Ex. 2-4: Home! Sweet Home!

Bishop wrote this melody in 1821, when he was 34. He first published it in a collection of national tunes, calling it “A Sicilian Air.” He admitted only later that he had written it himself.

In 1823 the tune was used in the opera Clari, or the Maid of Milan, with new words by the American actor and writer John Howard Payne. This app uses a later edition, published in Cincinnati in 1852, which puts the song in F major.

The song sold a hundred thousand copies in a year, but Payne earned almost nothing from it. In 1830 Donizetti used the tune in the mad scene of his opera Anna Bolena, and later, in a court case over the rights to the song, Bishop swore that he had written the tune himself. In 1842 Queen Victoria made him a knight. He was the first musician to receive the title from the British monarch in person.

From the album Home Sweet Home by Katherine Jenkins (2014)
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