Dora Estella Knatchbull (née Bright; 16 August 1862 – 16 November 1951) was an English composer and pianist. She composed works for orchestra, keyboard and voice, and music for opera and
ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
,
including ballets for performance by the dancer
Adeline Genée
Dame Adeline Genée DBE (born Anina Kirstina Margarete Petra Jensen; 6 January 1878 – 23 April 1970) was a Danish-British ballet dancer.
Early years
Anina Kirstina Margarete Petra Jensen was born in Hinnerup north of Aarhus, Denmark. ...
.
Biography
Dora Bright was born in Stanton Broom,
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...
, Yorkshire. Her father was Augustus Bright,
[ a ]cutlery
Cutlery (also referred to as silverware, flatware, or tableware), includes any hand implement used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food in Western culture. A person who makes or sells cutlery is called a cutler. The city of Sheffie ...
manufacturer and hardware merchant. He was a grandson of the jeweller and watchmaker Isaac Bright, who had been one of the founders of Sheffield's Jewish community, having settled there c. 1786.[ Augustus also served as a ]vice consul
A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...
for Brazil,["Deaths", '' The Standard'', 4 November 1880] and as a captain of the Hallamshire Volunteer Rifle Corps. He was an amateur violinist and in 1873 Dora, aged nine, performed alongside him in a benefit concert for his military unit.[ He died on 1 November 1880, at the age of 50.][ His business was inherited by his widow, but it failed in 1882.][
Dora's mother was Katherine Coveney Pitt,][ an actress, playwright and manager of a theatre company.][
Also known as Kate Pitt or as Mrs Augustus Bright, she was a daughter of the actors Charles Dibdin Pitt and Ellen Coveney.]["Naomi's Sin." '' The Era'', 11 May 1879] Charles Dibdin Pitt, who was a son of the dramatist George Dibdin Pitt
George Dibdin Pitt (born George Pitt , 30 March 1795 – 16 February 1855) was an English actor, stage manager and prolific playwright, specializing in melodrama. He was the first playwright to dramatize the fictional character Sweeney Todd, in hi ...
, was lessee of the Theatre Royal, Sheffield, until his death on 21 February 1866, aged 47, and was succeeded as lessee of that theatre by his widow. Kate Pitt's works included the plays ''Not False but Fickle'', ''Noblesse Oblige'', ''Bracken Hollow'' and ''Naomi's Sin''.[ She adapted another play, ''Dane's Dyke'', from her own novel, ''Unto the Third and Fourth Generation''. In 1881 Dora acted in ''Dane's Dyke'', alongside her mother, at the Theatre Royal.
While at the ]Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...
during 1881–89, Bright's teachers included Walter Macfarren and Ebenezer Prout
Ebenezer Prout (1 March 1835 – 5 December 1909) was an English musical theorist, writer, music teacher and composer, whose instruction, afterwards embodied in a series of standard works still used today, underpinned the work of many British cl ...
. She was the first woman to receive the Charles Lucas
Sir Charles Lucas, 1613 to 28 August 1648, was a professional soldier from Essex, who served as a Cavalier, Royalist cavalry leader during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Taken prisoner at the end of the First English Civil War in March 1646, ...
Medal for musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called ...
, for her ''Air and Variations for String Quartet'' in 1888. Her circle of close friends there included fellow students Edward German
Sir Edward German (17 February 1862 – 11 November 1936) was an English musician and composer of Welsh descent, best remembered for his extensive output of incidental music for the stage and as a successor to Arthur Sullivan in the field of ...
and his fiancée Ethel Boyce. Boyce subsequently partnered her in concert performances of Bright's piano duet
According to the ''Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', there are two kinds of piano duet: "those for two players at one instrument, and those in which each of the two pianists has an instrument to themself." In American usage the former is ...
''Variations on an Original Theme of Sir G. A. Macfarren'', named for George Alexander Macfarren
Sir George Alexander Macfarren (2 March 181331 October 1887) was an English composer and musicologist.
Life
George Alexander Macfarren was born in London on 2 March 1813 to George Macfarren, a dancing-master, dramatic author and journalist, wh ...
, their teacher's brother.[
In 1889, 1890 and 1892 she made concert tours of Germany, including Dresden, Cologne and Leipzig, with performances of her piano concerto in A minor.][ In 1892 she married Wyndham Knatchbull (1829–1900), a captain of the ]3rd Dragoon Guards
The 3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards was a cavalry regiment in the British Army, first raised in 1685 as the Earl of Plymouth's Regiment of Horse. It was renamed as the 3rd Regiment of Dragoon Guards in 1751 and the 3rd (Prince of Wales's) ...
and a great-grandson of Edward Knatchbull, 7th Baronet of Mersham Hatch. Thereafter she lived at Babington House
Babington House is a Grade II* listed manor house, located in the village of Babington, between Radstock and Frome, in the county of Somerset, England.
Converted to a private members club and hotel by Nick Jones, it is currently owned by Soho ...
in Babington, Somerset, and became a local leader of charitable amateur productions such as performances of Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ...
comic operas.[ From around 1897, her own piano concert performances tailed off. She changed direction towards composing music for dramatic performances. An early success in this line came in 1903 when ''The Dancing Girl and the Idol'', an oriental fantasy with words by ]Edith Lyttelton
Dame Edith Sophy Lyttelton (''née'' Balfour; 4 April 1865 – 2 September 1948) was a British novelist, playwright, World War I-era activist and spiritualist.
Biography
Lyttelton was born in Saint Petersburg, the eldest daughter of Arch ...
, was given an amateur production at a prestigious charity event in Chatsworth House
Chatsworth House is a stately home in the Derbyshire Dales, north-east of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Chesterfield, England. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has belonged to the House of Cavendish, Cavendish family sin ...
.[ In 1904, the piece was performed at Chatsworth again, by royal request, as King Edward had missed the 1903 performance through illness.
She was also the composer for ballets created with Adeline Genée,] in a collaboration which also involved the designer C. Wilhelm
William John Charles Pitcher (21 March 1858 – 2 March 1925), known as Wilhelm or C. Wilhelm, was an English artist, costume and scenery designer, best known for his designs for ballets, pantomimes, comic operas and Edwardian musical comedies.
...
. These ballets included ''The Dryad'', ''La Camargo'' and ''La danse''. As well as dancing these in London, Genée performed them during her successful tours of America, Australia and New Zealand.
Bright's ''Suite bretonne'' was performed at the Proms
The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hal ...
in August 1917.[ On 8 April 1937 she performed an orchestral piano concert for ]BBC Radio
BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering th ...
. On 28 April 1939 the BBC broadcast her playing from her home, Babington House.[
Around 1940, Bright began to work for the magazine '']Musical Opinion
''Musical Opinion'', often abbreviated to ''MO'', is a European classical music journal edited and produced in the UK. It is currently among the oldest such journals to be still publishing in the UK, having been continuously in publication since ...
''. Her association with the magazine coincided with a re-directing of its editorial policy onto a sternly reactionary course and a decline in readership.
She died at Babington in 1951. Many of her works have not survived.
Works
Selected works include:
Ballets
*''The Dryad'' (25 March 1907, Playhouse Theatre
The Playhouse Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square, central London. The Theatre was built by F. H. Fowler and Hill with a seating capacity of 1,200. It was rebuilt i ...
, London)[
*''The Faun'' (10 October 1910, ]Empire Theatre of Varieties
The Empire, Leicester Square is a cinema currently operated by Cineworld on the north side of Leicester Square, London.
The Empire was originally built in 1884 as a variety theatre and was rebuilt for films in the 1920s. It is one of several ...
, London)
*''La Camargo'' (20 May 1912, London Coliseum
The London Coliseum (also known as the Coliseum Theatre) is a theatre in St Martin's Lane, Westminster, built as one of London's largest and most luxurious "family" variety theatres. Opened on 24 December 1904 as the London Coliseum Theatre ...
)
*''La danse'' (17 December 1912, Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...
, New York)[
*''A Dancer's Adventure'' (11 October 1915, London Coliseum)
*''The Love Song'' (2 February 1933, London Coliseum)]["The Coliseum". ''The Times'', 3 February 1933]
Piano with orchestra
*Piano concerto No. 1 in A minor (1888)
*Piano concerto No. 2 in D minor (1892)
*Fantasia in G minor (1892)
*Variations for piano and orchestra (1910)
Orchestral
*''Concertstück'' for six drums and orchestra (c. 1915)
*''Suite bretonne'' for flute and orchestra (1917)
Piano
*''Variations on an Original Theme of Sir G. A. Macfarren'', duet (1894)
Songs
*''Twelve Songs'' (1889) (text by Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
, Herrick and others)
*''Six Songs from the Jungle Book'' (1903) (text by Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much o ...
)
References
External links
LiederNet Archive
*
Piano Concertos by Dora Bright and Ruth Gipps
': notes to SOMMCD 273 (2019) by Robert Matthew Walker
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bright, Dora
1862 births
1951 deaths
20th-century British people
English Romantic composers
English classical composers
British women classical composers
English classical pianists
English women pianists
British ballet composers
English opera composers
Musicians from Sheffield
Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music
English people of Jewish descent
Women opera composers
Dora
20th-century English women musicians
20th-century women composers
19th-century women composers
19th-century English women
19th-century women pianists
20th-century women pianists