This was the first piece of music to be inspired by one of Swinburne’s poems. From 1867, Walter Maynard’s Kissing Her Hair takes its name from the first line of Swinburne’s ‘Rondel‘, from Poems and Ballads (1866). Maynard was the pseudonym of Thomas W. Beale (1828-1894), a major Victorian music impresario.
That this piece was published just a year after Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads suggests that Beale was capitalising on the poet’s notoriety.
London: Cramer & Co. Ltd, 1867
Categories: music
Verseandmusic.com 
Leave a Reply