Mildred Bowes-Lyon

[tommyfowler]

BOWES-LYON, Lady Mildred Marion, m. Jessup, born Glamis Castle 6 October 1868, died St Raphael Var, France 9 June 1897; m. 1 July 1890 Augustus Edward Jessup. The first female composer to have success with an opera.  Daughter of Frances Dora Smith (1832-1922) and Claude Bowes-Lyon (1824-1904), 13th Earl of Strathmore, great-grandfather to HRH Queen Elizabeth II.

Frances, Lady Strathmore created a concert party with her children and gave charity concerts in Britain and abroad.  Mildred, one of 11 children, appeared as a singer but never a soloist.  As a performer, she was overshadowed by her sister Maude, younger by two years, who was a violinist performing the classics as well as contemporary music.  Mildred's absence from the programmes, however, may have been because of her health.  The press reported that due to Mildred's "delicate health" the family was "practically ordered by medical advisers to leave Glamis Castle and pass the winter in Egypt".  (Dundee Courier, 11.12.1888).

Three years after Mildred married Augustus Jessup, a wealthy American businessman, he bought the 12thC Schloss Lenzburg in Switzerland and began a reconstruction programme which today would have cost £10 million.  This included a music room for Mildred adjoining the couple's ornate bedroom.

In April 1894, Mildred had success in Florence with an opera "Etelinda" she had written to her husband's libretto.  Her local Scottish newspaper recorded: "The name of the composer was not disclosed until after the success of the performance was assured, and upon the second night, in response to the calls of the audience, Lady Mildred came before the curtain and bowed her acknowledgements."  The report adds: "...the measure of success that she has secured may be taken when it is borne in mind that the work was presented anonymously to the fastidious musical public of Florence, and upon the very first performance was rewarded with enthusiastic approval."  (Kirriemuir Observer 27.4.1894)

The conductor was the prominent Italian maestro Leopoldo Mugnone and it is a significant pointer to Mildred's compositional skill that in 1899, two years after her death, Mugnone was conducting her music at a concert in the new museum at Bordighera before Emperor Frederick of Germany.

[Mark Thomas]

Interesting, thanks, and welcome to UC. Do we have any idea of the style of Etelinda?

Forgive an amateur historian a small correction: the Emperor Frederick (Kaiser Friedrich III) of Germany died in 1888, and so wasn't around in 1899. This is probably a reference to his cultured wife Victoria (a daughter of Queen Victoria), who was usually referred to as Empress Frederick. 

[tommyfowler]

Thanks Mark for the historical correction.  I got the information from the Bowes-Lyon archive in Glamis Castle where the programme for the event mentions the Emperor himself.  I guess he was there in spirit!!  The music is in the European romantic style of the age.  I tracked down a vocal score and orchestrated a suite from it for Glasgow Symphony Orchestra which I conduct.