Guitar Chords-The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls
Song Meaning: "The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls""The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls" is a famous Irish song written by Thomas Moore in the early 19th century as part of his Irish Melodies collection. The song is deeply reflective, mourning the decline of Ireland’s ancient glory, symbolized by Tara, the ancient seat of Irish high kings, and the harp, Ireland’s national symbol.
Themes and Meaning:
Musical Style:The song is often performed as a slow, haunting melody with simple accompaniment, usually on the harp or piano. The reflective and mournful tone of the music perfectly complements the poignant lyrics.
Legacy:"The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls" remains a cherished part of the Irish musical and literary tradition. It is frequently performed in Irish folk and classical settings, symbolizing Ireland’s enduring cultural identity and history.
Themes and Meaning:
- Nostalgia for Ireland’s Past:
The song reflects on the grandeur of Tara, a place of great historical and cultural significance in ancient Ireland. The harp, which once played joyful music in Tara’s halls, is now silent—a metaphor for Ireland’s lost glory and cultural decline.- "The harp that once through Tara’s halls, the soul of music shed / Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls, as if that soul were fled."
This line mourns the passing of an era when Irish culture and independence were at their peak.
- "The harp that once through Tara’s halls, the soul of music shed / Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls, as if that soul were fled."
- Cultural Loss and Mourning:
Moore’s lyrics express deep sorrow for the loss of Irish autonomy and cultural vibrancy, likely reflecting the centuries of English rule and suppression of Irish traditions at the time. The harp’s silence is symbolic of Ireland’s cultural suppression. - Patriotism and Resilience:
Despite the lamentation, the song also carries a subtle message of resilience. By remembering and honoring the past, the song invites Irish people to cherish their heritage and take pride in their identity. - Symbolism of the Harp:
The harp is Ireland’s national symbol, representing music, poetry, and Irish cultural heritage. Its silence in the song is a powerful image of Ireland’s struggles, yet its very mention highlights the hope for cultural revival. - Melancholy and Elegy:
The song has an elegiac tone, celebrating a bygone age with a mixture of sadness and reverence. It is both a lament for the past and a call to preserve Irish history and culture.
Musical Style:The song is often performed as a slow, haunting melody with simple accompaniment, usually on the harp or piano. The reflective and mournful tone of the music perfectly complements the poignant lyrics.
Legacy:"The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls" remains a cherished part of the Irish musical and literary tradition. It is frequently performed in Irish folk and classical settings, symbolizing Ireland’s enduring cultural identity and history.
Written by Thomas Moore who also wrote The Meeting Of The Waters ballad . and recorded by The Irish Tenors. Chords in key of C major. Recorded by Irish tenor singer John McCormack. It's one of the shortest songs I have on the site, just two verses in total.
Among the other folk songs that Irish tenor singer John McCormack sang was The Dawning Of The Day Song and The Old House.The harp that once through Tara's halls tin whistle sheet music notes and mandolin tab are included which can be used on the flute.
Among the other folk songs that Irish tenor singer John McCormack sang was The Dawning Of The Day Song and The Old House.The harp that once through Tara's halls tin whistle sheet music notes and mandolin tab are included which can be used on the flute.
[C]The harp that once through[F] Tara's halls
The[C] soul of [G]music[C] shed,
Now[Am] hangs as mute on[F] Tara's walls,
As if that soul were[G] fled
So[C] sleeps the pride of[F] former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er;
[G7]And[C] hearts that once beat[F] high for praise,
Now[C] feel that[G] pulse no[C] more.
No more to chiefs and ladies bright,
The harp of Tara swells
The chord, alone, that breaks at night,
Its tale of ruin tells.
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives
Is when some heart indignant breaks,
To show that still she lives.
The[C] soul of [G]music[C] shed,
Now[Am] hangs as mute on[F] Tara's walls,
As if that soul were[G] fled
So[C] sleeps the pride of[F] former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er;
[G7]And[C] hearts that once beat[F] high for praise,
Now[C] feel that[G] pulse no[C] more.
No more to chiefs and ladies bright,
The harp of Tara swells
The chord, alone, that breaks at night,
Its tale of ruin tells.
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives
Is when some heart indignant breaks,
To show that still she lives.
Chords in the key of G Major
[G]The harp that once through[C] Tara's halls
The[G] soul of [D]music[G] shed,
Now[Em] hangs as mute on[C] Tara's walls,
As if that soul were[D] fled
So[G] sleeps the pride of[C] former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er;
[D7]And[G] hearts that once beat[C] high for praise,
Now[G] feel that[D] pulse no[G] more.
Irish songs from G-J
[G]The harp that once through[C] Tara's halls
The[G] soul of [D]music[G] shed,
Now[Em] hangs as mute on[C] Tara's walls,
As if that soul were[D] fled
So[G] sleeps the pride of[C] former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er;
[D7]And[G] hearts that once beat[C] high for praise,
Now[G] feel that[D] pulse no[G] more.
Irish songs from G-J
The harp that once through Tara's Halls mandolin / Tenor Banjo sheet music tab
This sheet music is suitable for the flute.
The harp that once through Tara's halls tin whistle sheet music notes
A month before his nineteenth birthday John Francis McCormack won the Gold Medal in the tenor competition in the Irish National Festival (the Feis Ceoil). He was by far the youngest competitor and although he had been singing since the age of thirteen his only training had been with the church choir. He had even sung on when his voice was breaking and at sixteen made his debut as a tenor. His success in the Feis Ceoil hardened his resolve to make this his career.
At his first school concert at the age of fourteen he received two encores. Next morning the school maid said to him "Oh Mr John, you sang so well last night! But why did you sing in them foreign tongues we couldn't understand?" As all his songs had been in English he was considerably taken aback, and it is to Maggie, the little school maid, that we owe his care with diction and the purity of his vowels.
After John had failed by one place to get a University scholarship, his father decided that he should study for the Civil Service, in the meantime working as a clerk in Dublin to support himself. He was miserable and when two friends took him to see Dr Vincent O'Brien who gave him a place in the Procathedral choir at a salary of £25 per annum he gave up both the Civil Service studies and the clerical job. His father was concerned that he had given up the chance of steady work and a pension for the uncertain world of music. His success at the Feis Ceoil persuaded his father that perhaps John was right and both parents, though of very modest means, gave their support and encouragement to the young man.
Some time later James Riordan, looking for Irish artistes to take part in the St Louis World's Fair, engaged John and incidentally, Lily Foley, a young singer (who was later to become Mrs McCormack). They, together with young dancers, actors and musicians lived in the charming Irish village built for them in St Louis. There they got to know Dr Cameron, an American army doctor who regularly came to hear the young McCormack. He advised John to go to Italy as soon as possible to study singing but also to get some sunshine and build up his health as the lad was somewhat overgrown for his age.
On John's return to Ireland an amateur musician Mr Fair, who had studied singing in Milan, suggested to him that Maestro Vincenzo Sabatini (the father of Rafael Sabatini) who had sung in opera for twenty-five years, would be just the right teacher for him in Italy, Mr Fair wrote to Sabatini, and whilst awaiting a reply John was able to go to London and make cylinder recordings for the Edison and the Edison Bell companies and discs for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company. For this he was paid £100 in all as well as his expenses. John felt that he was really established as a singer.
McCormack loved Italy. Maestro and Madame Sabatini welcomed him. The Maestro was a kindly, considerate man but a hard taskmaster and Madame mothered the young man. John's pure lyrical tenor voice, his capacity for hard work - arriving early and staying late endeared him to them. When he came back to Ireland in 1906 it was to marry Lily Foley. He was twenty-two and she a year or so younger. They returned to Milan where John had difficulty in finding work, his voice was less robust than that of most Italian tenors; but he was able to perfect his Italian which stood him in good stead later in his career.
On their return to London prospects grew brighter when Arthur Boosey engaged him for a number of concerts one of them with Clara Butt. After this there was a steady climb to fame and security. Not only did people like his voice, they liked the warm, generous personality that shone through in his songs.
Although he sang lieder, opera and ballads his "request" numbers were almost always for Irish songs, and listening to this collection who can be surprised? The first ten numbers are sung by the young McCormack and the voice is fresh and clear. Later, after a severe streptococcal throat infection during which he almost died, it became more mature and rounded.
She Is Far From The Land, The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls, Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms and The Meeting Of The Waters were all written by Thomas Moore and published in "Irish Melodies". These graceful lyrics are set to traditional Irish tunes. This was during the English Romantic period at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries and Moore came to be regarded as the National poet of Ireland. In some of the songs (not those written by Moore) there are words of endearment such as: Mavoumeen - my darling, Alannah - my child; Machree - my dear, and Lenanshee - my fairy mistress. These all come from the Irish Gaelic. "Sally" is the Irish version of Sallow. This is the name of the small willow tree whose catkins appear before the leaves.
Mrs Foley (Lily's mother) used to hum a song around the house. When John asked her what it was she answered "It's an old song my mother used to sing. I think it's called "When The Pale Moon Was Rising". John went round many music shops humming the tune to shopkeepers and then, one evening he sang it at a Dublin concert as a complete surprise to both Mrs Foley and Lily. The song was The Rose Of Tralee.
The accompaniment to these songs is delightful. Edwin Schneider, who was McCormack's accompanist and friend for twenty-seven years from 1912 has arranged the music of Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms particularly beautifully. Herbert Hughes' arrangement of She Moved Thro' The Fair adds to the atmosphere, particularly in the last verse, whilst Gerald Moore (who plays the piano for the last five items), when left to play the last few notes of Down By The Sally Gardens, finishes with a haunting diminuendo that brings out the sadness of the tears.
In March 1943 John McCormack was diagnosed as having advanced emphysema. He had to stop singing and his health rapidly deteriorated. After an attack of acute pneumonia he died peacefully on 16 September 1945 at his home near Dublin.
Ernest Newman, the music critic of "The Sunday Times" wrote of John McCormack: He was a supreme example of the art that conceals art, and sheer hard work that becomes manifest only in its results, not in the revolving machinery that has produced them. He never stooped to small and modest things; he invariably raised them, and with them the most unsophisticated listener, to his own high level. I never knew him in his public or his private singing to be guilty of a lapse of taste, of making an effect for mere effect's sake. He was a patrician artist, dignified even in apparent undress, with a respect for art that is rarely met with among tenors. There is no one to take his place.
MARGARET ORR 1993
At his first school concert at the age of fourteen he received two encores. Next morning the school maid said to him "Oh Mr John, you sang so well last night! But why did you sing in them foreign tongues we couldn't understand?" As all his songs had been in English he was considerably taken aback, and it is to Maggie, the little school maid, that we owe his care with diction and the purity of his vowels.
After John had failed by one place to get a University scholarship, his father decided that he should study for the Civil Service, in the meantime working as a clerk in Dublin to support himself. He was miserable and when two friends took him to see Dr Vincent O'Brien who gave him a place in the Procathedral choir at a salary of £25 per annum he gave up both the Civil Service studies and the clerical job. His father was concerned that he had given up the chance of steady work and a pension for the uncertain world of music. His success at the Feis Ceoil persuaded his father that perhaps John was right and both parents, though of very modest means, gave their support and encouragement to the young man.
Some time later James Riordan, looking for Irish artistes to take part in the St Louis World's Fair, engaged John and incidentally, Lily Foley, a young singer (who was later to become Mrs McCormack). They, together with young dancers, actors and musicians lived in the charming Irish village built for them in St Louis. There they got to know Dr Cameron, an American army doctor who regularly came to hear the young McCormack. He advised John to go to Italy as soon as possible to study singing but also to get some sunshine and build up his health as the lad was somewhat overgrown for his age.
On John's return to Ireland an amateur musician Mr Fair, who had studied singing in Milan, suggested to him that Maestro Vincenzo Sabatini (the father of Rafael Sabatini) who had sung in opera for twenty-five years, would be just the right teacher for him in Italy, Mr Fair wrote to Sabatini, and whilst awaiting a reply John was able to go to London and make cylinder recordings for the Edison and the Edison Bell companies and discs for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company. For this he was paid £100 in all as well as his expenses. John felt that he was really established as a singer.
McCormack loved Italy. Maestro and Madame Sabatini welcomed him. The Maestro was a kindly, considerate man but a hard taskmaster and Madame mothered the young man. John's pure lyrical tenor voice, his capacity for hard work - arriving early and staying late endeared him to them. When he came back to Ireland in 1906 it was to marry Lily Foley. He was twenty-two and she a year or so younger. They returned to Milan where John had difficulty in finding work, his voice was less robust than that of most Italian tenors; but he was able to perfect his Italian which stood him in good stead later in his career.
On their return to London prospects grew brighter when Arthur Boosey engaged him for a number of concerts one of them with Clara Butt. After this there was a steady climb to fame and security. Not only did people like his voice, they liked the warm, generous personality that shone through in his songs.
Although he sang lieder, opera and ballads his "request" numbers were almost always for Irish songs, and listening to this collection who can be surprised? The first ten numbers are sung by the young McCormack and the voice is fresh and clear. Later, after a severe streptococcal throat infection during which he almost died, it became more mature and rounded.
She Is Far From The Land, The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls, Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms and The Meeting Of The Waters were all written by Thomas Moore and published in "Irish Melodies". These graceful lyrics are set to traditional Irish tunes. This was during the English Romantic period at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries and Moore came to be regarded as the National poet of Ireland. In some of the songs (not those written by Moore) there are words of endearment such as: Mavoumeen - my darling, Alannah - my child; Machree - my dear, and Lenanshee - my fairy mistress. These all come from the Irish Gaelic. "Sally" is the Irish version of Sallow. This is the name of the small willow tree whose catkins appear before the leaves.
Mrs Foley (Lily's mother) used to hum a song around the house. When John asked her what it was she answered "It's an old song my mother used to sing. I think it's called "When The Pale Moon Was Rising". John went round many music shops humming the tune to shopkeepers and then, one evening he sang it at a Dublin concert as a complete surprise to both Mrs Foley and Lily. The song was The Rose Of Tralee.
The accompaniment to these songs is delightful. Edwin Schneider, who was McCormack's accompanist and friend for twenty-seven years from 1912 has arranged the music of Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms particularly beautifully. Herbert Hughes' arrangement of She Moved Thro' The Fair adds to the atmosphere, particularly in the last verse, whilst Gerald Moore (who plays the piano for the last five items), when left to play the last few notes of Down By The Sally Gardens, finishes with a haunting diminuendo that brings out the sadness of the tears.
In March 1943 John McCormack was diagnosed as having advanced emphysema. He had to stop singing and his health rapidly deteriorated. After an attack of acute pneumonia he died peacefully on 16 September 1945 at his home near Dublin.
Ernest Newman, the music critic of "The Sunday Times" wrote of John McCormack: He was a supreme example of the art that conceals art, and sheer hard work that becomes manifest only in its results, not in the revolving machinery that has produced them. He never stooped to small and modest things; he invariably raised them, and with them the most unsophisticated listener, to his own high level. I never knew him in his public or his private singing to be guilty of a lapse of taste, of making an effect for mere effect's sake. He was a patrician artist, dignified even in apparent undress, with a respect for art that is rarely met with among tenors. There is no one to take his place.
MARGARET ORR 1993
