Rosalind Ellicott

Rosalind Ellicott (November 14 1857 – April 5 1924) was an English composer.

Life

Ellicott was born in Cambridge, the daughter of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. Her father had no interest in music whatsoever, however it has been suggested that it was his position that enabled her to have works performed at the Three Choirs Festival which were held in rotation in Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester. [ [http://musicweb.uk.net/ellicott/index.htm ROSALIND ELLICOTT by Dr David C.F. Wright] ] It was predominantly her mother, a singer who had been involved with the founding both of London's Handel Society (1844-1848) [ [http://gfhandel.org/chron4.htm Chronology of George Frideric Handel's Life] ] and of the Gloucester Philharmonic Society who encouraged young Rosalind's talent. From 1874 to 1876 she studied piano with Frederick Westlake at the Royal Academy of Music; here, too, she studied for seven years under Thomas Wingham, a pupil of Sir William Sterndale Bennett. Her first published composition, a "Sketch", appeared in 1883. Shortly thereafter, Ellicott began composing ambitious works for chorus and orchestra, cast in a traditional, broadly Romantic vein. While many of these gained performance at festivals in Gloucester, Ellicott began to turn her attention to chamber music by the end of the nineteenth century, likely hoping that there would be more opportunities for it to be performed. Still, she began disappearing from the public eye sometime around 1900, moving to the south coast after World War I and dying in Seasalter in 1924.ref|autonumber She is buried near her parents in the churchyard of Birchington on Sea, in Kent.

Music

Comparatively little of Ellicott's work has survived to this day; apart from a few songs and other instrumental works, only the cantatas "Elysium" and "The Birth of Song", along with an incomplete copy of the First Piano Trio and a complete copy of the Second, are known to exist in published form. Ellicott's contemporaries often spoke favorably of her music; she was once told by Charles H. H. Parry that she "handl [ed] her brass as if [she] had been at it for twenty years", and others even felt that her work was superior to that of her male colleagues. Much of the surviving music is richly, lushly Brahmsian, built on thick textures and rich instrumentation, even in chamber works such as the second piano trio.

Discography

The second piano trio has been recorded by the Summerhayes Piano Trio for Meridian Records; the recording was released in 2005.

Notes

Note|autonumber Sources differ on this; some state that she died in London, not in Seasalter, although the year given is the same.

References

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*"English Romantic Trios". Meridian Records, 2005.