Historical Performance: San Francisco Songs

Program

An astonishing tour of San Francisco history through songs written about San Francisco. Songs of the Gold Rush, belle époque, the earthquake and fire of 1906, rebuilding the city, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, and the gay twenties.

Gold Rush

Old Put
‘I often think of writing home’ (tune: Irish Molly, O)

Mart Taylor
‘Do they miss me at home’ (tune: Do they miss me at home)

Old Put
‘Crossing the Plain’s’ (tune: Caroline of Edinboro’)

Pacific Song Book
‘The Lousy Miner’ (tune: Dark-eyed sailor)

Old Put
‘I’m Sad and Lonely Here’ (tune: Oft in the Stilly Night)

Stephen Foster
‘Come where my love lies dreaming’ (1855)

1860's-1906

‘I don’t want to be drowned’ (1862)
Words by Frank Soulé, music by P.R. Nicholls

‘What they do at the springs’ (1878)
Words by John G. Saxe, music by Frederick G. Carnes

‘A ‘Frisco Girl’ (1896)
Words and music by James Marshall and Walter Wolff

Earthquake and Fire

‘The Stricken City’ (1906)
Words by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, music by F. Fanciulli

‘Call Me Back To Thee!’ (1906)
Words and music by Estelle Baker

'The Fall of San Francisco’ (1906)
Words by Margaret Gorman, music by H.W. Foster

Luisa Tetrazzini sings to the people of San Francisco at Lotta’s Fountain (1911)

‘Tis the Last Rose of Summer’
Words by Thomas Moore, arrangement by John Stevenson

The City Rebuilds

‘San Francisco’ (1912)
Words and music by Edward Bergenholtz

‘On San Francisco Bay’ (1906)
Words by Vincent Bryan, music by Gertrude Hoffman

‘On to Frisco’ (1909)
Words by Edward Leslie, music by Halsey Mohr

‘San Francisco Bound’ (1915)
Words and music by Irving Berlin

‘The Grizzly Bear’ (1910)
Words by Irving Berlin, music by George Botsford

‘The Frisco Rag’ (1910)
Words by Bert Fitzgibbon and Billy Clark, music by Harry Armstrong

‘The Only Pal I ever had Came from ‘Frisco Town’ (1911)
Words by Earle Jones, music by Charles Daniels

‘San Francisco, the Paris of the USA’ (1912)
Words and music by Hirshel Hendler

‘I’m Going to San Francisco’ (1914)
Words by H.R. Lytle, music by Gertrude Marvin

‘The Ragtime Engineer’ (1912)
Words by Sam Lewis, music by Clay Smith

‘California and You’ (1914)
Words by Edgar Leslie, music by Harry Puck

‘In Monterey’ (1915)
Words by Harry Williams, music by Neil Morét

Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915

‘San Francisco: the world’s fair town’ (1915)
Words by Andy Graves, music by Eddie Jewell

‘Hello Frisco!’ (1915)
Words by Gene Buck, music by Louis A. Hirsch

‘Nineteen Fifteen Frisco’ (1915)
Words by C.P. MacDonald, music by Charles Miller

‘At The San Francisco Fair’  (1915)
Words by S. Greene, music by F. Dabney, James Reese Europe, Jerome Kern

1920's

‘When the girl you love lives in California’
Words by David Berg, music by Abe Olman

‘San Francisco: Open Your Golden Gate’ (1936)
Words by Gus Kahn, music by Bronislaw Kaper  and Walter Jurman

‘Don’t’ Fence Me In’ (1934)
Words and music by Cole Porter (adapted from the poem by Bob Fletcher)

Performers

Naomi Columna, soprano
Sophia Emanuel, soprano
Amanda Galluzzo, soprano
Madeleine Lew, soprano
Karen Notovitz, soprano
Rachel Rothman, soprano
Taylor See, soprano
Sarah Szeibel, soprano
Kaitlin Bertschi, mezzo-soprano
Elizabeth Dickerson, mezzo-soprano
Katharine Nunn, mezzo-soprano
James Hogan, tenor
Radames Gil, baritone
Corey Jamason, piano