ed.). Ashgate. ISBN 978-0754602590.
- ^ a b Swafford, Joanna. "Subversive Singing: Role Reversals in Caroline Norton's 'Juanita'". Songs of the Victorians. Retrieved July 16, 2017.
- ^ a b Norton, "Juanita"
- ^ Whitburn, Joel (1986). Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories 1890-1954 . Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research Inc. p. 534. ISBN 0-89820-083-0.
- ^ "allmusic.com". allmusic.com. Retrieved January 1, 2019.
Bibliography
- Metropolitan Quartette (1909). "Juanita" mp3. Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project . University of California, Santa Barbara
- Morgan and Stanley (1905). "Juanita" mp3. Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project . University of California, Santa Barbara
- Norton, Mrs. "Juanita" (sheet music). Boston: Oliver Ditson (1885).
External links
[edit ]
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