Rosalind Ellicott

An 1890 portrait of Ellicott, by Herbert Rose Barraud

Rosalind Frances Ellicott (November 14, 1857 – April 5, 1924) was an English composer, considered one of the leading female composers of her generation.

Life

Ellicott was born in Cambridge, the daughter of Constantia Annie Ellicott (née Becher) and Charles Ellicott, the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. Her father had no interest in music, and it was predominantly her mother, an amateur singer involved in the founding of London's Handel Society and the Gloucester Philharmonic Society, who encouraged Rosalind's talent. At the age of six, "she exhibited an extraordinary facility in music, singing, and harmonising correctly by ear". She took lessons from Samuel Sebastian Wesley from age 12, tried writing songs at 13, and a sonata at 16.

From 1874 to 1876, she studied piano with Frederick Westlake at the Royal Academy of Music. At the Academy, she discovered her voice, took soprano solo parts in oratorios and cantatas, and was a frequent soloist at the Three Choirs Festival. She also studied composition for seven years from 1885 under Thomas Wingham of the Brompton Oratory. Ellicott was a member of the International Society of Musicians, the National Society of Professional Musicians, and an ARAM. Despite her success as a composer and performer in the late 19th century, she began to disappear from the public eye by the early 1900s. She moved to the south coast after World War I and died in Seasalter in 1924. She is buried near her parents in the churchyard of Birchington-on-Sea, in Kent.

Music

Rosalind Ellicott by Elliott & Fry (c1870)

In 1886, Ellicott found success at the Gloucester Festival with the Dramatic Overture and in 1889 with the lyrical cantata Elysium. Elysium was praised for its full and vigorous orchestration. These early works were later performed in Bristol, Cheltenham, Oxford, London, Dresden, and Chicago. Some suggest her father's position as a bishop helped her get performances at the Three Choirs Festival, though most composers relied on patronage.

Her ambitious chorus and orchestra works were in a traditional Romantic style. Toward the end of the century, she turned to chamber music, hoping for more performance opportunities. The Piano Trio No. 1 in G debuted in Bristol in 1889, with Ellicott as pianist. The second trio was performed at the Gloucester Guildhall in 1903. The Piano Quartet in B minor and the Violin Sonata were introduced at Steinway Hall in London in 1900. Her songs and chamber works were regularly performed and well-received. Ellicott composed rapidly, saying, "I get a whole movement in my head before I touch paper. I hardly ever alter my compositions."

Today, only a few of Ellicott's songs and instrumental works survive, although both piano trios have been recorded.

Works

Orchestral

• Fantasia for piano and orchestra (1895)

Chamber

Choral

• King Henry of Navarre: a choral ballad (men's voices) with orchestral accompaniment ad. lib. (1894)

Part songs

Solo songs

• "The sweet blue eyes of springtime". (Die blauen Frühlingsaugen.) Song; poem by H. Heine. English translation by C. Rowe (1881)
• "From my sad tears are springing". (Aus meinen Thränen.) Song; poem by H. Heine. English translation by C. Rowe (1881)
• "To the Immortals". Song; words by D. F. Blomfield (1883)
• "Verlust": solo song; words by Heine, English Translation by J. Troutbeck. [In C minor and D minor.] (1884)
• "I love thee". Song; words by R. S. Hichens (1887)
• "A Dream of the Sea". Song; words by R. S. Hichens (1889)

Discography

• The Piano Trio No 1 in G major (circa 1889) has been recorded by the Trio Anima Mundi on English Piano Trios, DIVINE ART DDA2515
• The Piano Trio No 2 in D minor (1891) was recorded by the Summerhayes Piano Trio. (English Romantic Trios: Meridian Records, 2005. CDE84478)
• Reverie was recorded by Joseph Spooner (cello) and Michael Jones (piano) at Potton Hall, Suffolk, 21–23 May 2008. (Romantics in England – Music for Cello & Piano: Dutton, 2009. CDLX7225)

Further reading

• Schleifer, Martha Furman (2006). Women composers: music through the ages: volume eight (Partitur ed.). New York: G.K. Hall. ISBN 9780783881935.
• Fuller, Sophie (1994). The Pandora guide to women composers: Britain and the United States 1629–present. London: Pandora. ISBN 9780044408970.
• Boden, Anthony (1992). Three Choirs: Gloucester, Hereford, Worcester; a history of the festival. Stroud: Sutton. ISBN 9780750900829.
• Fuller, Sophie (1998). Women composers during the British musical renaissance, 1880–1918: University of London

External links

• "Concert Programmes". Arts and Humanities Research Council. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
• "Rosalind Frances Ellicott". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 31 March 2014. (Creative Commons Licence Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) not suitable for uploading to Wikipedia)
• Fuller, Sophie: Grove Music Online entry (extract)
• Free scores by Rosalind Ellicott at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)