• Source: Robin Adair

      • "Robin Adair" is a traditional Irish (sometimes identified as Scottish) song with lyrics written by Lady Caroline Keppel. It was popular in the 18th century. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 8918. The song was mentioned by Jane Austen in her 1815 novel Emma; the character Jane Fairfax played it on the piano. The song is also mentioned in Chapter IX of MacKinlay Kantor's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Andersonville" (1955).


      Background



      Robert "Robin" Adair was a real person: a surgeon-colonel in the British army, who declined a baronetcy, he was born in Dublin around 1714 and died in 1790. Lady Caroline Keppel (c. 1734–1769), the elder of the two daughters of Willem Anne van Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle, married Adair, despite the fact that her family disapproved of the match because of his lower status. Lady Caroline wrote the song bearing her husband's name during the 1750s as a rebuke to her family for what she perceived as their snobbery regarding her handsome and accomplished lover. Their son, also christened Robert Adair, became an MP and went on to become a distinguished British diplomat, frequently employed on the most important diplomatic missions. The tune to which Lady Caroline's verse was set may have been written by Charles Coffey ("Eileen Aroon," a work by him, features the same melody).


      Lyrics



      These lyrics were printed in a chapbook of 1823:

      A further three verses may comprise a later addition.


      Uses in classical music


      Matthew Dubourg wrote a set of variations on the tune (under the name "Eileen Aroon")
      Maria Malibran's romance "L'Ecossais" quotes the tune.
      Francois Boieldieu quotes the tune in the aria "Vive a jamais notre nouveau seigneur" of his opera La dame blanche
      William Vincent Wallace wrote an impromptu based on the tune


      External links



      Adelina Patti singing Robin Adair on YouTube
      Emma Albani singing Robin Adair on YouTube
      Geraldine Farrar singing Robin Adair on YouTube
      Robin Adair, London: G. Walker, [1804-1814] on Internet Archive


      = Interpretations

      =
      "Robin Adair", variations by George Kiallmark on YouTube performed by Samantha Carrasco, piano


      References

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