Marian Arkwright

Marian Arkwright was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England on 25 January 1863,{{Cite book |last=Burton |first=Nigel |title=The New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers |publisher=MacMillan |year=1994 |isbn=0-333-515986 |editor-last=Sadie |editor-first=Julie Anne |edition=1st |pages=23 |editor-last2=Samuel |editor-first2=Rhian}} a descendent of Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the Spinning Jenny.[https://kenttrad.org/marian-arkwright/ 'Marian Arkwright', Kent Trad] Her brother was the musicologist Godfrey Edward Pellew Arkwright.{{Cite web |title=Category:Arkwright, Godfrey Edward Pellew - IMSLP |url=https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Arkwright,_Godfrey_Edward_Pellew |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=Petrucci Music Library}}

Arkwright studied piano with Bernhard Althaus (1831-1917) and also took piano lessons from Charles Hallé.'The Late Dr. Marian Arkwright', Reading Observer, 31 March, 1922, p.1 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,{{Cite journal |last=Broadwood |first=Lucy |date=1922 |title=Marian Ursula Arkwright, Mus. Doc. Died March 23rd, 1922 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4434106 |journal=Journal of the Folk-Song Society |volume=7 |issue=26 |pages=27–27 |issn=0377-0567}} making her the first English woman to gain a PhD in music.{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30392375/success_of_british_women_composers/ |title=Success of British Women Composers |work=Ottawa Citizen |page=4 |date=1 June 1922 |access-date=8 April 2019 |via=newspapers.com}}{{Cite web |title=An enthusiast for music |url=https://www.berkshirerecordoffice.org.uk/news/article/enthusiast-music |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=The Royal Berkshire Archives}}

After completing her studies, she worked as an orchestral musician and composer and conducted orchestras including the Newbury Amateur Orchestral Society. 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.{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30392242/notes_from_far_and_near/ |title=Notes From Far and Near |work=Ottawa Citizen |page=16 |date=22 July 1922 |access-date=8 April 2019 |via=newspapers.com}}

In 1906 she received the £25 first prize (Edith Swepstone came second) from The Gentlewoman for an original orchestral work The Winds of the World, inspired by the Kipling ballad ‘The Flag of England’.{{citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wNcqAAAAYAAJ&q=Marian+Arkwright&pg=PA89|title=The Monthly musical record|volume = 36|year=1906|access-date=11 November 2010}}{{cite web |title=Obituary of Marian Arkwright in the Musical News and Herald, vol 62-62. |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Musical_News_and_Herald/t262J2y8HSMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=marian+arkwright+obituary&pg=PA407&printsec=frontcover |website=Musical News and Herald |publisher=Publishing Office. |access-date=11 March 2025 |language=en |date=1922 |via=www.google.co.uk/books}} It was first performed at Newbury in 1907 and repeated in the same year by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, with the composer conducting.Fuller, Sophie. [https://doi-org.lonlib.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.47833 'Arkwright, Marian (Ursula)'], in Grove Music Online (2001) Her Melbourne Suite for strings was composed for the 1907 Australian Exhibition of Women's Work.

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.'Musician's Death', London Daily Chronicle, 24 March, 1922, p. 7{{cite web |title=An enthusiast for music {{!}} The Royal Berkshire Archives |url=https://www.royalberkshirearchives.org.uk/this-months-highlight/article/enthusiast-music |website=www.royalberkshirearchives.org.uk |access-date=11 March 2025}}

Arkwright published three volumes of violin and piano duets and two Concert Pieces for viola and piano.{{cite web |title=Marian Arkwright, Bluebell Kean, Margaret Meredith and Ethel Barns: Chamber Works |url=http://landofllostcontent.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html |access-date=10 October 2010 |publisher=Originally published in The Music Student Chamber music supplement July 1914 pp.97-8}} 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. (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).'Aeolian Hall', The Daily Telegraph, 7 May 1915, p. 13 Nigel Burton considers her The Dragon of Wantley, a ballad for three voices, to be her best children's work.{{Cite book |last=Cohen |first=Aaron I. |title=International Encyclopedia of Women Composers |publisher=Books & Music (USA) |year=1987 |isbn=0-9617485-0-8 |edition=2nd |location=South Africa |pages=30}}

Her 1914 Requiem Mass{{cite web |title=ccm :: Arkwright, Marian Arkwright |url=https://composers-classical-music.com/a/ArkwrightMarian.htm |access-date=11 March 2025 |website=composers-classical-music.com}}{{cite web |title=Requiemsurvey.org |url=http://www.requiemsurvey.org/composers.php?id=1545 |access-date=11 March 2025 |website=www.requiemsurvey.org}} was well received in the early stages of World War 1, though Kate Kennedy has since judged it "jingoistic in the extreme".Kate Kennedy. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24538561 'A music of grief: classical music and the First World War'], International Affairs, Vol. 90, No. 2, March 2014, p. 384 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.Ann-Marie Einhaus, Katherine Isobel Baxter. The Edinburgh Companion to the First World War and the Arts (2017). p. 233

Orchestral

• A Blackbird's Matins, concert overture (performed in Cambridge, 1900)Musical News, 20 January 1900, p.55
• 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

{{Reflist}}

• [https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Arkwright,_Marian_Ursula Category:Arkwright, Marian Ursula] at imslp.org
• [https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php?topic=4986.0 List of works] at www.unsungcomposers.com
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3Q3nJ65tgw&list=RDO3Q3nJ65tgw&start_radio=1 Two Concert Pieces for Viola and Piano] performed by Corey Johnson and Lee MeLaugh.

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Category:1863 births

Category:1922 deaths

Category:English classical musicians

Category:English women classical composers

Category:Composers from Norwich

Category:Alumni of Durham University

Category:People from Highclere