Catalog Number: HUD052LP Color: Black Format: LP UPC: 5051078015729 Parlour Ballads is the new album from Jon Boden, a piano led record full of sentimental ballads that tie together parlour music and folk song. Parlour Ballads seeks to awaken the sound of the old, well loved, slightly out of tune domestic piano and to reunite it with (or introduce it to) songs that might feel glad of the acquaintance. "Parlour Music" is a genre that has been much derided over the centuries. Its heyday was the Victorian era when many middle-class houses had pianos and many children who could sight- read piano scores to a high level, musical literacy being highly prized. Parlour songs were composed and disseminated through sheet music, to be performed in private and public houses alike, but with an air of respectability not found in the music hall repertoire. This practice continued well into the twentieth century until technological advances supplanted the printed stave as the primary means of musical transmission.