Musical Copyright,

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 23, 5 June 1902, Page 6

Musical Copyright.

We speak lightly of 'an old song,' but an old song has more than once been worth a gold mine. Sir Arthur Sullivan iB said to have received £10,000 in rojalties for 'The lost chord,' and 'My pretty Jane' is stated to have been worth to the publisher £2000 a line. 'Some day 'is set down among the £10,000 songs, and 'In old Madrid,' it is said, has already yielded a revenue of half as much again The copyright of a gong- (says St. James' Gazette) is often a sure road to ease and competence, if not to fortune. That of 'For all eternity' was sold in London a few years ago for £2240. ' Maritana' was sold for £2232 at a London auction, and the Bame composer's ' Lurline ' fetched at the same auction the sum of *2500. ' Sweet and Low' was knocked down for £214, 'Good-bye, Sweetheart, for £402, Blumeuthal's ' Requital ' for £310, and Balfe'a ' The sailor sighs ' for £324. The ulwaya popular ' Tell her I love her so,' was sold for £46.">. The music to ' The Arab's farewell to his steed ' is worth in the market from six to seven hundred pounds. Verdi's 'II Trovatore ' fetched £303, • Oberon ' £428, and 'The rose of Castile' nearly £1000. A piano piece for schools, six pages long, was sold a few years pine* in London for £1820— more than £300 a page, and the bidding for a well-known violin guide rose to £1752. The highest price ever given for a piece of dance music is a thousand pounds, but four figures for the copyrights of songs and operas are not at all rare. The l.t of the composer, like that of too many authors, is noL invariably easy. A well-known composer of our own time has three times passed through the bankruptcy court, and his case is typical of many. Handel fought courageously againßt his misfortunes as an in«olvent debtor, and under the great pressure of his misfortunes produced ' Saul,' ' li-rael,' and others of his finest works. 1 He braved everyihing,' poys one of his biographers, 'and, by his unaided self, accomplished the work of 12 men.' Meyerbeer worked 15 hours a aay at his oparus, and the author of ' The deliverance of Israel.' a miller's son, composed his greatest work while working in a candle shop.