Wikipedia

Marian Arkwright

Marian Ursula Arkwright (25 January 1863 – 23 March 1922) was an English composer, pianist and string player (viola and double bass). She was one of the first women in England to earn a Bachelor of Music degree (in 1895), and the first woman to earn a doctorate in music, which she gained in 1913. Arkwright worked as an orchestral musician, composer and conductor, and received a prize for an orchestral work from The Gentlewoman.[1]

Marian Arkwright
Program of concert conducted by Marian Arkwright shortly before her death

Life

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Marian Arkwright was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England on 25 January 1863,[2] a descendent of Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the Spinning Jenny.[3] Her brother was the musicologist Godfrey Edward Pellew Arkwright.[4]

Arkwright studied piano with Bernhard Althaus (1831–1917) and also took piano lessons from Charles Hallé.[5] She also studied double bass with Charles Henry Winterbottom and composition with J.S. Liddle, organist at Newbury. She was awarded the L.R.A.M. in 1891, earned a Bachelor of Arts in music at Durham University in 1895, and a doctorate in music at the same university in 1913,[6][2] making her the first English woman to gain a PhD in music.[7][8]

After completing her studies, she worked as an orchestral musician and composer and conducted orchestras including the Newbury Amateur Orchestral Union.[6] She served as secretary of the English Ladies' Orchestral Society and the Highclere Choral Society, and was a leader of the Rural Music Schools movement.[9]

In 1906 she received the £25 first prize (Edith Swepstone came second)[1] from The Gentlewoman for an original orchestral work The Winds of the World, inspired by the Kipling ballad ‘The Flag of England’.[10][11] It was first performed at Newbury in 1907 and repeated in the same year by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, with the composer conducting.[12] Her Melbourne Suite for strings was composed for the 1907 Australian Exhibition of Women's Work.[2]

She died unexpectedly on the 23 March 1922 at Crowshott, Highclere (where she lived with her brother), a few hours after performing in the orchestra for a Newbury Choral Society performance of The Messiah.[13][14]

Works

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Arkwright published three volumes of violin and piano duets and two Concert Pieces for viola and piano.[15] She was noted for unusual instrument combinations. She took an interest in folk music and her Japanese Symphony contained Japanese airs that she had noted down herself, following a trip to Japan with Lucy Broadwood.[6] (It's possible that this work and the Japanese Suite are the same work - a London performance of the "symphonic suite" In Japan was noted in the papers in 1915).[16] Nigel Burton considers her The Dragon of Wantley, a ballad for three voices, to be her best children's work.[2][17]

Her 1914 Requiem Mass[18][19] was well received in the early stages of World War 1,[14] though Kate Kennedy has since judged it "jingoistic in the extreme".[20] A more authentic response to the war came later, in Through the Mist, a musical account of the returning of the body of the Unknown Warrior on HMS Verdun in 1920.[21]

Orchestral

  • A Blackbird's Matins, concert overture (performed in Cambridge, 1900)[22]
  • Hymn of Pan, scena for baritone and orchestra
  • Japanese Suite for strings (1911) (aka In Japan?)
  • Melbourne Suite for strings (1907)
  • Symphony in A minor, The Japanese (before 1912)
  • Through the Mist (1920)
  • Variations on an air by Handel (fp. Bournemouth, 1897)
  • Winds of the World, symphonic suite (fp. Bournemouth, February 1908)[23]

Choral

  • Atalanta in Calydon, cantata for soloists, chorus and orchestra
  • The Dragon of Wantley, ballad for treble voices, piano and string quartet (1915, published Cary & Co)
  • In convertendo, psalm, three part canon
  • The Last Rhyme of True Thomas, for chorus with string quartet and piano
  • Requiem Mass for chorus and orchestra (1914, published Cary & Co)
  • Three Kings from out the Orient, psalm, with bassoon obligato
  • Up to those bright and gladsome hills, psalm, two part canon

Operetta

Chamber music

  • Piano and violin duets, Vol. 1, 2 and 3 (published A Cary & Co)
  • Quintet for piano, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon
  • A Retrospect, cello solo
  • Rêveries for piano, oboe and viola
  • Scherzo and Variations for piano, clarinet and bassoon
  • Trio for piano, oboe and horn
  • Trio for pianoforte, oboe and viola
  • Two concert pieces for viola and piano (published Breitkopf & Hartel)

Song

  • Bright is the ring of words (published Cary & Co)
  • Children's song (published Cary & Co)
  • Come, pretty wag (1897)
  • In the midst of the woods, two part song
  • The Lark now leaves his watery nest (published Banks & Son, York)
  • Renewal, two part song with piano

References

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  1. 1 2 The Gentlewoman, 10 March 1906, p. 15
  2. 1 2 3 4 Burton, Nigel (1994). Sadie, Julie Anne; Samuel, Rhian (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers (1st ed.). MacMillan. p. 23. ISBN 0-333-515986.
  3. ↑ 'Marian Arkwright', Kent Trad
  4. ↑ "Category:Arkwright, Godfrey Edward Pellew - IMSLP". Petrucci Music Library. Retrieved 2025-04-24.
  5. ↑ 'The Late Dr. Marian Arkwright', Reading Observer, 31 March 1922, p.1
  6. 1 2 3 Broadwood, Lucy (1922). "Marian Ursula Arkwright, Mus. Doc. Died March 23rd, 1922". Journal of the Folk-Song Society. 7 (26): 27. ISSN 0377-0567. JSTOR 4434106.
  7. ↑ "Success of British Women Composers". Ottawa Citizen. 1 June 1922. p. 4. Retrieved 8 April 2019 – via newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ "An enthusiast for music". The Royal Berkshire Archives. Retrieved 2025-04-24.
  9. ↑ "Notes From Far and Near". Ottawa Citizen. 22 July 1922. p. 16. Retrieved 8 April 2019 – via newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ The Monthly Musical Record, vol. 36, 1906, retrieved 11 November 2010
  11. ↑ "Obituary, Musical News and Herald, 1 April 1922, Vol. LXII, p. 407". Retrieved 11 March 2025 – via www.google.co.uk/books.
  12. ↑ Fuller, Sophie. 'Arkwright, Marian (Ursula)', in Grove Music Online (2001)
  13. ↑ 'Musician's Death', London Daily Chronicle, 24 March 1922, p. 7
  14. 1 2 "An enthusiast for music | The Royal Berkshire Archives". www.royalberkshirearchives.org.uk. Retrieved 11 March 2025.
  15. ↑ "Marian Arkwright, Bluebell Kean, Margaret Meredith and Ethel Barns: Chamber Works". Originally published in The Music Student Chamber music supplement July 1914 pp.97-8. Retrieved 10 October 2010.
  16. ↑ 'Aeolian Hall', The Daily Telegraph, 7 May 1915, p. 13
  17. ↑ Cohen, Aaron I. (1987). International Encyclopedia of Women Composers (2nd ed.). South Africa: Books & Music (USA). p. 30. ISBN 0-9617485-0-8.
  18. ↑ "ccm :: Arkwright, Marian Arkwright". composers-classical-music.com. Retrieved 11 March 2025.
  19. ↑ "Requiemsurvey.org". www.requiemsurvey.org. Retrieved 11 March 2025.
  20. ↑ Kate Kennedy. 'A music of grief: classical music and the First World War', International Affairs, Vol. 90, No. 2, March 2014, p. 384
  21. ↑ Ann-Marie Einhaus, Katherine Isobel Baxter. The Edinburgh Companion to the First World War and the Arts (2017). p. 233
  22. ↑ Musical News, 20 January 1900, p.55
  23. ↑ Stephen Lloyd. Sir Dan Godfrey: Champion of British Composers (1995), pp. 34, 81
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