Horses of the Dawn

About

Originally published by Augener, Horses of the Dawnwas Mary Brett's first published song. Mark Pirie in the Spring 2014 edition of Poetry Notes about the poet Meriada Batten gives a January 12, 1928 Evening Post report of a performance of the song by Mr. Gordon Cleather “from the manuscript”, saying “It was accorded a vociferous encore”. Although the poet was present it seems the composer wasn’t.

The song was published the same year and became a test piece for the vocal competition in the Auckland Competitions in the 1950s. A copy of the song is amongst the Molly Atkinson papers in the Alexander Turnbull Library with a signed dedication from the composer to the singer, dated 1931. Atkinson, a well-known singer and teacher in Auckland and Wellington, was an adjudicator for the Auckland Competitions in the 1950s and may have been the one to set the song as a test piece.