Search our website and collections

Go direct to State Archives online indexesGo direct to State Archives catalogue

‘All Things Love Thee, So Do I’

To have a long career as a composer in popular music is more likely to be the exception than the rule. There are, however, many examples in the music collection at Rouse Hill Estate of successful 19th-century entrepreneurial composer-performers whose careers spanned decades.

‘All Things Love Thee, So Do I’ was composed by Charles Edward Horn (1786- 1849), who also had a career as a professional singer, music teacher and owner of a music retail business. Horn spent most of his professional life travelling between England and the United States, but his compositions were also popular in Australia from the 1830s. Horn composed numerous musical plays – spoken text interspersed with songs – with song texts written by a playwright and often interchangeable melodies by local composers. This style of entertainment, frequently consisting of a comic story with humorous or light songs, was brought to Sydney and dominated theatres until the mid-1850s. One of these songs composed by Horn was the popular ‘Cherry Ripe’ and has been rearranged and recorded by many well-known composers and singers since the mid-19th century.

There was often a strong connection between music publishing and retail and entrepreneurial composer-producers. Much of the British music at Rouse Hill Estate collection is published by publishing houses in London or has been reprinted in NSW. British music publishers were frequently connected to specific concert series in London and which were reported upon in the Sydney press. These concerts were often produced by the composers-lyricists who, like Charles Horn, also owned or had a part interest in a business publishing or selling sheet music. Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lloyd-Webber come from a long tradition!

Watch the performance

Watch Anna Fraser and Luke Byrne share their version of ‘All Things Love Thee, So Do I’. Take a listen and then have a go yourself! There are few recordings of this song, so we’ve added a couple of other examples by the composer. Why not help us share more versions with the world.

This video was recorded at home in 2020 during a COVID-19 lockdown.

Supported by: City of Sydney

More music

Group of people in front of historic house.

House Music at Your House

We delved into the hundreds of popular songs that survive in the collection at Rouse Hill Estate in north-west Sydney to bring you the top 20 hits of the 1840s and 50s – songs played across NSW, Australia and overseas

Published on 

Related

Browse all
Owner bound volume of assorted songs, in the collection of Rouse Hill House & Farm, 1850-1864. [music]

‘Gii, Gundhi (Hearts and Homes)’

A single song can have a thousand meanings depending on its interpreter. Yuwaalaraay storyteller and musician Nardi Simpson shares her version of a 19th-century parlour song

Owner bound volume of assorted songs, in the collection of Rouse Hill House & Farm, 1850-1864. [music]

‘Hearts and Homes’

Little-known today, composer and music publisher John Blockley (1800-1882) was well-represented in the drawing rooms of Sydney in the 19th century

‘The Ballad Singer’

Romanticised themes of antiquated English traditions continued to feature in songs popular in Australia in the mid-nineteenth century

‘Too Late! Too Late!’

Keeping it in the family - we could say that this comic song is a ‘cousin-by-marriage’ of one of our previous songs