Rosalind Ellicott


Rosalind Frances Ellicott 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 and Charles Ellicott, the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. Her father had no interest in music whatsoever and it was predominantly her mother, a singer who had been involved with the founding both of London's Handel Society and of the Gloucester Philharmonic Society, who encouraged young 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, the cathedral organist, from age 12, tried writing songs at 13 and then a sonata at 16.
From 1874 to 1876 she studied piano with Frederick Westlake at the Royal Academy of Music. While at the Academy she discovered her voice and 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. She was a member of the International Society of Musicians and the National Society of Professional Musicians, as well as an ARAM. But despite her relative success in the last two decades of the century as a composer and performer, by the early 1900s she began disappearing from the public eye. 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

In 1886 Ellicott found success at the Gloucester Festival with the orchestral Dramatic Overture and then in 1889 with Elysium, a lyrical cantata. Of her Elysium: "the orchestration is full and vigorous, the brass specially bold and refreshing, and there is not a dull bar.... It is a charming and spirited work repeated calls". Both of these early works were performed subsequently at concerts in Bristol, Cheltenham, Oxford, London, Dresden and Chicago. It has been suggested that her father's position as a bishop enabled her to have some of her works performed at the Three Choirs Festival However the majority of new composers used patronage from established musicians or other influential people in order to obtain festival premieres.
Her ambitious works for chorus and orchestra were cast in a traditional, broadly Romantic vein. But towards the end of the century she began to turn her attention to chamber music, possibly hoping that there would be more opportunities for it to be performed. The Piano Trio No 1 in G received its first performance in Bristol at the end of 1889, with the composer as pianist. The second trio was given at the Gloucester Guildhall on 29 October 1903. The Piano Quartet in B minor and the Violin Sonata were both introduced at the same Steinway Hall concert in London on 28 April 1900, performed by Sybil Palliser, Edie Reynolds, Lionel Tertis and Charles Ould. Her songs and chamber works were regularly performed at the festivals and were generally well-received. She composed rapidly: "I get a whole movement in my head before I touch paper. I hardly ever alter my compositions." Comparatively little of Ellicott's work has survived to this day apart from a few songs and instrumental works.

Works

Orchestral
Chamber
Choral
Part songs
Solo songs