ABSTRACT
The importance of music to Thomas Moore, in its purest sense, cannot be overestimated. The poet ascribed music as the well-spring of his lyrical writing: 'It was, indeed, my strong desire to convey in words some of those feelings and fancies which music seemed to me to utter that first led me to attempt poetry'. Moore perceived music as multi-faceted and universal, not simply a vehicle for the promulgation of political ideologies. It had the power to overcome the limitations of language, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau had espoused, and was capable of expressing a wide spectrum of emotions. Moore's musical expression in the Irish Melodies is overt and expressed rather than internalized, as Adrian Paterson has pointed out. Three particular airs among the Irish Melodies were prominently described by him as 'wild': The twisting of the rope, The fairy-queen and Cuishlih ma chree. All three of these tunes possess somewhat unique qualities.
