Violets was written in 1927. It is a setting of a poem by George Meredith (1828-1909) and has been arranged here for High Voice with Piano accompaniment.Muriel Herbert (1897-1984) was a British composer pianist and singer. She studied at the Royal College of Music where she met Charles Stanford and Roger Quilter. She wrote many songs for Voice and Piano in her early life as well as some instrumental and orchestral works but stopped composing after her husband left her in 1939. Her works were largely unappreciated until twenty years after her death but they have now quite rightly been the subject of a keen and enthusiasticrevival with a growing fan base.

The plantation songs known as 'spirituals' are the spontaneous outbursts of intense religious fervour and had their origin chiefly in camp meetings revivals and other religious exercises.They were never 'composed' but sprang into life ready made from the white heat of religious fervour during some protracted meeting in camp or church as the simple ecstatic utterance of wholly untutored minds and are practically the only music in America which meets the scientific definition of Folk Song.Harry Burleigh became a linguist singing in Hebrew as well as Latin Italian French and German. For several years he regarded his casual efforts at composition as merely mentalexercises until friends virtually forced him to publish. 'Deep River' published in 1917 made Harry Burleigh well known as a composer. His 'Little Mother Of Mine' was sung throughout the world by John McMormack.