Performers sought to revive Victorian ballads

Music librarian Lee Noon is looking for pianists to try out the tunes
- Published
A museum is seeking musicians to revive Victorian ballads from the golden age of music halls, some of which have not been played in more than 100 years.
The collection of vintage sheet music includes late 19th and early 20th-Century songs that have comic, satirical or political themes and "raucous" melodies, said Leeds Central Library.
A selection of sheet music is on display outside the music library, with staff hoping to find local pianists and singers who can perform the pieces at a series of events planned to celebrate Heritage Open Days in September.
Music librarian Lee Noon said the music hall ballads were "very much the pop songs of their day".
"Music hall tunes like these were once a hugely popular part of leisure and entertainment in cities like Leeds, and would have been enjoyed by people of all classes and backgrounds," he said.
"Many of these songs won't have been performed or heard by an audience for more than a century now, and we'd love to give people in Leeds the chance to experience them again and for our local musicians to try and recapture a bit of what was really the golden age of music halls.
"Each of these pieces of music represents a little bit of the city's musical history and it would be a really special moment to help bring them back to life again."

The collection includes songs by local composers
The collection includes a combination of well-known musical classics and forgotten songs penned by local composers.
It includes music for Ride a Cock Horse, billed as a "drawing room comic song" performed by Harry Liston, and George Leybourne's "great comic song" The Organ Man, which he wrote and performed.
Mr and Mrs Baggs, described as "a most thrilling narrative giving an account of the frightful apparition, the appearance of which so affected Mrs B's nerves that she was laid up for seven weeks after", is also in the collection.
The front cover of the sheet music shows a pyjama-clad Mr Baggs brandishing a blunderbuss at a terrified cat as his wife looks on.
Leeds Central Library hosts one of the biggest collections of sheet music in the UK.
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