Agnes Elisabeth Overbeck

Ella Overbeck, pseudonym Baroness Ella Overbeck or Overbach, also Agnes Elisabeth Overbeck, Elizabeth von Overbe(c)k, or Baroness Jo Overbeck^[1][2][3][4] (nicknamed Jimmy)^[5] (10 October 1870 – 12 November 1919)^{[citation needed]} was an Anglo-Russian composer and pianist.

Life and career

Born in Russia, Overbeck was brought to England as a young child by her parents, both Russians. Following their deaths, she was adopted by an English woman, and educated at the Royal College of Music.^[6][7][8][9] She was piano accompanist to Clara Butt and students of Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García in London.^{[10][citation needed]} In the 1890s she made friends with Edith Craig (1869-1947) and her brother Edward, son and daughter of leading British actress Ellen Terry, and wrote the stage music for Edward's adaptation of Alfred de Musset's On ne badine pas avec l'amour (as No Trifling with Love), which was performed in Uxbridge in 1894.^[11] Overbeck's music was praised by the Musical Times; other early works, such as a violin sonata and various songs, were also positively reviewed by the musical press. A survey of women composers active in 1896 described Overbeck, though a 'baby' song-writer by comparison with the older Cecile Chaminade and Guy d'Hardelot, as possessing "a unique talent", demonstrated through "a boldness, a carelessness, sometimes an almost Eastern flavouring running through her songs —melodies and harmonies—that seem to me to be quite unlike any other woman I know of."^[12]

In 1898 Overbeck, visiting Taormina (a resort in Sicily, and at the time a popular gay tourist destination)^[13] was introduced to Zinaida Hippius. Hippius was married to a writer, Merezhkovsky, but was bisexual, and she and Overbeck began an affair.^[14] Overbeck later travelled to join Hippius in Saint Petersburg. In the winter of 1902-3 Merezhkovsky's translations of Euripides' Hippolytus and Sophocles' Antigone were performed with Overbeck's incidental music at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg.^[15] Overbeck later returned to Britain, basing herself in South West England. Her orchestral music became a regular feature of Frank Winterbottom's "Symphony Concerts" in Plymouth,^[16] including a performance of her Petersburg stage music in East Stonehouse at Plymouth on 21 February 1904, which Baroness Overbeck conducted herself.^[17] During the First World War she may have based herself in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex.^[18]

Overbeck died in Stuttgart at age 49.^{[citation needed]}

Work

• Eleanore. Song, words by E. Mackay. London: C. Woolhouse, [1893]
• [Two Songs.] London : R. Cocks & Co, 1894.

I've wept in Dreams. Words by Heine.

A Slave Girl's Song. Words by C. Kingsley.

• Parted. Song, words by T. Hood. London: C. Woolhouse, [1893]
• Since my Love now loves me not. [Song.] Words by Heine, translated by F. Johnson. London: C. Woolhouse, [1893]
• Toi. Old French poetry. [Song.] London: C. Woolhouse, [1893]
• The Voice of the Beloved. [Song.] Poetry ... from Marie Corelli's "Soul of Lilith". London: C. Woolhouse, [1893]
• Four Lyrics. London: J. Williams 1903.

1. Les Sanglots longs. With long-drawn Sobs. French words P. Verlaine, English words M. C. Gillington.

2. Peu de Chose. Life's a Bubble. French words L. de Montenaeken, English words M. C. Gillington.

3. Butterflies, from J. Davidson's adaptation of F. Coppée's "Pour la Couronne".

4. Chanson d'Aspiration. Song of Aspiration. French words by E. Overbeck ... English words by M. C. Gillington.

• Sonate pour piano et violon. London: Charles Woolhouse [o. J.]
• A Russian Love Song. Premiered at the BBC Proms in 1911.^[19]

Further reading

• Sophie Fuller: „Devoted Attention“: Looking for Lesbian Musicians in Fin-de-Siècle Britain, in: Sophie Fuller und Lloyd Whitesell (edit.): Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity,^[20] Urbana und Chicago 2002, p. 79–101
• Isabel Sellheim: Die Familie des Malers Friedrich Overbeck (1789–1869) in genealogischen Übersichten.^[21] Neustadt an der Aisch 1989, Deutsches Familienarchiv, volume 104, ISBN 3-7686-5091-X, GW ISSN 0012-1266

References

1. Wie Mozart in die Kugel kam: Kurioses und Überraschendes aus der Welt der klassischen Musik. Pantheon Verlag. 23 April 2018. ISBN 9783641236366.
2. Savage, Roger (2014). Masques, Mayings and Music-dramas: Vaughan Williams and the Early Twentieth-century Stage. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 9781843839194.
3. Fuller, Sophie, Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity: "Pachmuss transliterates Overbeck as Overbach...Her title "baroness" is widely acknowledged."
4. Matich, Olga, Erotic Utopia: the Decadent Imagination in Russia's Fin de Siecle:
5. Fuller, Sophie, Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity: "Nina Auerbach, a biographer of the Craigs' mother, Ellen Terry, refers to Overbeck as 'Edy's cross-dressing friend, the Baroness 'Jimmy' Overbeck.'"
6. Fuller, Sophie, Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity
7. Fuller, Sophie, Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity: "[Temira Pachmuss, translating the memoirs of Zinaida Hippius] mistakenly claims [Overbeck] was of German descent, although it is clear from Hippius's own writings as well as from later British reviews of Overbeck's music that she was Russian. Her title "baroness" is widely acknowledged."
8. Matich, Olga, Erotic Utopia: the Decadent Imagination in Russia's Fin de Siecle: "As to Elizabeth von Overbek (sic), Hippius wrote to V.D. Komarova in 1898 that although Overbek had grown up and lived in England, where her parents had taken her at a young age, she was Russian. Her parents died shortly after their arrival there. A 'proper' Englishwoman, she graduated from the London conservatory, published many of her compositions, and conducted an orchestra."
9. However, Esther Palliser, in a survey of women composers active in 1896, describes Overbeck as Norwegian.
10. Ebendort
11. Savage, Roger (2014). Masques, Mayings and Music-dramas: Vaughan Williams and the Early Twentieth-century Stage. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 9781843839194.
12. Palliser, Esther, Modern Women Song Writers (The Girl's Own Paper): "Of the babies among my song-writers, I must mention Ella Overbeck and Sybil Palliser. The former is a curiously-interesting little Norwegian girl, who has a unique talent, and makes use of it in unique fashion. There is a boldness, a carelessness, sometimes an almost Eastern flavouring running through her songs —melodies and harmonies—that seem to me to be quite unlike any other woman I know of. Certainly she is novel, her setting of Kingsley’s “ Slave Girl’s Song ” proves that."
13. Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to the Mid-Twentieth Century. Routledge. 7 October 2020. ISBN 9781000158885.
14. Fuller, Sophie, Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity
15. Fuller, Sophie, Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity
16. Fuller, Sophie, Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity
17. See The Strad 16 (1904), p. 375, also discussed in Musical Times. There was a real Baroness Overbeck at that time: Romaine von Overbeck, née Goddard, the wife of Gustav Freiherr von Overbeck (1830-1894) and temporary lover of Hans von Bülow.
18. "Addition to Cooden Cottage, Cooden Sea Road / Baroness Overbeck / Tubbs, Messer & Poulter".
19. "Prom 04".
20. Queer episodes in music and modern identity on WorldCat
21. Die Familie des Malers Friedrich Overbeck (1789–1869) in genealogischen Übersichten on WorldCat