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Maiden's Prayer
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Wikipedia article
"'A Maiden's Prayer'" (original Polish title: "" Op. 4, French: "") is a composition of Polish composer Tekla Bdarzewska-Baranowska (18341861), which was published in 1856 in Warsaw, and then as a supplement to the 'Revue et gazette musicale de Paris' in 1859. The piece is a medium difficulty short piano piece for intermediate pianists. Some have liked it for its charming and romantic melody; others have described it as "sentimental salon tosh." The pianist and academic Arthur Loesser described it as "this dowdy product of ineptitude."
In country music
The American musician Bob Wills heard "Maiden's Prayer" played on a fiddle while he was a barber in Roy, New Mexico,McWhorter, 'Cowboy Fiddler', pp. 5960: "Bob said, 'He played "The Spanish Two-Step" and I locked the door where he couldn't get out and nobody else could get in, and I made him stay there until he taught me that and "Maiden's Prayer." Finally he nodded. I didn't know whether he needed to go to the bathroom or if I was doing it right, but I let him out.' That Mexican taught him those two tunes." and arranged the piece in the Western swing style. Wills first recorded it as an instrumental in 1935 (Vocalion 03924, released in 1938),[http://countrydiscography.blogspot.com/2010/02/bob-wills-part-ii.html Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies: Bob Wills part II] Retrieved 2 January 2012[http://www.allmusic.com/song/maidens-prayer-t2711179 "Maiden's Prayer", Bob Wills with music sample], AllMusic. Retrieved 1 January 2012 and it quickly became one of his signature tunes. Later, it became a standard recorded by many country artists, including Buck Owens on his number-one 1965 album 'I've Got a Tiger By the Tail'.[http://www.allmusic.com/album/ive-got-a-tiger-by-the-tail-r93471 "'I've Got a Tiger by the Tail', Buck Owens review with chart and music sample], AllMusic. Retrieved 1 January 2012 The tune is still a standard in the repertoire of Western swing bands.
Wills wrote lyrics for "Maiden's Prayer" and recorded it again in 1941 (Okeh 06205) with vocals by Tommy Duncan.[http://www.allmusic.com/song/a-maidens-prayer-t931306 "A Maiden's Prayer", Bob Wills with music sample], Allmusic. Retrieved 1 January 2012 His lyrics reflect the title, and the song, as written by Wills, opens with:
There 'neath the stars, a maiden so fair divine.
The moon on high seemed to see her there.
In her eyes is a light, shining ever so bright,
She whispered a silent prayer.
"Maiden's Prayer" was released in May 1941, and quickly hit number 1 on June 28, 1941, in The Billboard's "Hillbilly and Foreign Record Hits Of the Month".
Relatively few country singers have covered "Maiden's Prayer" with vocals, but they include Ray Price on his tribute album 'San Antonio Rose' (1962)[http://www.allmusic.com/album/san-antonio-rose-r109544 'San Antonio Rose' Ray Price review with music sample], Allmusic. Retrieved 1 January 2012 and Willie Nelson on his album 'Red Headed Stranger' (on the 2000 CD reissue but not the 1975 LP).[http://www.allmusic.com/album/red-headed-stranger-r93336 'Red Headed Stranger' Willie Nelson review with chart and music sample], Allmusic. Retrieved 1 January 2012 Both singers used the lyrics written by Wills with minor variations, e.g. the maiden is an Indian in Price's version. Also the Everly Brothers recorded a rendition of the song in 1973.The Everly Brothers, The Masters, Eagle Records, 1997
Wills recorded the song a third time on the 1963 album 'Bob Wills Sings and Plays'. When he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, "Maiden's Prayer" was one of the works cited.
In popular media
Probably the most memorable use of "Maiden's Prayer" is in the 1930 opera 'Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny' by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. The song appears midway through act 1; it is played on an out-of-tune piano at a honky-tonk frequented by prostitutes and their clients. Jakob Schmidt, one of the denizens of Mahagonny, refers to the song as "ewige Kunst" ("eternal art").
"Maiden's Prayer" is heard off-stage in act 4 of 'Three Sisters' by Anton Chekhov. "Maiden's Prayer" appears as an insert piano song in the anime series 'Strawberry Panic'. "Maiden's Prayer" is played by garbage trucks in Taiwan. As residents have to take out their own trash, the garbage truck signals everyone to do so with the melody of this piece, along with Beethoven's 'Fr Elise'.[http://www.culture.tw/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=938&Itemid=156 "'A Maiden's Prayer': A call to dump all our garbage"] by Leo Maliksi (7 October 2008)[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1032902617408392553 "Taiwan Enlists Garbage Trucks To Teach the English Language"] by Jason Dean, 'The Wall Street Journal', September 25, 2002 [https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/world/asia/taiwan-waste-management-beethoven.html "When You Hear Beethoven, Its Time to Take Out the Trash (and Mingle)"] by Amy Qin and Amy Chang Chien, 'The New York Times', February 8, 2022
The Rodgers and Hart standard "It Never Entered My Mind" refers to this song in the penultimate line.
In the 1955 Italian 'Scandal in Sorrento' film, Antonio and Violante play the tune together on a piano at the very end of the movie
In Nobuhiko Obayashi's 1977 horror movie 'House', the character Melody plays the opening section of "A Maiden's Prayer" on the piano a few times.
In 1993, the North Korean Wangjaesan Dance Troupe's VHS tape featured this song in electronic arrangement.
In the 2013 television serial 'The Tunnel', Anglo-French actor and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg performs a voice-over to the tune of the 'Maiden's Prayer', singing a mixture of French and English:
set aside all fear.
Yes, you shall be mine till the end of time.
In literature
'The Maiden's Prayer' was used in a macabre context in Mary Wilkins Freeman's ghost story 'The Wind in the Rose-Bush' (published 1903), where the main character, roused from sleep by the sound of the melody being played in a seemingly empty house, rushed downstairs to see who was at the piano, only to find that there was no one there.
References
Bibliography
*McWhorter, Frankie. 'Cowboy Fiddler in Bob Wills' Band'. University of North Texas Press, 1997.
*Mishler, Craig. 'The Crooked Stovepipe: Athapaskan Fiddle Music and Square Dancing in Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada'. University of Illinois Press, 1993.
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