Kate's new CD of songs by the prolific 19th century song writer Claribel (Charlotte Alington Barnard), with Jane O'Farrell at the piano,  is now available from the CD sales page for £12 including postage.

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Charlotte Alington Pye was born in Louth, Lincolnshire, in 1830, the only child of solicitor Henry Pye and his wife Charlotte Yerburgh.  Throughout her childhood Charlotte enjoyed writing poems and attending concerts at Louth’s Assembly Rooms. In 1847 she laid the foundation stone of Louth railway station, possibly standing in for her mother, who was ill at the time and who died later that year. 

Following two broken engagements, in 1854 Charlotte married clergyman Charles Cary Barnard and settled in Louth, but, following Charlotte’s presentation at court in 1856, the couple moved to Pimlico in London where they were neighbours of the conductor Michael Costa and where they frequently attended performances at The Royal Opera House and where Charlotte attended composition classes at the Royal Academy of Music and had singing lessons with the tenor Guiseppe Mario. She also renewed her friendship with the poet Jean Ingelow, from Boston in Lincolnshire, who presented her to the literary society The Portfolio. 

Charlotte’s first song to be published under the pseudonym ‘Claribel’ was a setting of Tennyson’s The Brook, published by John Boosey. The relationship with Boosey was a fruitful one, seeing Claribel publish nearly 100 songs, to enormous acclaim throughout the English-speaking world. Nonetheless, criticism was levelled at the royalties system, which assured an income for both song writers and the singers who made the songs known to the public to stimulate sheet music sales, some writers in the musical press being scathing about the quality of Claribel’s work. 

In 1864 Charlotte and Charles returned to Lincolnshire, Charles having been appointed to the living of Kirmington and Brocklesby.  Four years later scandal hit the family as Henry Pye was discovered to have been embezzling the funds of his clients. After an unsuccessful attempt at escape in an open boat into the North Sea, Henry, with his second wife, Albinia, and their young daughter, as well as Charlotte and Charles, fled to Belgium. Charlotte enrolled in composition classes and continued to write songs. In 1869 she made a return visit to England, but contracted typhoid fever and died at Dover, where she is buried.