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Biography

Ancestry

Kate Loder was born on 21 August 1825,² on Bathwick Street, Bathwick,³ within Bath, Somerset where the Loder family were prominent musicians. Her father was the flautist George Loder. According to Grove, her mother was a piano teacher born Fanny Philpot, who was the sister of the pianist Lucy Anderson.⁴ However, genealogical research suggests Kate's mother was Frances Elizabeth Mary Kirkham (1802–50),⁵ daughter of Thomas Bulman Kirkham (1778–1845) and Marianne Beville Moore (c.1781 – 1810).⁶ Frances Kirkham's step-mother was Jane Harriett Philpot (1802–63), second wife to Thomas Bulman Kirkham and sister of the Lucy Philpot who married the violinist George Frederick Anderson, becoming Lucy Anderson.⁷⁸⁹ Kate was also the sister of conductor and composer George Loder,¹⁰ and the cousin of composer Edward Loder.¹¹

Royal Academy of Music

Kate Loder studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Her performance of Mendelssohn's G minor piano concerto at the Hanover-square Rooms on 27 May 1843, when she was aged 17, may have been her public debut.¹² The following year, in 1844, aged just 18, she became the first female professor of harmony at the Royal Academy.¹³¹⁴¹⁵

Marriage

On 16 December 1851 at St Marylebone Church, Westminster, she married the eminent surgeon Henry Thompson (Kt. 1867. Bt. 1899, 'of Wimpole Street').¹⁶ After her marriage she gradually gave up her public performing career, the last public appearance being in March 1854.¹⁷ However, she remained active in music as a composer and professor at the Royal Academy of Music. Among here many pupils was Sarah Louisa Kilpack¹⁸ who nowadays is better known as an artist.

Kate Loder had three children from her marriage:¹⁹

• Kate Mary Margaret Thompson (1856–1942), author of Handbook to the Public Picture Galleries of Europe (1877); married Rev. Henry William Watkins.
• Henry Francis Herbert Thompson (1859–1944), a barrister and later an Egyptologist lecturing at University College, London.
• Helen Edith Thompson (1860–1930), married the Rev. Henry de Candole.

From 1871 onwards she suffered increasing Infirmity, described as paralysis.²⁰

Death

Kate Loder died on 30 August 1904 at Headley Rectory,²¹ Headley, Surrey.²²

The Brahms Requiem

On 10 July 1871,²³ the first British performance of the German Requiem of Johannes Brahms took place privately at Loder's home, 35 Wimpole Street, London. It was performed using a version for piano duet accompaniment which became known as the "London Version" (German: Londoner Fassnung) of the Requiem.²⁴ Brahms based it on an 1866 arrangement for piano of his first, six-movement version of the Requiem.²⁵ The pianists were Kate Loder and Cipriani Potter (who was then 79 years old; he died that September).²⁶

Works

Selected works include:²⁷²⁸²⁹

Chamber

• String quartet in G minor (1846)
• Sonata for violin and piano (1847)
• String quartet in E minor (1847)
• Piano trio (1886)

Opera

• L'elisir d'amore (1855)

Orchestral

• Overture (1844)

Organ

• Six Easy Voluntaries. Set 1. (London: Novello, 1889)
• Six Easy Voluntaries. Set 2. (London: Novello, 1891) – "for the most part fresh and genial in character ... somewhat suggestive of Spohr in the numerous chromatic progressions."³⁰³¹

Piano

• Twelve studies (1852)
• Three romances (1853)
• Pensée fugitive (1854)
• En Avant galop (1863)
• Three Duets (1869)
• Mazurka in A minor (1899)³²
• Scherzo (1899)

Songs

• My faint spirit (1854), text by Shelley
• Queen Mary's Song (nd), text by Tennyson

External links

• Portraits of Kate Loder at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Free scores by Kate Loder at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• The Organ Music of Kate Loder, performed by Andrew Pink.

References

1. Temperley, Nicholas (2001). "Kate (Fanny) Loder (b. Bath 21 August 1825 d. Headley, Surrey 30 August 1904))". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 15. London: Macmillan. p. 59. ISBN 0-333-60800-3. 0-333-60800-3 ↩

2. Temperley, Nicholas (2001). "Kate (Fanny) Loder (b. Bath 21 August 1825 d. Headley, Surrey 30 August 1904))". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 15. London: Macmillan. p. 59. ISBN 0-333-60800-3. 0-333-60800-3 ↩

3. "Kate Fanny Loder". Rootsweb. Retrieved 4 February 2012. https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=haydencowan&id=I14727 ↩

4. Temperley, Nicholas (2001). "George Loder jr (b. Bath 1816 d. Adelaide 15 July 1868)". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 15. London: Macmillan. p. 58. ISBN 0-333-60800-3. 0-333-60800-3 ↩

5. Find My Past: Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette 4 September 1823: Mr. Geo. Loder, professor of music, of this city, to Frances, eldest daughter of Mr. Kirkham, of Pulteney-street. ↩

6. "Kate Fanny Loder". Rootsweb. Retrieved 4 February 2012. https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=haydencowan&id=I14727 ↩

7. Find My Past: Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette 7 December 1820: Married. Mr. Thomas Kirkham, of Pulteney-street, to Jane, daughter of Mr. Philpott, of Bennett-street. ↩

8. Find My Past: Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette 20 August 1863: 13 Aug., in this city, Jane Harriet Kirkham, widow of Thomas Bullman Kirkham, Esq., and sister of Mrs. Anderson, Nottingham-place, Regent's-park, London. ↩

9. "Lawleys of Bath Tree". Ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 13 June 2012. https://trees.ancestry.co.uk/tree/18927761/family?cfpid=734276569 ↩

10. Temperley, Nicholas (2001). "Kate (Fanny) Loder (b. Bath 21 August 1825 d. Headley, Surrey 30 August 1904))". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 15. London: Macmillan. p. 59. ISBN 0-333-60800-3. 0-333-60800-3 ↩

11. Burton, Nigel; Temperley, Nicholas (1994). "Loder, Kate (Fanny) (b. Bath 21 August 1825 d. Headley, Surrey 30 August 1904)". In Sadie, Julie Anne; Samuel, Rhian (eds.). New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers. London: Macmillan. p. 285. ISBN 0-333-51598-6. 0-333-51598-6 ↩

12. The Morning Post, Monday 29 May 1843 ↩

13. Smith, Alice Mary (2003). Symphonies. ↩

14. Warrack, John Hamilton; West, Ewan (1996). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 295. ISBN 978-0-19-280028-2. Retrieved 5 January 2011. 978-0-19-280028-2 ↩

15. Sadie, Julie Anne; Samuel, Rhian (1994). The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393034875. Retrieved 5 January 2011. 9780393034875 ↩

16. "Henry Thompson". Roots Web. Retrieved 18 February 2012. https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=haydencowan&id=I14729 ↩

17. Therese Ellsworth (2016). ‘A Magnificent Musician: The Career of Kate Fanny Loder (1825–1904)’ in Musicians of Bath and Beyond: Edward Loder (1809-1865) and His Family. Nicholas Temperley (ed). (Martlesham : Boydell Press) 167–90. ↩

18. Temperley, Nicholas (2016). Musicians of Bath and Beyond: Edward Loder (1809–1865) and His Family. Boydell & Brewer. p. 186. ISBN 978-1-78327-078-1. 978-1-78327-078-1 ↩

19. "Thompson, Sir Henry" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 433–436. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Thompson,_Sir_Henry ↩

20. Middleton, L., & Golby, D. (2004, September 23). `Loder, George (1816–1868), conductor and composer pianist and composer`. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online resource, accessed 7 October 2024. https://0-www-oxforddnb-com.catalogue.libraries.london.ac.uk/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-16917 ↩

21. "England and Wales, National Probate Calendar". Ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 18 June 2012. https://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec?htx=View&r=5538&dbid=1904&iid=31874_222593-00318&fn=Kate+Fanny&ln=Thompson&st=d&ssrc=&pid=4879550 ↩

22. Temperley, Nicholas (2001). "Kate (Fanny) Loder (b. Bath 21 August 1825 d. Headley, Surrey 30 August 1904))". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 15. London: Macmillan. p. 59. ISBN 0-333-60800-3. 0-333-60800-3 ↩

23. Musgrave, Michael (1987). Brahms 2: Biographical, Documentary, and Analytical Studies. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 6. ISBN 0-521-32606-0. 0-521-32606-0 ↩

24. "Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45 (London version)". Gramophone. June 1997. p. 92. Retrieved 30 January 2012.[permanent dead link‍] http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/June%201997/92/824216/47) ↩

25. Swafford, Jan (1999). Johannes Brahms: a Biography. London: Macmillan. p. 311. ISBN 0-333-59662-5. 0-333-59662-5 ↩

26. Musgrave, Michael (1987). Brahms 2: Biographical, Documentary, and Analytical Studies. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 6. ISBN 0-521-32606-0. 0-521-32606-0 ↩

27. Burton, Nigel; Temperley, Nicholas (1994). "Loder, Kate (Fanny) (b. Bath 21 August 1825 d. Headley, Surrey 30 August 1904)". In Sadie, Julie Anne; Samuel, Rhian (eds.). New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers. London: Macmillan. p. 285. ISBN 0-333-51598-6. 0-333-51598-6 ↩

28. Ballchin, Robert, ed. (1983). "Loder, afterwards Thompson (Kate Fanny), Lady". Catalogue of Printed Music in the British Library to 1980. Vol. 36. London: K. G. Saur. p. 87. ISBN 0-86291-333-0. 0-86291-333-0 ↩

29. Fuller, Sophie (1994). Pandora Guide to Women Composers. London: Pandora. pp. 191–192. ISBN 0-04-440897-8. 0-04-440897-8 ↩

30. The Musical Times, vol. 32, no. 579 (May 1, 1891), p. 297.[full citation needed] /wiki/The_Musical_Times ↩

31. Andrew Pink performs (2020) ‘Voluntary in B-flat‘. Set 2/vi Archived 25 May 2022 at the Wayback Machine in Exordia ad missam’ : my lockdown recordings. Online resource, accessed 8 March 2021. https://andrewpink.org/2020/12/12/exordia/ ↩

32. Included in Piano Music by Women Composers Book 2, Hal Leonard (2023) https://www.musicroom.com/piano-music-by-women-composers-book-2-piano-solo-hl00370901?tduid=b36e645eb55e699bdc65974df72a1594 ↩