Scottish Music Centre - Catalogue

Programme Note

Mildred Bowes-Lyon was born at Glamis Castle, daughter of the 13th Earl of Strathmore, great-grandfather to HRH Queen Elizabeth II. She was the first woman ever to have a success with an opera. She married a wealthy American paper manufacturer Alfred Jessup and in April 1894, an opera she had written to her husband's libretto was staged in Florence. Her local newspaper, the Kirriemuir Observer, 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 audience included Princess Beatrice, daughter of Queen Victoria, and 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." The conductor was the prominent Italian maestro Leopoldo Mugnone and it is a significant pointer to the quality of Mildred's music 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. Mildred's music was thought to have been lost but the GSO traced a vocal score of the opera in a museum in Milan. The suite incorporates some of the opera's orchestral interludes with orchestrations of vocal passages.