Adding local short description: "English composer (1882–1952)", overriding Wikidata description "British composer" (Shortdesc helper) |
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==Biography== |
==Biography== |
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Her father was a doctor, and she was one of five children, growing up in London and (from 1891) [[Chipstead, Surrey|Chipstead]] in Surrey. She studied piano at the [[Dresden Conservatory]] with Carlo Albanesi (1856-1926)<ref>NOTE: the sources say Dresden, but Albanesi settled in London from 1893 and taught at the [[Royal Academy of Music]] - see his obituary, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/913509 ''The Musical Times'', Vol. 67, No. 1005 (Nov. 1, 1926), p. 1037]</ref> and (later in life, during the 1920s) composition at the [[Royal College of Music]] with [[Herbert Howells]], [[R.O. Morris]] and [[Maurice Jacobson]].<ref>British Music Society. ''[http://www.britishmusicsociety.com/publications/ British Composer Profiles]'', 3rd Edition, 2012</ref> She married entrepreneur and inventor [[Ralph Lucas]] in 1903,<ref>[http://greenwichindustrialhistory.blogspot.com/2014/07/information-provided-about-ralph-lucas_30.html Greenwich Industrial History: ''Ralph Lucas (1876-1955) |
Her father was a doctor, and she was one of five children, growing up in London and (from 1891) [[Chipstead, Surrey|Chipstead]] in Surrey. She studied piano at the [[Dresden Conservatory]] with Carlo Albanesi (1856-1926)<ref>NOTE: the sources say Dresden, but Albanesi settled in London from 1893 and taught at the [[Royal Academy of Music]] - see his obituary, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/913509 ''The Musical Times'', Vol. 67, No. 1005 (Nov. 1, 1926), p. 1037]</ref> and (later in life, during the 1920s) composition at the [[Royal College of Music]] with [[Herbert Howells]], [[R.O. Morris]] and [[Maurice Jacobson]].<ref>British Music Society. ''[http://www.britishmusicsociety.com/publications/ British Composer Profiles]'', 3rd Edition, 2012</ref> She married entrepreneur and inventor [[Ralph Lucas]] in 1903,<ref>[http://greenwichindustrialhistory.blogspot.com/2014/07/information-provided-about-ralph-lucas_30.html Greenwich Industrial History: ''Ralph Lucas (1876-1955)'']</ref> and their son Colin became a noted architect.<ref>{{cite book |title=Connell, Ward and Lucas: Modern movement architects in England|first1=Dennis|last1=Sharp|first2=Sally|last2=Rendel|year=2008|isbn=9780711227682|accessdate=5 January 2011|format=Digitized online by GoogleBooks|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2jklBJ2AHvEC&q=Mary+Anderson+Lucas+composer&pg=PA16}}</ref><ref>[http://www.calmview2.eu/PaulMellonCentre/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=DCS%2f2%2f2%2f4&pos=1 Paul Mellon Centre Archive]</ref> |
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==Music== |
==Music== |
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==Family and friends== |
==Family and friends== |
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Her husband Ralph Lucas was involved in the design and manufacturing of early motor cars, including the Ralph Lucas Car, developed from 1901 until around 1908. He died in 1955. Their son Colin Lucas (1906-1984) was an architect and a pioneer of reinforced concrete construction.<ref name=yale>[https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/archives-and-library/sharp-biographies/colin-lucas Colin Lucas biography, Dennis Sharp Archive, Yale University]</ref> He married the chef [[Dione Lucas]] in 1945. Colin Lucas built Noah's Boathouse in [[Cookham]] for his parents.<ref name=PDO>[https://www.ouspenskytoday.org/media/cl/Memoir.pdf |
Her husband Ralph Lucas was involved in the design and manufacturing of early motor cars, including the Ralph Lucas Car, developed from 1901 until around 1908. He died in 1955. Their son Colin Lucas (1906-1984) was an architect and a pioneer of reinforced concrete construction.<ref name=yale>[https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/archives-and-library/sharp-biographies/colin-lucas Colin Lucas biography, Dennis Sharp Archive, Yale University]</ref> He married the chef [[Dione Lucas]] in 1945. Colin Lucas built Noah's Boathouse in [[Cookham]] for his parents.<ref name=PDO>[https://www.ouspenskytoday.org/media/cl/Memoir.pdf Ouspensky Today. ''Colin Lucas: a view of a creative life'']</ref> Mary Lucas established a music room there, where musical and philosophical gatherings were held.<ref>BBC Berkshire: ''[https://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/heritage/england/berkshire/article_1.shtml Noah's Boathouse Hits Troubled Waters]''</ref><ref>BBC Radio 3: ''[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00022zk Essential Classics]'', 21 January 2019</ref> (Mary and Colin were followers of the Russian [[esotericist]] [[P. D. Ouspensky]])<ref name=PDO/> Visitors to these may have included friends such as [[Paul Nash (artist)|Paul Nash]], [[Alain Daniélou]] and [[Edmund Rubbra]].<ref>[https://twitter.com/KateRomano2/status/1087262406420688901 Romano Kate. 'Mary Lucas and the Concrete Boathouse', BBC Radio 3, 21 January, 2019]</ref> |
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Another of her nieces was the actress, dancer and singer [[Daphne Anderson]].<ref>[https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Juler-36 WikiTree. 'Gladys Amy (Gladys) Scrutton formerly Juler']</ref> |
Another of her nieces was the actress, dancer and singer [[Daphne Anderson]].<ref>[https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Juler-36 WikiTree. 'Gladys Amy (Gladys) Scrutton formerly Juler']</ref> |
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'''Orchestral''' |
'''Orchestral''' |
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* ''Capriccio'' for saxophone and string orchestra<ref> |
* ''Capriccio'' for saxophone and string orchestra<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/924065 ''The Musical Times'', Nov. 1941, Vol. 82, No. 1185 (Nov. 1941), p. 413]</ref> |
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* ''The Circus'', suite for orchestra (1939)<ref name=bmc>[https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/score/circus-1 British Music Collection]</ref><ref name="BBC Proms Archive"/> (pub. Peters) |
* ''The Circus'', suite for orchestra (1939)<ref name=bmc>[https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/score/circus-1 British Music Collection]</ref><ref name="BBC Proms Archive"/> (pub. Peters) |
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* ''Concertino'' for flute and orchestra (1940) <ref name=musicalics/> |
* ''Concertino'' for flute and orchestra (1940) <ref name=musicalics/> |
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Revision as of 08:09, 27 February 2021
Mary Lucas (born Mary Anderson Juler, 24 May 1882–14 January 1952),[1] sometimes referred to as Mary Anderson Lucas, was an English composer and pianist.[2]
Biography
Her father was a doctor, and she was one of five children, growing up in London and (from 1891) Chipstead in Surrey. She studied piano at the Dresden Conservatory with Carlo Albanesi (1856-1926)[3] and (later in life, during the 1920s) composition at the Royal College of Music with Herbert Howells, R.O. Morris and Maurice Jacobson.[4] She married entrepreneur and inventor Ralph Lucas in 1903,[5] and their son Colin became a noted architect.[6][7]
Music
Lucas gave up composition for a few years after she married, but returned to produce a number of successful compositions, including six string quartets.[8] In 1934 and 1935 the Stratton String Quartet championed her music, performing her quartets at the London Music Club's First Performance Society on 29 November 1934 at 22 Holland Park,[9] and in January 1935 at the Blackheath Concert Halls.[10] There was a BBC broadcast of the third quartet by the all female Macnaghten Quartet on 4 February 1936.[11]
Lucas had a special affinity with the clarinet, and may have encouraged her niece Pauline Juler (1914-2003) to become a professional clarinetist.[12] Her Clarinet Sonata was written for Juler in 1938.[13][14] Around this time she was also performing duo recitals with the clarinet Rudolph Dunbar, and a recording of them playing her Lament for clarinet and piano was issued by Octacros Records in the late-1930s.[15] A performance of the impressionistic Circus Suite for orchestra, conducted by Henry Wood at the Royal Albert Hall on 4 July 1942, gave Lucus her Proms debut at the age of sixty.[16]
Her papers (including some recordings) are partially housed at the British Library,[17] while some manuscripts and other papers are held at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. A Lucas family archive is held at the Dennis Sharpe Archive, Paul Mellon Center, Yale University.[18]
Family and friends
Her husband Ralph Lucas was involved in the design and manufacturing of early motor cars, including the Ralph Lucas Car, developed from 1901 until around 1908. He died in 1955. Their son Colin Lucas (1906-1984) was an architect and a pioneer of reinforced concrete construction.[18] He married the chef Dione Lucas in 1945. Colin Lucas built Noah's Boathouse in Cookham for his parents.[19] Mary Lucas established a music room there, where musical and philosophical gatherings were held.[20][21] (Mary and Colin were followers of the Russian esotericist P. D. Ouspensky)[19] Visitors to these may have included friends such as Paul Nash, Alain Daniélou and Edmund Rubbra.[22]
Another of her nieces was the actress, dancer and singer Daphne Anderson.[23]
Works
Selected works include:
Orchestral
- Capriccio for saxophone and string orchestra[24]
- The Circus, suite for orchestra (1939)[25][16] (pub. Peters)
- Concertino for flute and orchestra (1940) [26]
- Five Tunes for Small Orchestra [27]
- Fugue for strings (1939) [26]
- Occasional Overture (fp 22 November 1940, Arts Theatre Club) [27]
- Rhapsody for orchestra (performed in Bournemouth, April 1928)[28]
- Variations on a Theme by Purcell for string orchestra (1938)[25] (pub. Peters)
Chamber Music
- Clarinet Sonata (1938) [27] (pub. Hinrichsen)[29]
- Complainte et Rapsodie for clarinet and piano [26]
- Duo for clarinet and viola (1941) [26]
- Fugue for flute, oboe and viola (1938) [26]
- Lament for clarinet and piano (1938) [27]
- Rhapsody for flute, cello and piano (1946) [26]
- String Quartet No 1 [26]
- String Quartet No 2 (1933) [26]
- String Quartet No 3 (1935) [26]
- Trio for clarinet, viola and piano (1939) [26]
- Violin Sonata (performance 4 November 1930, Blackheath) [27]
Vocal
- Choeurs isolés, choral [26]
- The Hour of Magic (text: W H Davies) [27]
- Sleeping Sea and Lullaby, two choral part songs (1939), pub. Chester[30]
- Songs for two part choir (OUP): Dandelion Down, Duck's Ditty, Evening Song, Thunder at Night, The Wind [31]
Ballet and Dramatic [26]
- Amour et mort, ballet (1936)
- Preludes de Ballet (1945)
- Sciure (piano-flute-string quintet), ballet (1941)
- The Book of Thel, masque for solo voices, chorus, chamber orchestra, and male and female narrators (1935)
- Musiques de scène, masque
- Sawdust, ballet (fp 21 May 1941, Wulfrun Hall Wolverhampton) [27]
References
- ^ Wikitree: Mary Anderson (Juler) Lucas
- ^ Obituary (three lines only), The Musical Times, Vol. 93, No. 1311 (May 1952), p 230
- ^ NOTE: the sources say Dresden, but Albanesi settled in London from 1893 and taught at the Royal Academy of Music - see his obituary, The Musical Times, Vol. 67, No. 1005 (Nov. 1, 1926), p. 1037
- ^ British Music Society. British Composer Profiles, 3rd Edition, 2012
- ^ Greenwich Industrial History: Ralph Lucas (1876-1955)
- ^ Sharp, Dennis; Rendel, Sally (2008). Connell, Ward and Lucas: Modern movement architects in England (Digitized online by GoogleBooks). ISBN 9780711227682. Retrieved 5 January 2011.
- ^ Paul Mellon Centre Archive
- ^ "THE DISTAFF SIDE: SOME BRITISH WOMEN COMPOSERS". Retrieved 5 January 2011.
- ^ The Times, 26 November 1934, p 10
- ^ See The British Library, Music Collections, Programmes and handbills relating to Mary Anderson Lucas, [1].
- ^ Radio Times, Issue 644, 2 February 1936, p 35-6
- ^ 'Pauline Rosemary (Juler) Richards (1914-2003)', biography at WikiTree
- ^ The Clarinet: Volume 11. International Clarinet Society, Idaho State University. Dept. of Music. 1983.
- ^ The Clarinet Sonata was revived by Peter Cigleris and Martin Cousin in Weymouth on 10 February 2019.
- ^ Michael Thomas: Octaras
- ^ a b BBC Proms Archive
- ^ The British Library, Music Collections, Programmes and handbills relating to Mary Anderson Lucas
- ^ a b Colin Lucas biography, Dennis Sharp Archive, Yale University
- ^ a b Ouspensky Today. Colin Lucas: a view of a creative life
- ^ BBC Berkshire: Noah's Boathouse Hits Troubled Waters
- ^ BBC Radio 3: Essential Classics, 21 January 2019
- ^ Romano Kate. 'Mary Lucas and the Concrete Boathouse', BBC Radio 3, 21 January, 2019
- ^ WikiTree. 'Gladys Amy (Gladys) Scrutton formerly Juler'
- ^ The Musical Times, Nov. 1941, Vol. 82, No. 1185 (Nov. 1941), p. 413
- ^ a b British Music Collection
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Musicalics Catalogue
- ^ a b c d e f g Lucas Collection: Concert Programmes
- ^ Musical Times, 1 June 1928, p 549
- ^ Pitfield, Spenser Simpson. British Music for Clarinet and Piano: 1880-1945 (Ph.D, University of Sheffield (2000), p 96
- ^ Musical Times, May 1939, p 359
- ^ Presto Music
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