MAUDE VALERIE WHITE - UK
BORN 23 JUNE
BORN 23 JUNE
Maude Valérie White was a French-born English composer who became one of the most successful songwriters (in the English serious style) of the Victorian period.
White was the first woman to be awarded the prestigious Mendelssohn Scholarship, which she received in 1879. Her father died while she was a child, but when White’s mother died in 1881, White was devastated, and went to Chile to be with her sister and to recuperate and recover her health. Upon returning to London in 1882, she thrust herself into a career as a professional musician and composer. She made her way by teaching piano, and by writing songs and playing them at galas and soirées. Later, using her linguistic skills, she earned a living by translating books and plays.
In 1883 White went to Vienna for six months to study with Robert Fuchs. he tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade her to extend her composition into more instrumental genres, a task which she never aggressively pursued. As Fuller notes, White’s music during this period of her career is characterized “by careful word setting, expansive melodies, a sense of rhythmic propulsion and an avoidance of clear-cut cadences" (Grove). As Grove indicates, this can be heard in her 1888 setting of Byron's ‘So we'll go no more a-roving’, one of her most enduring songs, which is dedicated to Herbert Beerbohm Tree.
Her setting of Shelley’s ‘My soul is an enchanted boat,’ published in 1882 has been described as ‘one of the best of our language’ (Fuller, 331). Later in the 1890s her musical style developed and shifted to incorporate elements of music from her global travels. Increasingly she also sought to realise in her songs the style of German Lieder. Her ballet ‘The Enchanted Heart’ shows the influence of Russian ballet. Even later, past the turn of the century, her works become more impressionistic, as shown in ‘La Flûte Invisible’ (Victor Hugo) and ‘Le Foyer’ (Paul Verlaine). Her music creates a dreamy setting “through improvisatory motifs or repeated figures of open fourths or fifths” (Fuller, Grove).
Among other successful titles were Come to me in my dreams, Ye cupids droop each little head, Until (semper fidelis), Mary Morison and My soul is an enchanted boat.
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So we'll go no more a roving by Maude Valérie White
So we'll go no more a roving by Maude Valérie White
MADDALENA CASULANA - ITALY
Maddalena Casulana was an Italian composer, lutenist and singer of the late Renaissance. She is the first female composer to have her music printed and published in the history of western music.
Extremely little is known about her life, other than what can be inferred from the dedications and writings on her collections of madrigals. Most likely she was born at Casole d'Elsa, near Siena, from the evidence of her name. She received her musical education and early experiences in Florence.
Her first work dates from 1566: four madrigals in a collection, Il Desiderio, which she produced in Florence. Two years later she published in Venice her first actual book of madrigals for four voices, Il primo libro di madrigali, which is the first printed, published work by a woman in western music history. Also that year Orlando di Lasso conducted Nil mage iucundum at the court of Albert V, Duke of Bavaria in Munich; however the music has not survived.
She evidently was close to Isabella de' Medici, and dedicated some of her music to her. In 1570, 1583 and 1586 she published other books of madrigals, all at Venice. Sometime during this period she married a man named Mezari, but no other information is known about him, or where she (or they) were living. Evidently she visited Verona, Milan and Florence, based on information contained in dedications, and likely she went to Venice as well, since her music was published there and numerous Venetians commented on her abilities. She made at least one voyage to the French imperial court in the 1570s.
The following line in the dedication to her first book of madrigals, to Isabella de' Medici, shows her feeling about being a female composer at a time when such a thing was rare:
"[I] want to show the world, as much as I can in this profession of music, the vain error of men that they alone possess the gifts of intellect and artistry, and that such gifts are never given to women."
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