The Songs of Septimus Winner

The Songs of Septimus Winner is a testament to a man with an extraordinarily unusual career in music. Most modern-day readers may have never heard of Septimus Winner or Alice Hawthorne. But the music they created is now part of the pantheon of what we might now term “America’s folk songs”. Most Americans might remember songs such as “Ten Little Indians” or “Der Deitscher?s Dog” from their childhood just as they may know “Jimmy Crack Corn” or “Oh, Susannah!” but few know the men and women who wrote these songs or their significance to generations of nineteenth-century Americans. Septimus Winner (1827?1902) is one of these forefathers of American popular song. His musical contributions are significant: well over 300 popular songs, over 2000 arrangements of both his own and others’ music, and an astounding array of pedagogical books. Culled from the original sheet music publications and presented unedited, this volume explores twenty-two of Winner’s best loved songs including “Ten Little Injuns,” “Whispering Hope,” “Listen to the Mocking Bird,” “The Deitscher’s Dog” and “Give Us Back Our Old Commander.”