Eva Ruth Spalding

Eva Ruth Spalding (19 December 1883 - March 1969) was a British composer, violin and piano teacher who wrote six string quartets, solo piano music and songs.^[1][2]

Spalding was born in Blackheath, Kent, to Henry Spalding (a paper merchant) and his second wife Ellen. She was the youngest of eight children, with four half-siblings and three full siblings. One of the full siblings was Selma Nellie Spalding (1881-1965), later Lady Lennard.^[1]

Spalding studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where she passed the violin teacher exam in 1904.^[3] She also studied with Leopold Auer at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia.^[4] After returning to England, she taught piano and violin privately and at Bradfield College.^[5] In the 1920s she was sharing rooms and appearing in concerts with pianist composer Beatrice Mary Hall (1890-1961).^[6] (Hall's Six melodies pour piano (1923) are dedicated to Spalding). From the 1940s she lived at Tyndrum, Pond Lane, Churt in Surrey.^[7] In the 1950s she still occasionally performed in a piano duet with Daniel Kelly (1898-1993).^[8]

She set texts by the following poets to music: Léon Bazalgette, William Blake, Phineas Fletcher, Paul Fort, Fernand Gregh, George Herbert, Ioannes Papadiamantopoulos (as Jean Moréas), Edmund Spenser, Charles van Lerberghe, Clara Walsh, and Walt Whitman.^{[5][9][10][11][12]}

Spalding composed six string quartets, the first in the early 1920s. No. 5 was performed by the Aleph String Quartet at the Wigmore Hall on Tuesday 25 April 1950, along with the Five Songs from Spencer's Amoretti, sung by tenor Frederick Fuller.^[13] It was described by critic Scott Goddard as "contemporary in sentiment, and not at all modern in manner".^[14] Her music was published by Maurice Senart, with many of the song texts in both French and English versions.^[1]

She died at Churt in 1969, aged 85.^[15]

Selected works

Piano

• Etude for the Left Hand (1919)^[16]
• Fantasie (1958)^[17]
• Melodie for the left hand (1934)
• Prelude (1919)

Songs

• 'Berceuse d'Izumo' (1922, Japanese text, tr. Clara Walsh)
• Five Songs from Spencer's Amoretti (1950)^[13]
• 'Mort! le vent pleure autour du monde' (1925, text Paul Fort)
• 'Oses-tu maintenant' (1923, text Walt Whitman, tr. into French Leon Bazalgette.)
• 'Passing of the Spring' (1921, Japanese text, tr. Clara Walsh)
• 'Une Plaint' (1922, Japanese text: tr: Clara Walsh)
• 'Quand je viendrai m'asseoir' (1923, text Jean Moreas)
• 'Le Silence de l'eau' (1923, text Fernand Gregh)
• 'Soupirs' (1920, Japanese text: tr: Clara Walsh)
• Three Melodies for voice and piano or string quartet (1929)
  • 'The Lamb' (text: William Blake)
  • 'The Litany' (text: Phineus Fletcher)
  • 'Easter Words' (text: George Herbert)
• Three Melodies for voice and piano (1919, texts: Walt Whitman, French tr. Leon Balzagette)
  • 'Youth, Day, Old Age and Night'
  • 'A Clear Midnight'
  • 'The Lost Invocation'
• 'Le Vent nous pousse' (1925, text Paul Fort)
• 'Vers le soleil s'en vont ensemble' (1923, text: C.von Leberghe)

Chamber

• Poeme (violin and piano)^[18]  
• String Quartet No. 1 (1923, dedicated to Leopold Auer)^[19]
• String Quartet No. 2 (1928)^[19]
• String Quartet No. 3
• String Quartet No. 4
• String Quartet No. 5 (1950)^[20][13]
• String Quartet No. 6^[7]
• Violin Sonata No. 1
• Violin Sonata No. 2 (1928)^[21]
• Violin Sonata No. 3 (1952)^[21]

Orchestral

• Music for Strings^[7]