Friday 18 September 2020
Tune of the Day: The Castilian Maid
Traditional air
This flute duet appears in Blake's Young Flutist's Magazine, published in Philadelphia in 1833. The arrangement is, according to sheet music of the time, based on “a much admired Spanish seguidilla”, to which Irish poet Thomas Moore wrote the following lyrics:
Remember the time, in La Mancha's shades,
When our moments so blissfully flew;
When you called me the flower of Castilian maids,
And I blushed to be called so by you;
When I taught you to warble the gay seguadille.
And to dance to the light castanet;
Oh, never, dear youth, let you roam where you will,
The delight of those moments forget.