Today’s Google Doodle is celebrating British composer, teacher and opera singer Amanda Aldridge.
On this day in 1911, Aldridge gave a piano recital at London’s pre-war principal concert venue, Queens Small Hall, the original home of the BBC Symphony and London Philharmonic Orchestras.
Here’s what you need to know about her.
Who was Amanda Aldridge?
Aldridge was an Afro-British opera singer and teacher, who composed under the pseudonym Montague Ring.
She was born in London on 10 March 1866 to African-American actor Ira Frederick Aldridge, who performed in Shakespeare plays, and his second wife, Amanda Brandt, from Sweden.
One of her sisters was the operatic contralto Luranah Aldridge, who nearly became the first performer of African heritage to perform at Bayreuth Opera House. However, she was forced to pull out due to illness.
When she grew up Aldridge went on to study voice under Jenny Lind and George Henschel at the Royal College of Music, before pursuing a career as a vocalist at London’s Royal Conservatory of Music.
Her career was curtailed by a throat injury caused by laryngitis, but she was able to make her name as a teacher, piano player and composer.
Lyric tenor Roland Hayes and composer Lawrence Benjamin Brown were among her notable students.
What is Amanda Aldridge best known for?
Aldridge released over 30 songs and dozens of instrumental tracks under her pseudonym.
She combined various rhythmic influences and genres with poetry from black American authors to create romantic parlour music, a genre popular with the middle class at the time.
Parlour music was sheet music played at home with a piano, accompanied by vocals. Its popularity was due to record players not yet being widely available.
Many of her songs explored her African-American heritage – something she was keen to pass down to her students of similar descent.
Aldridge’s 1913 piano composition “Three African Dances”, inspired by West African drumming, is her most famous piece.
She appeared on British television for the first time at the age of 88, on the show Music for You. American singer Muriel Smith performed her song, “Little Southern Love Song”.
Aldridge Music Style
Aldridge was known for using West African drumbeats and black poetry to inspire her parlour music compositions. Her music reflected mixed ethnic heritage where she combined various genres and rhythms with poetry from Black American authors to create romantic Parlour music which was a quite a hit among the middle-class homes.
Aldridge drew her inspiration for the 1913 piano composition ‘Three African Dances’ by West African drumming which became to be one of her famous pieces.
Why is Google Doodle celebrating Amanda Aldridge on June 17?
On 17th June 1911, Amanda Aldridge presented a piano recital at London’s pre-war principal concert venue Queens Small Hall which is the original home of the BBC Symphony and London Philharmonic Orchestras.
The Google Doodle for Friday, June 17, 2022, celebrates the life and career of Amanda Aldridge, described by the company as an inspirational figure who showed “musical prowess at a young age,” garnering “international attention for her fusion of musical styles.”
Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Amanda Aldridge who, under the pseudonym of Montague Ring, was an extraordinarily successful composer and teacher in her day. We explore her key works, and what happened to the parlour song as a genre.
In 1921, the influential American activist and scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois invited an African-British composer, teacher and singer to appear at the Second Pan-African Congress addressing issues facing Africa as a result of European colonialism.
She had to turn down the prestigious event as she was caring for her very ill sister, who was a talented contralto singer.
The composer in question was Amanda Aldridge, a prolific composer of Romantic parlour songs, and teacher of singers and composers.
“As you know, my sister is very helpless… I cannot leave for more than a few minutes at a time,” was Aldridge’s response to Du Bois. Her sister, Luranah Aldridge sadly took her own life 10 years later.
The legacy of the Aldridge family is far-reaching, fascinating and inspiring. So, who was Amanda Aldridge, and why don’t we all know her name today? Here’s everything you need to know about the composer and teacher.
What is a parlour song?
The best thing about parlour songs, for mezzo Patricia Hammond, is their “instant humanity”.
“The fact that they wear their heart on the outside,” she explains. “These are songs that are designed to include people, to share among friends. Memorable tunes. I remember an outspoken lady once in an audience sitting next to me who said ‘I want something mellifluous!’ These are mellifluous.”
Parlour songs were popular songs, usually for voice and piano accompaniment, designed for use and enjoyment in living rooms, often written so as not to be too virtuosic. This enabled amateur and professional musicians alike to perform them.
As well as Aldridge, many women were prolific in the parlour song genre – including May Brahe, Amy Woodforde-Finden, Carrie Jacobs-Bond and Charlotte Alington Barnard.
“The success of the ballads of Charlotte Alington Barnard (“Claribel”) in the 1860s was so astonishing that rival publishers vied with each other to insult her in print, claiming that the ease with which her works could be played and sung at home, as well as their catchiness, caused a degradation of public taste,” Patricia Hammond writes.
Why don’t we hear more parlour songs today?
The ‘amateur’ aim of the songs seems to have relegated them to the bottom of the pile in music history.
Even though ‘amateur’, in its truest sense, evokes ‘passion’ (think of the French term for love, ‘amour’, that it’s derived from), it brings with it non-serious connotations. And considering women’s position in society in the 19th and early 20th century, it was a genre they could flourish in while the more ‘serious’ professional genres deemed suitable for public life remained out of bounds.
“It’s only speculation, but I feel there was a moment, in around the 1950s, when classical music became almost like a stately home, no longer lived in but supported and preserved, so concerts started to be curated rather than thrown together,” singer and parlour song enthusiast Patricia Hammond reflects.
“Before, people were more likely to just perform music they loved. If you look at concert programmes from the 1910s and 20s, there’d be glorious mixtures that put tangos and operetta in the company of Mozart as well as [parlour song composer] Carrie Jacobs-Bond.
“But with critics becoming gatekeepers to what is and isn’t worthy of a concert series, the warmth and directness of these parlour songs didn’t seem to have a place amongst the lofty utterances of their favourite Lieder, and composers who had proved their grandeur by also writing symphonies.”
What is the difference between parlour music and salon music?
While parlour songs and pieces were written for popularity, relative ease of performance, and amateur music-making in the home, works described as ‘salon’ music, by definition, were composed for more public-facing performances, albeit still in the living room.
Salons were gatherings of people around an inspiring host – think of Gertrude Stein in Paris – and the music it required, or inspired, was likely heard by more people at one sitting than the everyday parlour song. Composers like Chopin and Franz Behr are known for writing salon music, and Chopin’s salon music especially – thinking to his virtuosic preludes, nocturnes and waltzes – is a secure staple in the classical music canon, heard prolifically in concert halls and on the radio.
Hammond has spent a lot of time performing, exploring and writing about the genre. We ask her if the relative neglect of parlour songs will change any time soon, and if they might join salon music in being heard more in concert halls one day.
“I do believe that these Parlour songs are due a revival soon,” she says. “But I believe that not enough time has elapsed yet.”
And she reminds us: “Madrigals fell out of favour before they were given a major revival in the 1920s. Even Bach had to be revived by Mendelssohn, 80 years after Bach’s death.
“Maybe time was needed to forget the stuffy church services Bach’s works were written for, and to forget the post-prandial disarray that madrigals were performed over.”
We look forward to hopefully seeing these works by fascinating women dusted off before too long.
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