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

Life

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 Society.^[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

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
• Winds of the World, symphonic suite (1913)

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

• The Water Babies, based on the book by Charles Kingsley

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