Alberta Neiswanger Hall (seated) listening to the radio along with Mrs. Dr. Elliott Norton (center) and Frances Peralta, (right) soprano of the Metropolitan Opera Company.There Was a Goose, words by
L. Frank Baum, music by Alberta N. Hall. (Supplement to the New York World. July 22, 1900)
Alberta Grace Neiswanger Hall (November 10, 1870 – May 9, 1956), also known as Alberta N. Burton, was an American composer of children's songs and books.[1] She wrote musical settings for 26 poems in "
The Songs of Father Goose" by
L. Frank Baum in 1900.[2][3]
Her other works include musical settings for
Lizette Woodworth Reese and Percy Blackmer, as well as her own original lyrics, and have been called "full of genuine melodic charm and no little skill of harmonic workmanship."[4][5]
Neiswanger was born in
Richmond, Virginia, to Joseph Neiswanger and Marion Louise Paxson. She married George Eckart Hall in 1893 in Chicago.[6] They later divorced. In 1902 in New Orleans, she married
Edmund F. Burton,[7] a physician who left medicine for the study of
Christian Science.[8] She also converted to the religion.