The Last Rose of Summer

An Irish air in 3/4, best known as the vehicle for Thomas Moore’s 1805 poem, published with the melody in volume 5 of his Irish Melodies (1813). The air itself is older: Moore borrowed the tune of Richard Milliken’s comic song “The Groves of Blarney” (c. 1790s), which in turn drew on earlier material connected to “Castle Hyde” and “The Young Man’s Dream.” The pairing became one of the most widely arranged melodies of the nineteenth century, taken up by Beethoven in his Irish song settings and by dozens of European composers after him. Twentieth-century recordings include Nina Simone on Broadway-Blues-Ballads (1964), Mary O’Hara on her self-titled harp-and-voice album (1965), and Benjamin Britten’s arrangement in his Folksong Arrangements vol. 4 (1958).