Adela Maddison

She composed a number of French songs in the style of mélodies;[3] for some years she lived in Paris, where she was a pupil, friend and possibly lover of Gabriel Fauré.

[5] She was born at 42 York Terrace, Regent's Park, London on 15 December 1862 (rather than in 1866 as is sometimes stated),[1] the daughter of Vice Admiral Louis Symonds Tindal[6] (1811–76)[2] and Henrietta Maria O'Donel Whyte (1831/2–1917).

[2] On 14 April 1883 she married barrister and former footballer Frederick Brunning Maddison (1849–1907), at Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, London.

[3] From around 1894, Maddison and her husband played a major part in encouraging and facilitating Fauré's entry onto the London musical scene.

She provided English translations of some of his mélodies,[4] and of his choral work La naissance de Vénus, Op.

[4] She composed a number of mélodies, setting the works of poets such as Sully Prudhomme, Coppée, Verlaine and Samain;[3] in 1900 Fauré told the latter that her treatment of his poem Hiver was masterly.

[13] From Paris she moved to Berlin, where she continued to produce concerts,[5] and composed an opera, Der Talisman, which was staged in Leipzig in 1910.

[3] In Germany she started a lifelong friendship with Martha Mundt,[5] the editor of a Berlin socialist journal.

[5] They left Germany for France, where Mundt obtained work with the Princesse de Polignac, and they moved on to London when World War I started.