Stephen Foster

More than half a century ago, when I went through a few years of piano instruction, Stephen Foster was still big, with his simple melodic lines and straightforward tempi; I learned to play badly a few tunes of his -- easier than the Schubert lieder that were considered classier.

Some of the sentiments expressed in these songs have not aged well, but their musicality survives and the performances by the singers here is very good. Of course, the story as they tell it, is nonsense. Foster was not the scion of a refined Southern family. He was the child of a Pennsylvanian and never made much money from his ballads, minstrel-show songs and his hymns. There was almost no protection for songs in the era, so once he sold them to a show or a publisher for a hundred dollars, that was it. His wife left him and he died with thirty-seven cents in his pocket.

Still, if you can ignore the treacly sentimentality of imagining an Antebellum South where the darkies were all happy singing accompaniment while Ole Marse played the piano, then you might enjoy the songs.