Audiobook · read by volunteers
Our Old Nursery Rhymes
Alfred Moffat (1863–1950)
Read by Alison Borges, Ashley Briar, Suzy Corgiat, Jackie Edge, Carmen Flores, Erica Harnby, Crystal Johnson, Charla Lawson, Katye Leonard, Kathy Luyre · 1 chapter · 24 min
About the book
Thirty old songs, the kind that children have sung and chanted for generations, gathered into a small volume and beautifully illustrated. Here are rhymes that everyone seems to know already, and others that may be new to your ears. This audio edition follows the book of 1911, in which the music was arranged by Alfred Moffat, and the pictures drawn by the Dutch artist Henriette Willebeek Le Mair. The songs are performed by seventeen university student musicians, members of the Sigma Alpha Iota music fraternity at California State University, Stanislaus, who made the recording as a gift to families everywhere. It is a fine way to share traditional songs with a child, and to join in a tradition that stretches back through many nurseries. Short, bright and full of rhythm, this is a collection to hum, sing and return to again and again.
Introduction
Alfred Moffat was born in 1863 and died in 1950. He was a Scottish musician and arranger, best known for collecting and arranging traditional songs, including collections of Scottish and Irish folk music and music for children. His settings were meant to be sung, played and enjoyed at home, in classrooms and around the piano.
Our Old Nursery Rhymes was published in 1911, with the illustrations of Henriette Willebeek Le Mair, a Dutch artist whose delicate pictures of small children became very popular in the early twentieth century. The book collects thirty folk songs, some of them rhymes that were chanted for centuries and some of them with melodies attached, each arranged for voice and piano. The facsimile edition of the book can be read online in the Children’s Digital Library, so listeners can follow the pictures while they listen. The project was conceived as a service to music lovers and to children everywhere.
Nursery rhymes have a curious history. Many were handed down by word of mouth and changed in each generation, so versions differ from place to place, and the meanings that people sometimes attach to them are often more guesswork than fact. What is clear is how deeply they belong to childhood, with their simple rhythm and their strong images.
This recording is a single section of about twenty-five minutes. Seventeen student musicians from California take part, and their voices give the collection a lively, communal feel. It is a pleasant addition to a bedtime routine, a family gathering or a lesson on the music of the English-speaking world, and an invitation for you and your child to sing along.
Public domain
Alfred Moffat died in 1950: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text