Maude Valerie White (1855 - 1937)

Born 23 Jun 1855 in Dieppe, Normandy, France

Died 2 Nov 1937 at age 82 in London, England, United Kingdom

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Biography

Maude was born in 1855. She passed away in 1937.

She was the daughter of Edmund Luscombe White, who had set up business in Valparaiso, Chile. He was the son of John White, a former naval officer who was appointed Vice-Consul in Valparaiso in 1821. White's mother, who lived in France until her marriage, was daughter of Irish naval officer Lieutenant Daniel Harrington.

After her father's early death the family was to suffer financial hardship.

Her elder siblings were Fanny, Annie, Dora, Fred and another brother whose name is unknown. Her parents later had two more children, Harry and Emmie.

The following information is from her memoir "Friends and Memories" (London: Edward Arnold, 1914).

Her paternal grandfather was a naval officer who later was English Consul in Valparaiso, Chile. Maude came to England from France as a young child. She lived from ages 1 to 7 in Staffordshire and later in London. At age 7 Maude was sent to live with her governess in Heidelberg for two years, where she performed her first works. She attended a boys' day school with her younger brother, where she was the only female pupil. She studied music in Paris until age 14 and later at the Royal Academy of Music. She converted to Roman Catholicism at age 24. She traveled extensively: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Italy, Sweden and Chile.

White won the prestigious Mendelssohn Prize in 1879. She was known primarily as a songwriter.

After a serious illness, her mother died in 1881. Grieving, White moved back to Chile to be with her elder sister Annie Compton and the Rose-Innes family (1881-1882).

White's career was outside the mainstream of the British musical establishment as she made herself a thoroughly independent and successful professional. As a composer of art songs, drawn from a variety of musical traditions, she was not generally included in the British Musical Renaissance of the early 20th century.

A scholarly discussion of her life and music is contained in Sophie Fuller's dissertation "Women Composers During the British Musical Renaissance, 1880-1918," pp. 140-209.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/2927686/263601.pdf

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maude_Valerie_White

• "Friends and Memories." available for download at ForgottenBooks.com