Amy Horrocks

The family (Francis, Hannah, Amy [aged 4] and their servant Mary Thompson) are recorded in the Scottish census of 1871, as lodgers in Edinburgh, so presumably they left Brazil between 1867 and 1871 and are possibly taking a holiday.

She had read English at London, but also had mathematical gifts, and at the age of forty was accepted at Manchester University for a degree course in Chemistry… The school’s motto was ‘Semper ad Lucem'.

Amy joins the school in May 1880[5] and is a pupil of Music Master John Blockley who “in addition to teaching pianoforte playing, gave lessons in class and solo singing and harmony, and was also a composer”.

It is presumably shortly after this when Amy starts her musical career, studying piano and composition under the pianist Adolf Schlösser and musician Francis William Davenport at the Royal Academy which she enters in 1882 (Brown and Stratton 1897)[19] at the tender age of 15.

Highlights of Amy’s student career at the Royal Academy are captured in various newspaper articles:- One of her Prince's Hall concerts is advertised in The Morning Post[44] and The Standard[45] and is favourably reviewed in The Weekly Dispatch,[46] describing the music as “agreeable” including “a well-written and effective sonata in G, for piano and violincello”.

Several examples of the skill of Miss Amy Horrocks as a pianoforte player and composer were presented on Thursday afternoon … at Princes’ Hall, when, besides executing Chopin’s Fantasia in F minor (Op.

First in this list came a Sonata in G, for pianoforte and violincello, containing some excellent workmanship in the opening Allegro and the final movement, and having for its middle section a theme with variations ingeniously worked out.

The first-named sang the plaintive ‘Ashes of Roses’ and the joyous ‘Bonnie wee thing’ and Miss Tulloch, the fanciful ‘A Midsummer Song.’” Amy’s career as a composer can be shown by reviews of several of her compositions in a variety of contemporary newspapers and periodicals.

[105] A performance of her Eight Variations features at another St James’s Hall concert, conducted by Royal Academy principal Alexander MacKenzie on 27 February 1893 with the piece described as a “very clever composition”[106] and “may be regarded as a distinct advance upon any of Miss Horrocks’s previous efforts”.

[107] The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News describes the quartet “composed by Miss Amy Horrocks” as giving “further testimony to the excellence of the teaching obtainable at the R.A.M.”[108] While The Era describes Amy as “a most promising young composer, whose simple and graceful theme was treated with no little variety of effect in the course of the eight variations, all of them being pleasing and some decidedly effective.”[109] After completing her studies, she continues to perform as a pianist and retains strong links with the Academy, where she becomes a teacher.

[127] The Social Review[128] mentions the concert in a column dedicated to highlighting Women’s Pursuits with the note that “Young ladies desirous of procuring advice as to their careers in life should write in confidence enclosing coupon cut from the last page of this journal to ‘Thyra’, care of Editor, The Social Review, 49 Middle Abbey Street, Dublin.” Amy composes two songs, ‘Garden Voices’ and ‘Lullaby’ for a performance by the singer Marian McKenzie in Plymouth (her birthplace) in 1895.

[131] Amy’s accompaniment of the Russian pianist Wassily Sapellnikoff in a performance at the Steinway Hall of two of her duets, ‘The Night Has a Thousand Eyes’ and ‘A Flower’ is advertised in the Morning Post[132] and London Evening Standard.

The first Steinway Hall event on 3 March includes ‘The Night Has a Thousand Eyes’ and ‘A Flower’ described as “effective airs, ably contrasted”[135] and also as “clever and pleasing duets”.

[139] At later concerts in the series, advertised in The Morning Post and London Evening Standard,[140][141] “‘Forget-me-not’ by Amy Horrocks, is a perfect gem, and ‘The Answer,’ by the same composer, is a sweet little ditty, which was deliciously sung by Miss Leo”[142] and she is counted as one “of the best of our lady English writers of songs”.

[143] This 1896 series of Rosa Leo’s Steinway Hall concerts featuring Amy’s songs are also mentioned in The London Evening Standard,[144] The Weekly Dispatch,[145] The Queen[146] and The Musical Times.

[151] Two more of Amy’s songs (‘The Bird and the Rose’ and ‘My Pretty Jane’) are performed by Jack Robertson as part of a 1896 London Ballad Concert, sponsored by one of Amy’s publishers, Boosey & Co.[152] These Ballad concerts began in the 1860s and consisted mainly of newly composed songs and were sponsored by sheet music publishers as a way to drive sales of music that would be bought by members of the public to perform at home.

[164][165][166][167][168][169] Amy’s musical arrangement of the poem is performed at a Royal Academy student concert in July 1899,[170][171] although the event’s length is not appreciated by the reviewer for the London Evening Standard: “St.

James’s Hall leaves little to be desired on the score of ventilation, but nearly two hours and a half of musical festivity in yesterday’s oppressive heat was clearly too much for a large portion of the audience, who filtered out long before the final items were disposed of”.

[h] Three of her ‘Six Greek Love Songs’ are premiered by the baritone Frederick Keel (to whom the collection is dedicated) at the Steinway Hall in May 1899[188] and her duet for female voices, ‘Harebell Curfew’ is described as “charming” and “this clever lady composer has selected a tuneful and generally grateful [sic] melody, while the refinement of the accompaniment mingle pleasing and picturesque effects”.

[211] Amy appears on the bill for the Promenade concert under the baton of Henry Wood, sharing the programme with performances of Rossini’s ‘William Tell’ Overture, Allan Macbeth’s ‘Serenata’, Gounod’s ‘Funeral March of a Marionette’ and two pieces by Wagner amongst others.

[221] The weekly magazine, Black and White, mentions Amy’s performance,[222] but sadly illustrates the ignorant attitudes of the time towards Dvorak’s New World Symphony, describing it as “n***** music”.

[223] And The Era hopes “that a composer, young, talented and already popular, will continue to exercise her gifts in the same direction, and have the good fortune to hear her ideas so perfectly rendered as they were on this occasion”.

[238] The Gentlewoman is more upbeat calling the piece a “very pleasing novelty” and describing Amy as “a young lady already well known as the writer of some charming songs, and one who is to be warmly welcomed into the growing ranks of women composers”.

[241] Later that year, Ellen Bowick performs ‘The Lady of Shalott’ at the London Ballad Concerts again[242] and also in Bath[243] and it is described as “a melodrama and dramatic scene for solo voice … heard for the first time in New York in the season now closing [1906]”[244] one of the “more important”.

[254][255] ‘The Bird and the Rose’ continues to make regular appearances: At a school concert in Bournemouth,[256] Hythe,[257] East London,[258] a cricket club fundraiser in Lincolnshire,[259] a Meister Glee singers performance in Penzance,[260] as part of the entertainment at the conclusion of a meeting of the Conservative supporting Primrose League in Exeter,[261] on the programme sung by Jack Robertson as part of a concert by popular contralto, Clara Butt during a tour that takes in Exeter,[262] Bristol[263] and Belfast.

[270] The piece features in one of the Pump Room concerts in Bath,[271] as part of the “annual conversaxione” of the Presbyterian Literary Society in Jersey in 1909[272] and is on the programme for the musical entertainment at the distribution of prizes at the Retford Miniature Rifle Club in 1914.

And as regards the opera it really does not matter; these light things are usually written & composed by half a dozen different people; they have no consistency whatever, but nobody minds.” 21 March 1908 “I have been filling up my time with composition I have from past songs in hand; because expenses are heavy & I want to help.

If you put aside prima donas, infant prodigies, & a very few composers who happen to be momentarily the sage, there is no profession worse paid; & certainly there are very few more injurious to the health.” 23 May 1908 “All those things – hysterical religion, sentimental poetry, sad music – (of which I myself have written far too much!)

Even though The Blind Horse of Corfu gives the impression that Nico destroyed the song,”… a 'Song for Peace' which had apparently won an important prize" (Norrington 2006),[306] obituaries in The Stage and, suffragette newspaper, The Vote announcing Amy's death both report that "shortly before her death a jury of musicians and literary men in Paris had awarded her the prize, open to the world, for a song in honour of the 'Drapeau Bleu' - the ensign of the League of Nations".

The world was sleeping through bad dreams at night Of blood, dictators and unhappy plight, The rising sun smiles, while turning his gaze To the reflection as our flag is raised.