By David and Roxanne Gleave
The story of Ira Aldridge, the great Victorian tragedian, who fled racist oppression in the United States in 1824 at the age of just seventeen to pursue his art in Britain and Europe, is relatively well known.[1] The story of his daughter, Amanda, has been somewhat overshadowed but it is no less deserving of attention.
Amanda, born 10th March 1866, was the third child of Ira and his second wife, Pauline Amanda Brandt.[2] Pauline and Ira had married in April 1865 in Penge, south London, when the couple had already had two children together, Pauline Brandt was a Swedish concert singer who was 27 years Ira’s junior. At the time of Amanda’s birth, her parents were living at an address in nearby Upper Norwood.
Amanda was only a little over a year old when her father died and so she would never have known him and it was Pauline, a gifted singer, who encouraged her children in their musical education. One of Amanda’s earliest public appearances as a singer was in a concert at the Crystal Palace in 1881 at the age of 15.
In 1883 Amanda gained a scholarship at the Royal College of Music in London where she studied until at least 1886. Although not contemporaries at the Royal College (he did not enrol there until 1890), it is probable that she knew Samuel Coleridge Taylor, another composer of mixed heritage. Both were promising composers, living within a few miles of each other in South London, it would be surprising if they were not acquaintances and we know that she included his songs in her concert repertoire in the 1890s.
She had the best possible teacher at the Royal College, Jenny Lind (‘the Swedish Nightingale’), and Lind had nothing but praise for Amanda, ‘I found her during the whole of that time studious, intelligent and attentive, and being musically gifted also.’ Amanda’s study bore fruit and she became a fine singer, enjoying a successful career as a concert singer. There are frequent references in newspaper archives to concerts she appeared in from the latter part of the 1880s and beyond, often with her sister Luranah. On 3 June 1896 for instance, The Daily Telegraph commented on ‘a contralto voice of considerable richness, which she uses with much skill and intelligence;’ while in June 1905 the London Times reported her ‘style is excellent, her voice warm and mellow, and her intelligence far beyond dispute.’ It was unfortunate indeed that her singing career was cut short by a severe bout of laryngitis after which her voice never quite regained its former glory.
But she had other strings to her bow as a piano accompanist and composer. She composed both under her own name and the pseudonym of Montague Ring. It was by no means uncommon for women wishing to pursue a career in a field where men usually dominated, to take on a male name.
One of the pieces Amanda composed, under the name Montague Ring, was ‘On Parade’.[3] Published in 1914 it was almost certainly written as an upbeat tune in keeping with the spirit of optimism that the First World War would be over by Christmas. We say ‘almost certainly’ because we are not musicians – the full score can be found on the Library of Congress website and, if anyone would like to make a recording of the piece, we would be delighted to hear it!
Two other pieces by Montague Ring are on the Library of Congress website, Clorinda (published in 1907) and Three Arabian Dances, a composition from 1920.
Under the name Montague Ring, Amanda wrote a number of songs in a style that was known as parlour music. This style has probably fallen as far out of fashion as it is possible to fall but parlour music songs were very popular at the turn of the century and Amanda (Montague) was a very successful exponent of the style. As the name implies, the songs were designed for use and enjoyment in living rooms and were often written with performance by amateur musicians in mind. Titles like ‘My Dreamy Creamy Colored Girl’ or ‘When the Colored Lady Saunters Down the Street’ do not perhaps read too well today but, in a sign of how language changes over time, at that time the term ‘black’ was considered insulting in a way that ‘colored’ wasn’t. Several of her compositions can be heard on You Tube so you can decide for yourself whether you like it (apologies for any adverts that pop up, just click on the small ‘x’ in the corner to remove them):
By the time war broke out in 1914 Amanda was forty-eight with a well-established career as a ‘vocalist and teacher of singing’[4]. Women played a wide range of key roles during the War, ranging from nursing, to working in munitions factories, to fundraising. Evidence for Amanda’s war time activities is scant. A search of the English National Newspaper Archives doesn’t come up with any entries for the period 1914 to 1918. It is possible that she performed in fund raising concerts but, for now, this is speculation.
Amanda had to balance the demands of her own career with the need to care for her mother (who died in 1915) and her sister, Luranah (an extremely successful opera singer), who was also ailing and in increasing pain from rheumatoid arthritis (unable to bear the pain any longer, Luranah eventually died after an overdose of aspirin in 1932).
After the War Amanda continued her work as a highly respected vocal coach much sought after by leading singers and actors of the day. For instance we know that Paul Robeson used her services when he was in London and a series of hand-written letters from him to ‘My Dear Miss Aldridge’ have survived. Although none of the letters indicates the year they were written, the archivist at Northwestern University, Chicago, has suggested they date from 1925.
In one he says ‘I want to see you very much and I want you to hear me sing’. In another letter he urges her to give him a copy of a song ‘Summer is de lovin’ time’ that she had played to him as he wanted ‘to make a record of it for Victor, and sing it on our concert tour.’ He goes on to explain why he is so keen to include the song in his regular concert programme ‘you see we have plenty of spirituals and revival songs, and a few work songs, but almost none of those are negro love songs which are so charming and typical, and which are so necessary to a program of all negro music (to lend color and variety to it).’ He ends by imploring ‘please let me have a copy.’ [4]
In a later note he says ‘I have decided that I simply can’t leave England until you make a copy of it for me.’
Robeson wasn’t Amanda’s only high profile client. According to Joyce Andrews [6] the acclaimed African-American tenor, Roland Hayes, who first came to London in 1920, also received vocal coaching from Amanda.
Hayes gave critically acclaimed recitals at the Wigmore Hall and the Royal Chapel of the Savoy. During the Royal Chapel performance, presented on Palm Sunday, Hayes sang the Negro Spiritual, ‘Were You There?’ a cappella. Word of his sensational performance soon reached Royal ears and resulted in a “command” performance for King George V and Queen Mary.[7]
Marian Anderson was another black singer who sought out Amanda’s services when she came to London in 1925.[8] She was clearly pleased with the results, and she wrote in a letter to Amanda ‘the things you taught me come in mighty handy just now and all those who have heard, feel that there is a decided improvement.’ Anderson became a huge box office attraction when she returned to America in 1934 but, like all African-Americans and just like Amanda’s father a century earlier, faced racial prejudice and hostility. When the owners of one concert hall in Washington refused to accept a booking for her it sparked widespread condemnation. In answer to the protests, the United States Department of the Interior, with active encouragement from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, scheduled a concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on April 9, 1939. The Easter Sunday program drew a crowd of 75,000 people and millions of radio listeners. The entire episode caused the news media to focus greater attention on subsequent cases of discrimination involving Anderson and other African Americans. In 1961 she sang at President Kennedy’s inauguration.
Amanda remained active well into her eighties. Interviewed when she was eighty-seven, she was still taking a daily bus ride of forty minutes to fulfil teaching engagements in central London. When gently probed about the possibility of retirement she replied ‘life without music would be unbearable. I cannot keep still. So many things are happening that I must be active to see it all.’
She died after a short illness one day before her 90th birthday in Coulsdon Hospital, just south of Croydon. The death certificate gives her occupation as ‘formerly a composer of music, spinster’ and ‘father’s particulars not known’ has been crossed out and replaced with ‘daughter of Ira Aldridge, an actor.’ The obituary in The Stage on 15th March 1956 was brief but there was a more informative article on August 27th of that year, the day her will was published. Under the heading ‘She taught Paul Robeson,’ the short article mentioned that, in addition to Robeson, her pupils included ‘the BBC’s Ida Shepley and Marian Anderson – the first Negro singer to appear at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.’
The will specified that royalties on her compositions in the name of Montague Ring were to go to the benevolent fund of the Performing Rights Society. It also included a number of gifts, ‘her piano and all the music she may choose goes to Ida Shepley, “the bronze girl with a golden voice”.’ Scarcely remembered now, Ida Shepley appeared in a number of shows in the 1930s (for instance as part of an ‘all coloured cast’ in a production of ‘All God’s Chillun Got Wings’), she also appeared in a number of BBC TV productions in the early 1950s.
The article also mentioned that Amanda had appeared on the BBC TV programme ‘Music for you’ just two years before her death when her song ‘Little Southern Love Song’ was sung by Muriel Smith. Whilst Shepley was British born (hailing from Nantwich), Muriel was a native of New York City who had made her debut on Broadway in 1943 when she took the title role in ‘Carmen Jones’. Later (1956) she sang the role of Carmen in Bizet’s original opera at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.
Amanda was buried in Streatham Park cemetery, plot number 30,153 in section SQ23R. Her grave is unmarked. Considering she left an estate of over £11,000 at today’s prices it is a shame that no money was put towards a headstone, perhaps it is not too late to rectify the omission and give this remarkable woman, who was so much more than the daughter of a famous father, the memorial she deserves.
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[1] ‘Ira Aldridge – Celebrated 19th Century Actor’ By Martin Hoyles, Hansib Publications 2008.
[2] Ira’s first wife was Margaret Gill, a Yorkshire woman from Northallerton, the daughter of a stocking weaver, who he married on 27th November 1825 at St George’s Church in Bloomsbury, London (by coincidence this was the same church where Dido Elizabeth Belle had been married in 1793). Margaret died on 25th March 1864.
[3] The score is available on the Library of Congress website.
[4] This is how she describes her occupation at the time of the 1901 census. She does not appear in the 1911 census.
[5] Letter dated 19th October 1925, obtained from the North Western University (Chicago) Aldridge Archive.
[6] There is an excellent article on Amanda Aldridge by Joyce Andrews in the ‘Journal of Singing’, published January 2010 and available through www.ancestry.co.uk (public member stories).
[7] http://afrovoices.com/roland-hayes-biography/
[8] http://afrovoices.com/marian-anderson-biography-2/