I Never Loved a Dear Gazelle...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 321, 17 August 1945, Page 9

I Never Loved a Dear Gazelle...

HE fatal attraction of the early nine- ' teenth century for BBC playwrights was again illustrated by a recent 3YA broadcast in the Men and Music series. The hero was Tom Moore, described by the narrator as the man who made moribund Irish folk music immoftal by Writing for it such well-known poems as "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms," and "Bendemeer Stream" — if that sort of immortality is desirable. If the folk music was as moribund as suggested, it may be that the original words had been lost; otherwise one would be inclined to suspect Moore of a persevering gilding of the lily. For nobody, I take it, would regard the words of these drawing room ditties as anything more than mildly pleasant survivals of Regency romanticism. Nor have many of the tunes Moore selected for his favours any great appeal; most of them are nostalgic for nothing in particular, evincing that curious desire of the Irish poet (even Yeats, even Colum, even Gogarty) to be somewhere other than where he is, wherever he is. They are of the sort . that impelled Chesterton to his unfortunate remark that "all their wars are merry and all their songs are sad."