Eva Ruth Spalding

{{Short description|British composer}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

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.{{Cite web|title=Eva Ruth Spalding 1882-1969|url=http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php?topic=6232.0|access-date=2022-01-19|website=www.unsungcomposers.com}}{{Cite book|last=Stewart-Green|first=Miriam|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/6815939|title=Women composers : a checklist of works for the solo voice|date=1980|publisher=G.K. Hall|isbn=0-8161-8498-4|location=Boston, Mass.|oclc=6815939}}

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.

Spalding studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where she passed the violin teacher exam in 1904.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PTw0AQAAMAAJ&dq=eva+ruth+spalding&pg=PA690|title=The Musical Times|date=1904|publisher=Novello|language=en}} She also studied with Leopold Auer at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia.{{Cite book|last=Hill|first=Ralph|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I_NLAAAAYAAJ&q=eva+ruth+spalding|title=The Penguin Music Magazine|date=1946|publisher=Penguin Books|language=en}} After returning to England, she taught piano and violin privately and at Bradfield College.{{Cite book|last=Cohen|first=Aaron I.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5VsYAAAAIAAJ&q=strantz+louise|title=International Encyclopedia of Women Composers|date=1987|publisher=Books & Music (USA)|isbn=978-0-9617485-1-7|language=en}} In the 1920s she was sharing rooms and appearing in concerts with pianist composer Beatrice Mary Hall (1890-1961).'British Music Society', in The Woolwich Herald, 15 October 1920, p. 4 From the 1940s she lived at Tyndrum, Pond Lane, Churt in Surrey, where she died in 1969.The Times, 30 June 1969, p. 10Who's Who in Music 5th edition (1969), p. 294

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.{{Cite web|title=Eva Ruth Spalding (1882 - 1969) - Vocal Texts and Translations at the LiederNet Archive|url=https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_settings.html?ComposerId=5808|access-date=2022-01-19|website=www.lieder.net}}{{Cite book|last=Office|first=Library of Congress Copyright|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FzQhAQAAIAAJ&dq=eva+ruth+spalding&pg=PA676|title=Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third series|date=1958|language=en}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jk0cAQAAIAAJ&dq=eva+ruth+spalding&pg=PA523|title=Catalog of Copyright Entries: Musical compositions|date=1925|publisher=Library of Congress, Copyright Office.|language=en}}{{Cite book|last=Whitman|first=Walt|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EnhbAAAAMAAJ&q=eva+ruth+spalding|title=Complete Poetry & Selected Prose and Letters|date=1938|publisher=Nonesuch Press|language=en}}

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. It was described by critic Scott Goddard as "contemporary in sentiment, and not at all modern in manner".'A new string quartet', London Daily News, 30 April 1952, p. 5 Her music was published by Maurice Senart, with many of the song texts in both French and English versions.