Mabel Wheeler Daniels (November 27, 1878 in
Swampscott, Massachusetts
Swampscott () is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located up the coast from Boston in an area known as the North Shore. The population was 15,111 as of the 2020 United States Census. A former summer resort on Massachusetts Ba ...
– March 10, 1971 in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
) was an American
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
,
conductor, and
teacher
A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching.
''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...
. She attended
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...
and studied with
George Whitefield Chadwick
George Whitefield Chadwick (November 13, 1854 – April 4, 1931) was an American composer. Along with John Knowles Paine, Horatio Parker, Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, and Edward MacDowell, he was a representative composer of what is called the Se ...
before traveling to Germany for further study with
Ludwig Thuille
Ludwig Wilhelm Andreas Maria Thuille (Bolzano, Bozen, 30 November 1861 – 5 February 1907) was an Austrian composer and teacher, numbered for a while among the leading operatic composers of the so-called Munich School of composers, whose most fam ...
in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
. Upon her return to the United States she became head of the music department at
Simmons College
Institutions of learning called Simmons College or Simmons University include:
* Simmons University, a women's liberal arts college in Boston, Massachusetts
* Simmons College of Kentucky, a historically black college in Louisville, Kentucky
* Har ...
, serving there until 1918. She continued working until late in her life, and was given
honorary degree
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
s by both
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
and
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...
. Much of her output was choral, though she wrote a handful of
operetta
Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...
s and some orchestral and chamber works.
Biography
Background and early life
On November 27, 1877, Mabel Wheeler Daniels was born in Swampscott,
. Music took early influence in Daniels' career. She was born in a musically prominent family, both her parents sang in Boston's
Handel and Haydn Society
The Handel and Haydn Society is an American chorus and period instrument orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. Known colloquially as 'H+H', the organization has been in continual performance since its founding in 1815, the longest-serving suc ...
.
In her early years, Daniels studied the
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
and by age 10 she began writing her own compositions. She attended Radcliffe College where she sang
soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...
. There she participated in the
glee club
A glee club in the United States is a musical group or choir group, historically of male voices but also of female or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs by trios or quartets. In the late 19th century it w ...
as well as performing lead for numerous
operetta
Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...
s. Along with her performance credentials, Daniels continued her composition writing and conducting two student operettas. In 1900, Daniels graduated from Radcliffe magna cum laude. Daniels studied with
George Chadwick at the
New England Conservatory of Music
The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a Private college, private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music Music school, conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The ...
, there Chadwick encouraged Daniels to enroll in the
Munich Conservatory to study under one of his old students,
Ludwig Thuille
Ludwig Wilhelm Andreas Maria Thuille (Bolzano, Bozen, 30 November 1861 – 5 February 1907) was an Austrian composer and teacher, numbered for a while among the leading operatic composers of the so-called Munich School of composers, whose most fam ...
. Travelling to Munich, Daniels boldly insisted on auditioning for
Bernhard Stavenhagen
Bernhard Stavenhagen (24 November 1862 – 25 December 1914) was a German pianist, composer and conductor. His musical style was influenced by Franz Liszt, and as a conductor he was a strong advocate of new music.
Biography
Born in Greiz, he com ...
’s score-reading class. Up until that point no woman had successfully gained admittance to the class. Daniels recalls her experience auditioning for this position in front of a class of 30 males:
"You could have heard a pin drop, the place was so still. . . . Just as I took my seat before the keyboard, I heard one of the men smother a laugh. That settled it! I was bound to do or die, and with a calmness quite unnatural I played the bars set before me without a mistake. Nobody laughed when I had finished."
Career and later life
Returning to America, Daniels was exposed to modern choral works with orchestra. She started working as the director of Radcliffe's Glee Club and the Bradford Academy music program (1911-1913). Daniels was appointed head of the music program at Simmons from 1913-1918. Along with her career successes, Daniels established different prizes and funds for composition students studying at Radcliffe College. In 1933, Daniels was awarded an honorary degree from Tufts University, and then later, in 1939, she was given the same honors by Boston University.
Works
Notable compositions
In 1913, Daniels presented her
choral
A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...
/
orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...
l work “
The Desolate City, op.21.” Performed at the
MacDowell Colony
MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowell ...
in New Hampshire, Daniels gained considerable praise. For 24 summers, Daniels would return to the MacDowell Colony and eventually be inspired to write one of her best known pieces, “
Deep Forest, op.34, no. 1” from 1923-33. “Deep Forest” would later be performed in
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...
(1939). The piece is well known for exemplifying her shift from Germanic compositional techniques to a “more
impressionistic
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
musical vocabulary.” Two additional pieces were written specifically for Radcliffe's 50th anniversary and 75th anniversary, “Exultate Deo” and “A Psalm of Praise” respectively.
References
Sources
*"Mabel Wheeler Daniels". In
David Mason Greene, ''Biographical Dictionary of Composers''. Garden City, New York; Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1985.
*"Enchantment, op. 17, no. 1, (1908)" by Mabel Wheeler Daniels" I
Library of Congress*"Mabel Daniels (1878-1971)
iography I
Library of Congress
Bibliography
* Maryann McCabe, ''Mabel Daniels: An American Composer in Transition.'', London and New York. Routledge, 2017.
External links
Papers, 1884-1971.Schlesinger Library
Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daniels, Mabel Wheeler
1877 births
1971 deaths
American women classical composers
American classical composers
People from Swampscott, Massachusetts
Radcliffe College alumni
Simmons University faculty
Women conductors (music)
Pupils of George Whitefield Chadwick
20th-century classical composers
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American women musicians
20th-century American composers
Classical musicians from Massachusetts
20th-century women composers
American women academics