‘Life's Major Crossroads’: Study and Career Paths of Four Australian Women Composers at the Royal College of Music in the 1930s

Abstract

Several Australian women composers were among the legions of women musicians who set out to ‘try their fortune’ in London in the 1930s only to have their study and career options curtailed by the rollercoaster of appeasement and then war. The most prominent of them—Miriam Hyde from Adelaide, Peggy Glanville-Hicks and Esther Rofe from Melbourne, and Dulcie Holland from Sydney—each found themselves in the grip of the twin pincers of family anxiety, on the one hand, and the prospect of bombing and hardship on the other. Despite successful studies and the networks and opportunities they gained in the avenues of composition for film, ballet and concerts, three of these women were obliged by family pressure to return home either before or at the outset of the war. Arguably, had they stayed their careers may have been circumscribed by events and they may have struggled, as Elisabeth Lutyens did, to earn a living. But the one who remained overseas was the one who spurned family entreaties, and what Carolyn Heilbrun calls the erotic or familial plot, to follow creative compulsion in the theatre and, later, in the United States, to become a prominent freelance composer and critic. Through reference to letters, diaries, memoirs and recollections, this paper examines how family, political turmoil, war and a sense of obligation impinged on the career trajectories of these women and how they each determined either to abide by convention or repudiate it.

Notes

¹ Elizabeth Campbell, ‘Impressions and Appreciation’, R.C.M. Magazine 30/1 (March 1934), 22.

² Ros Pesman, Duty Free: Australian Women Abroad (Melbourne: OUP, 1996), 131.

³ Miriam Hyde, Complete Accord (Sydney: Currency Press, 1991).

⁴ In addition to Hyde's Complete Accord, essential biographical information as the result of interviews can be found in: Wendy Beckett, Peggy Glanville-Hicks (Pymble: Angus & Robertson, 1992); Pauline Petrus, ‘Esther Rofe, Theatre Musician and Narrative Composer: A Biography and Historical Overview of Her Life and Music’ (MA thesis, Monash University, 1995); and Rita Crews, ‘An Analytical Study of the Piano Works of Roy Agnew, Margaret Sutherland, and Dulcie Holland, including Biographical Material’ (PhD diss., University of New England, 1996). Additional biographical information on Holland can be found in Rita Crews, ‘Dulcie Holland: Building a Foundation’, Resonate Magazine (Accessed 4 June 2014), http://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/article/dulcie-holland-building-a-foundation; and on Glanville-Hicks in Deborah Hayes, Peggy Glanville-Hicks: A Bio-bibliography (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990).

⁵ Hyde, Complete Accord, 41.

⁶ ‘Young Melbourne Composer: Peggy Glanville Hicks Wins Scholarship’, Australian Musical News 22 (1 October 1932), 7–8.

⁷ Miriam Hyde notes the departure of Myrtle Glanville-Hicks in letter to her parents, 17 May 1933. Box 4, Papers of Miriam Hyde, MS 5260, National Library of Australia (Hyde: NLA). Extracts from Miriam Hyde's letters are quoted with permission of her daughter, Miss Christine Edwards.

⁸ Hyde, letter to her parents, c. August 1932. Box 3, Hyde: NLA.

⁹ George F. Loughlin, Cities of Departure: An Autobiography ([Melbourne: George F. Loughlin], 1984), 30.

¹⁰ Miriam Hyde, ‘Ways and Means in London’, Advertiser (Adelaide) (10 March 1936), 7.

¹¹ Loughlin, Cities of Departure, 37.

¹²Ibid., 27.

¹³ See Hyde, letter to her mother, 23 November 1932. Box 3, Hyde: NLA.

¹⁴ Hyde, letter to her parents, 22 September 1932. Box 3, Hyde: NLA.

¹⁵ Hyde, letter to her mother, 23 November 1932. Box 3, Hyde: NLA. Loughlin thought there were 600 students, 500 of them female (see Loughlin, Cities of Departure, 30).

¹⁶ Loughlin, Cities of Departure, 28.

¹⁷ Hyde, letter to her parents, 29 September 1932. Box 3, Hyde: NLA.

¹⁸ ‘Royal College of Music’, Musical Times 73/1076 (October 1932), 932.

¹⁹ It is not clear whether the £85 was in addition to tuition fees, although the wording suggests it was.

²⁰ Hyde, letter to her parents, 22 September 1932. Box 3, Hyde: NLA.

²¹ Noel Nickson, ‘Music Buzzes in the Royal College Hive’, Australian Musical News (2 December 1940), 15.

²² Hyde, letter to her parents, 7 January 1934. Box 6, Hyde: NLA.

²³ Hyde, letter to her parents, 28 April 1933. Box 4, Hyde: NLA.

²⁴ Lutyens, quoted in Rhiannon Mathias, Lutyens, Maconchy, Williams and Twentieth-century British Music: A Blest Trio of Sirens (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 24.

²⁵ Maconchy, quoted in Jennifer Doctor, ‘“Working for Her Own Salvation”: Vaughan Williams as Teacher of Elizabeth Maconchy, Grace Williams and Ina Boyle’, in Vaughan Williams in Perspective, ed. Lewis Foreman ([Ilminster]: Albion Press for the Vaughan Williams Society, 1998), 182.

²⁶ Dulcie Holland, ‘Composers in London—As I Saw Them’. Series 1, MS 6853, Papers of Dulcie Holland, National Library of Australia (Holland: NLA).

²⁷ Nickson, ‘Music Buzzes in the Royal College Hive’.

²⁸ Vaughan Williams's advice to Grace Williams, quoted in Doctor, ‘Working for Her Own Salvation’, 191.

²⁹ Hyde, letter to her parents, 15 January 1935. Box 7, Hyde: NLA; and Hyde, letter to her mother, 1 February 1934. Box 6, Hyde: NLA.

³⁰ Hyde, letter to her mother, 1 February 1933. Box 4, Hyde: NLA.

³¹Ibid.

³²Ibid.

³³ Hyde, letter to her parents, 20 July 1933. Box 5, Hyde: NLA.

³⁴ See Hyde, letter to her parents, 21 September 1933. Box 5, Hyde: NLA.

³⁵ Hyde, letter to her parents, 10 February 1934. Box 6, Hyde: NLA.

³⁶ ‘Academy and College Notes’, Musical Times 75/1093 (March 1934), 260; and Times (London) quoted in Hyde, Complete Accord, 54.

³⁷ Hyde, postcard to her father, c. April 1935. Box 7, Hyde: NLA.

³⁸ Clipping dated 29 June 1935 included in Hyde, letter to her parents, 28 June 1935. Box 7, Hyde: NLA.

³⁹ Hyde, Complete Accord, 73.

⁴⁰ J.A. Westrup, ‘Works by Women Composers: New Concertos at Royal College’, Daily Telegraph (16 November 1935), enclosed in Hyde, letter to her parents, 15 November 1935. Box 7, Hyde: NLA.

⁴¹ See Hyde, letter to her mother, 28 July 1933. Box 5, Hyde: NLA.

⁴² Sophie Fuller, ‘“Putting the BBC and T. Beecham to Shame”: The Macnaghten-Lemare Concerts, 1931–7’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association 138/2 (2013), 380.

⁴³ ‘Royal College of Music’, Musical Times 74/1090 (December 1933), 1125.

⁴⁴ Fuller, ‘Putting the BBC and T. Beecham to Shame’, 401.

⁴⁵ Reviewer in Glasgow Herald (4 February 1935), quoted in Mathias, Lutyens, Maconchy, Williams, 47.

⁴⁶ Mathias, Lutyens, Maconchy, Williams, 16.

⁴⁷Ibid.

⁴⁸ Hyde, letter to her parents, 7 April 1935. Box 7, Hyde: NLA.

⁴⁹ Hyde, letter to her mother, 29 June 1935. Box 7, Hyde: NLA.

⁵⁰ See Hyde, letter to her mother, 10 October 1935. Box 7, Hyde: NLA.

⁵¹Ibid.

⁵² ‘Students' Chamber Concert’, Times (18 July 1936), 10.

⁵³ Hyde, letter to her parents, 21 October 1932. Box 3, Hyde: NLA.

⁵⁴ The term reports can be found in Box 47, Esther Rofe Archive, Monash University.

⁵⁵ Rofe, quoted in Pauline Petrus, ‘Esther Rofe Interviewed by Pauline Petrus’, LIP (Melbourne) (1978/1979), 126–7.

⁵⁶ See Hyde, letter to her mother, 14 September 1933. Box 5, Hyde: NLA.

⁵⁷ Hyde, letter to her mother, 1 February 1933. Box 4, Hyde: NLA.

⁵⁸ Hyde, letter to her mother, 31 May 1933. Box 4, Hyde: NLA.

⁵⁹ Information derived from a typescript in Box 47, Esther Rofe Archive, Monash University.

⁶⁰ Holland, quoted in Petrus, ‘Esther Rofe, Theatre Musician and Narrative Composer’, 121.

⁶¹ Diary, 13 November 1937. Holland: NLA. Extracts from Dulcie Holland's diary are quoted with permission of her daughter, Mrs. Holly Fallows.

⁶²Ibid.

⁶³Ibid.

⁶⁴ Diary, 8 April 1938. Holland: NLA.

⁶⁵ Diary, 1 December 1937. Holland: NLA.

⁶⁶ Diary, 12 March 1938. Holland: NLA.

⁶⁷ Diary, 7 December 1937. Holland: NLA.

⁶⁸ Diary, 17 December 1937. Holland: NLA.

⁶⁹ Diary, 29 [August?] 1938. Holland: NLA.

⁷⁰ Diary, 25 February 1938. Holland: NLA.

⁷¹ Diary, 18 January 1938. Holland: NLA.

⁷² Diary, 17, 18 and 20 June 1938. Holland: NLA.

⁷³ Diary, 20 June 1938. Holland: NLA.

⁷⁴ Diary, 17 June 1938. Holland: NLA.

⁷⁵ Diary, 19 July 1938. Holland: NLA.

⁷⁶ Diary, 14 September 1938. Holland: NLA.

⁷⁷ Diary, 27 September 1938. Holland: NLA.

⁷⁸ Diary, [?] October 1938. Holland: NLA.

⁷⁹ Diary, 1 September 1939. Holland: NLA.

⁸⁰ ‘Social and Personal’, Sydney Morning Herald (1 February 1940), 20.

⁸¹ Rofe, quoted in ‘Personalia … Australian Musicians and Their Activities’, Australian Musical News (1 September 1938), 21.

⁸² Information taken from a typescript in Box 47, Rofe Archive, Monash University.

⁸³ ‘Wartime Fire Brigade Officer: Australian Woman Composer's Experience’, Australian Musical News (1 July 1940), inside back cover.

⁸⁴ See Rofe, interview with Wendy Beckett, c. 1988. Wendy Beckett Papers, MS 9084, NLA.

⁸⁵ ‘Travellers Bring Overseas News’, Sun (30 July 1940), 26.

⁸⁶ See Doctor, ‘Working for Her Own Salvation’, 197.

⁸⁷ Marcia Citron notes that women were not usually socialized to develop a career plan: see Marcia Citron, Gender and the Musical Canon (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 94.

⁸⁸ See Carolyn Heilbrun, Writing a Woman's Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 1989), 48.

⁸⁹Ibid., 51.

⁹⁰ Jo Litson, ‘Movement for Women of Note’, Australian (25–26 June 1994), Weekend Review, 12.

⁹¹ Ralph Vaughan Williams, letter to Glanville-Hicks, 31 May 1954. Box 3, MS 13547, State Library of Victoria.

⁹² Heilbrun, Writing a Woman's Life, 97.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Suzanne Robinson

Suzanne Robinson teaches music history at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne, and is currently writing a biography of Peggy Glanville-Hicks supported by the State Library of New South Wales and the Australia Council. Her articles on Glanville-Hicks have been published in American Music, Australasian Music Research, Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music, Journal of the Society for American Music and Musicology Australia. Email: [email protected]