Henry Bishop

Henry Bishop was born in London in 1786. His father was a watchmaker. At 13 he was already selling music in his cousin’s shop, and the shop printed his first songs. Then he went to live with an old friend of the family who owned racehorses. The friend hoped to make him a jockey, but the boy’s lungs were too weak. So the friend paid for music lessons instead. Bishop studied with an Italian opera composer in London, and at 19 his first ballet music was performed at London’s Italian opera house.

In 1809, at 22, his first big opera opened at Drury Lane, one of London’s two great theatres. The next night the theatre burned down, and all the music was lost. He wrote the songs out again from memory and published them. From 1810, for about thirteen years, he was the composer and music director of Covent Garden, the other great theatre. He wrote or arranged music for one play and opera after another, hundreds of songs in all. He was also famous for his glees, short English songs for several voices without instruments. In 1813, at 26, he helped to found the Philharmonic Society in London, which still exists today.

In 1821 a publisher asked him to arrange a book of folk tunes from many countries. He needed a tune from Sicily, but he could not find one, so he wrote one himself. It was printed as “A Sicilian Air.” Later he admitted that he had written it himself. Two years later he used the tune in an opera, with new words. It became Home! Sweet Home!. The song sold 100,000 copies in its first year. The rights belonged to the publisher, and it is said that Bishop received only 20 pounds as his share.

In 1840 he conducted a concert in London at which Liszt played. In 1842, at 55, he received the title of knight from Queen Victoria, and from then on he was Sir Henry Bishop. He was the first musician to receive this title from the king or queen in person. In 1848, at 61, he became professor of music at Oxford.

When a neighbour asked why he never came to visit, he answered that neighbours are like notes of music: notes that are very close together sound bad if they are played together too often. He meant that he liked his neighbours, but he did not want to see them too often. He died in London in 1855, at 68.

Most of Bishop’s music for the theatre is forgotten. But the tune that he made up when he could not find a real Sicilian one became one of the best-known songs in the world. It began as a fake folk song, and today it has become almost a real one. Many people from America to Japan know it, without knowing who wrote it.