Musical versions of "Fly not yet"

Stevenson

1808 Dublin

George Alexander Macfarren

1860, London

William Henry Montgomery

1861, London

Michael William Balfe

1876, London

J. L. Hatton and J. L. Molloy

1878, London

Displayed here is the music of five composers who set Thomas Moore's lyrics "Fly not yet" from the first number of the Irish Melodies. The featured image is the music written by Moore's original collaborator Sir John Stevenson. We also have settings by George Alexander Macfarren, William Henry Montgomery, and Michael William Balfe, each of who systematically arranged all of Moore's Irish Melodies for publication in the 1860s or '70s. James Lyman Molloy and John Liptrott Hatton collaborated in the  1870s' compilation "The songs of Ireland", which includes a selection of Moore's Melodies witihn. 

Each song in Moore's Irish Melodies is based upon an existing tune. Moore would select a tune from sources that he saw or which were sent to him, and then write a lyric inspired by it. The next stage saw  the tune and lyric being sent to Stevenson (or later, Henry Bishop) to arrange with "symphonies and accompaniments" for piano. The source tune for "Fly not yet" is 'Planxty Kelly'. This tune is credited to Turlough O'Carolan in a number of contemporary sources, including an arrangement by Joseph Wölfl issued by Moore's music publisher James Power in the same year as the first number of the Irish Melodies.

Other composers who arranged Moore's lyrics for voice and piano include Brinley Richards (published by Chappell in the 1850s).  A number of composers were inspired to arrange or vary "Fly not yet" for solo piano, including Arthur Clifton (1809, under the name of P. Antony Corri), Wallace Campbell (1820s), William Vincent Wallace (1848),  Richard Frederick Harvey (1866), and Michael Watson (1868). Circa 1815, G. Schultz arranged the tune as a rondo for the harp while Charles Eulenstein arranged it for the Spanish guitar in the mid 1830s. (These arrangements are not displayed in this gallery.)

This intense and varied response to a single Melody from Moore's most famous series is by no means exceptional. The titles of these arrangements reveal Moore (rather than the original tune) as their source of inspiration.