Ancestry

Kate Loder was born on 21 August 1825,^[1] on Bathwick Street, Bathwick,^[2] within Bath, Somerset where the Loder family were prominent musicians. Her father was the flautist George Loder. According to Grove, her mother was a piano teacher born Fanny Philpot, who was the sister of the pianist Lucy Anderson.^[3] However, genealogical research suggests Kate's mother was Frances Elizabeth Mary Kirkham (1802–50),^[4] daughter of Thomas Bulman Kirkham (1778–1845) and Marianne Beville Moore (c.1781 – 1810).^[2] Frances Kirkham's step-mother was Jane Harriett Philpot (1802–63), second wife to Thomas Bulman Kirkham and sister of the Lucy Philpot who married the violinist George Frederick Anderson, becoming Lucy Anderson.^[5]^[6]^[7] Kate was also the sister of conductor and composer George Loder,^[1] and the cousin of composer Edward Loder.^[8]

Royal Academy of Music

Kate Loder studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Her performance of Mendelssohn's G minor piano concerto at the Hanover-square Rooms on 27 May 1843, when she was aged 17, may have been her public debut.^[9] The following year, in 1844, aged just 18, she became the first female professor of harmony at the Royal Academy.^[10]^[11]^[12]

Marriage

On 16 December 1851 at St Marylebone Church, Westminster, she married the eminent surgeon Henry Thompson (Kt. 1867. Bt. 1899, 'of Wimpole Street').^[13] After her marriage she gradually gave up her public performing career, the last public appearance being in March 1854.^[14] However, she remained active in music as a composer and professor at the Royal Academy of Music. Among here many pupils was Sarah Louisa Kilpack^[15] who nowadays is better known as an artist.

Kate Loder had three children from her marriage:^[16]

Kate Mary Margaret Thompson (1856–1942), author of Handbook to the Public Picture Galleries of Europe (1877); married Rev. Henry William Watkins.
Henry Francis Herbert Thompson (1859–1944), a barrister and later an Egyptologist lecturing at University College, London.
Helen Edith Thompson (1860–1930), married the Rev. Henry de Candole.

From 1871 onwards she suffered increasing Infirmity, described as paralysis.^[17]

Death

Kate Loder died on 30 August 1904 at Headley Rectory,^[18] Headley, Surrey.^[1]

The Brahms Requiem

On 10 July 1871,^[19] the first British performance of the German Requiem of Johannes Brahms took place privately at Loder's home, 35 Wimpole Street, London. It was performed using a version for piano duet accompaniment which became known as the "London Version" (German: Londoner Fassnung) of the Requiem.^[20] Brahms based it on an 1866 arrangement for piano of his first, six-movement version of the Requiem.^[21] The pianists were Kate Loder and Cipriani Potter (who was then 79 years old; he died that September).^[19]

Biography

Ancestry

Royal Academy of Music

Marriage

Death

The Brahms Requiem

Works

Chamber

Opera

Orchestral

Organ

Piano

Songs

References

External links