Stephen Foster was America's first great songwriter, and one of the first tragic victims of America's music industry. His wonderful melodies live on, still known over 140 years after his death.
Beautiful Dreamer was published shortly after his death at age 37 in 1864. It was written in 1862, just before things went from bad to worse for him. He would die in dire poverty in New York City, unable to collect royalties from his compositions, which were famous throughout the US.
Foster grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and had his first hit song with "Oh, Susanna!" which became a favorite with California gold rushers in 1849. It convinced him that he should dedicate himself fulltime to writing music. Unfortunately, at the time, the odds were stacked against the composer even more than they are today. Foster's works were frequently pirated by publishers, and many times were not even credited to him! They were often released under the name of a famous performing group that would sing them, for example, "Christy's Minstrels".
Although Foster wrote many of his songs for minstrel shows, which were the popular form of entertainment for the time, he was very much against making fun of black people in the performance of his songs. He wanted to present a sympathetic portrait of slaves and the hardships of plantation life.
Beautiful Dreamer, in addition to being a great song, is a great song to play on the violin with a friend on the piano. Neither the violin or piano part is too difficult for a beginning to intermediate player, and it's a great piece to practice sightreading on for more advanced players. And - it's totally free! This music is in the public domain, as is this edition. Just print it out, and play!
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