From the collection: Catherine Hayes illustration
This sheet music cover is the only known copy of this illustration of the soprano Catherine Hayes (1818–1861), one of the world’s first international opera and concert stars.
Born in Ireland, Hayes escaped abject poverty through her talent to a life of stardom in the opera houses and concert halls of Europe, America, Asia, the Pacific and Australia.
‘Tis sad to say adieu’ is a sentimental ballad written by Richard Frederick Harvey, published in Dublin in 1850 as a companion to Hayes’s earlier hit ‘Home of my heart’, and suited her sense of Irish patriotism. The diva spent much of her career performing to rapturous audiences as she travelled the world, and she sometimes included new compositions, like this one, dedicated to her local audiences. Before her departure from Sydney in October 1854, Hayes performed ‘Fair land of Australia’, a song composed for her by her tour conductor, Lewis Lavenu (1818–1859), who then spent the rest of his life working in Australia.
Today, the only known full copy of ‘Tis sad to say adieu’ is an edition without the portrait in the British Library.
Published on
Dr Matthew Stephens
Research Librarian
Matthew Stephens is research librarian at the Caroline Simpson Library & Collection. He is particularly fascinated by early book, musical instrument and sheet music collections in NSW and the stories they tell. Addicted to the historical research process, Matthew has reframed the biography of the eighteenth-century British cross-dressing soldier, Hannah Snell, rediscovered the lost library of explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, and completed a PhD on the early history of the Australian Museum Library and the origins and use of scientific literature in nineteenth-century New South Wales. More recently, Matthew has led the interpretation of the history of domestic music in MHNSW house museums. Since 2015 he has been MHNSW’s representative in the Sound Heritage network (UK) and is co-author and co-editor of Sound Heritage: Making Music Matter in Historic Houses (Routledge, 2022). In 2019, Matthew curated the Songs of Home exhibition at the Museum of Sydney, which examined the musical landscape of NSW during the first 70 years of European settlement. He has collaborated with the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney, on numerous projects including as Partner Investigator on the Australian Research Council Discovery Project ‘Hearing the Music of Early NSW, 1788-1860’ (2021-23). Two research projects led by Matthew on the reinstatement of part of the dispersed Macleay family library at Elizabeth Bay House and the Dowling Songbook Project have received National Trust Heritage Awards.
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