1867–1920 · Brazil · 20th century
An English pianist and composer, born in Brazil in 1867, closely linked to the Royal Academy of Music in London — first as a student, later as a teacher. She wrote mainly songs for voice and piano; her best-known one, "The Bird and the Rose," was performed at English concerts for decades.
Amy Elise Horrocks was born on 23 February 1867 in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, to English parents Francis James Horrocks and Hannah Horrocks (née Allen). It is suggested that her father was in Brazil building tramways. Her elder sister Marian, also born in Brazil, had died there in 1862 at the age of one. Although one report about her claimed she had a brother, in fact she did not.
Between 1867 and 1871 the family left Brazil: in the 1871 Scottish census, Francis, Hannah, four-year-old Amy and their servant Mary Thompson were recorded as lodgers in Edinburgh. After that the family settled in Cheshire.
From about the age of six, Amy received her early education at Miss Frances Anne Gregson's Highbury College in Bowdon, Cheshire, a school that opened in the 1870s and continued operating into the early twentieth century; no particular musical teaching is recorded there.
In 1879 the family moved to London and settled on Bartholomew Road in Kentish Town. Amy was enrolled at the North London Collegiate School for Girls, the country's oldest academic girls' school, founded in 1850 by Frances Mary Buss. She joined the school in May 1880 and studied music under John Blockley, who alongside piano also taught singing and harmony and was himself a composer.
Her school years record no sign of particular musical gift — only a prize for French marked "satisfactory" — and she finished there at Easter in 1882.
Amy joined the Royal Academy of Music in 1882, aged fifteen; there she trained in piano playing and composition with the pianist Adolf Schlösser, alongside lessons from the musician Francis William Davenport.
During her studies she won a string of awards: a silver prize for piano playing and a bronze one for harmony. She took the Potter Exhibition prize in 1888, then the Sterndale Bennett Prize a year later, in 1889. The Academy made her an Associate in 1890, and a Fellow five years after that, in 1895; by the 1891 census her occupation was given as "Professor of Music." The Potter Exhibition had gone to her ahead of twenty-eight other entrants, and the Sterndale Bennett Prize ahead of twenty-nine.
In 1886, a Royal Academy concert at St James's Hall singled out a performance of her "Love Song" for praise. A choir also sang her own "The Return of May" at a concert in Steinway Hall.
On 1 April 1887 the press noted Amy's performance on the piano at a concert in St James's Hall. At another concert there, Mendelssohn's duo for piano and cello was played by Amy and the cellist Allen Gill, to high critical praise; her Sonata in G for cello and piano and her Variations on an original theme for piano, violin, viola and cello were also performed at student concerts — reviews of them were mostly favourable.
At a charity concert at the City of London College, held in aid of the institution, Amy played Schumann's "Novellette" as a piano solo, while another performer sang her own song "The Bird and the Rose"; together with Emily Johnston, Amy also played a movement from Grieg's sonata for piano and violin.
Amy's songs began to be published and performed beyond the Academy. The choral trio "The Return of May," to words by Mrs Hemans (1886), was praised by critics as melodious, and the setting of Robert Burns's "Bonnie Wee Thing" (1889) was called successful.
In 1890 a column in The Gentlewoman reviewed four of her songs at once — "Ashes of Roses," "A Love Song of the 17th Century," "With a Primrose" and "A Cradle Hymn" — praising her as a talented young composer and looking forward to further work from her.
One collection of her songs, "Four Songs in Two Books," was brought out by the publisher Robert Cocks & Co.; among her other published works were the collections "Six Songs" and "Two Fairy Songs for Treble Voices," together with piano pieces including a Berceuse and a Valse.
Amy's greatest triumph was "The Bird and the Rose," published in 1895 with words by Robert Smythe Hichens, a writer known as a satirist. Over the next several years, charity concerts and ballad concerts up and down England took the song up — in Liverpool, Sheffield, Norwich, Eastbourne and elsewhere, among them Boosey & Co.'s concerts in London. Another of her songs, "An Idle Poet," was later played at the Proms.
In 1917 the song was recorded on a 78 rpm disc by Herbert Witherspoon.
Her songs were performed by many singers of the day: in a series of 1896 Steinway Hall concerts Rosa Leo sang her "Lullaby" and the duets "Forget-me-not" and "The Answer." Esther Palliser included her music in a concert made up entirely of works by women composers, among them Clara Schumann. Another of her songs, "A Romany Spring Song," was included in the 1896 annual concert of the German-born English pianist, violinist and conductor Wilhelm Ganz.
Once her studies were done, Amy Horrocks remained at the Royal Academy of Music as a teacher, and she took on examining duties too: the Hine Exhibition composition prize came under her judgement in 1893 and again in 1897, and so did the Robert Cocks prize of 1896, awarded for piano playing. 1894 brought a performance of her song "To Music to Becalm His Fever" at that year's Academy prize-giving, and in 1898 two of her duets, "April Showers" and "The Skylark's Wooing," were heard at another of its concerts.
One of the Robert Cocks & Co. collections, "Artistic Songs," included a piece credited to her under the name Elise Horrocks; her song "Holly" was performed to good effect at a charity concert in Nottingham.
She continued to perform as a pianist and accompanist, playing her own works at concerts in Kent and Birmingham and accompanying the Russian pianist Wassily Sapellnikoff at Steinway Hall in a performance that included two of her duets.
Amy Horrocks died on 4 December 1919.
Amy Horrocks spent most of her creative life writing music for voice and piano — songs set to the words of contemporary poets — alongside a handful of piano pieces and chamber works from her years at the Royal Academy of Music. Her contemporaries described her art as restrained yet full of charm: without excessive drama, but with a clear melodic gift. During her Academy years this was complemented by chamber works — a sonata for cello and piano and variations on an original theme for piano quartet.
Her best-known song, "The Bird and the Rose" (1895), tells of a rose in a desert land and the bird that eventually carries it away — a lyrical story set to a simple, memorable tune. One music critic writing today has noted its leisurely, narrative style and gentle harmonies, typical of late-19th-century ballads.
Besides songs for a single voice, Amy also wrote duets for two voices and piano — "The Skylark's Wooing" and "Hill Tops" (1896), "Forget-me-not" and "The Answer" — praised by critics for their grace and melodic charm. Among her piano pieces, contemporaries singled out the "Berceuse" for its tenderness and the "Valse" for its delicate piquancy. The collection "Six Pieces for Piano" complemented these songs with instrumental miniatures for piano.
Four of Amy Horrocks's pieces are available on the site, all for voice and piano. A good place to start is "The Bird and the Rose" (level "Intermediate+") — the best-known and most melodically clear of them. As skills develop, players can move on to "Cottage Cradle Song," "The Blackbird" and "The Cuckoo" — all marked "Advanced" and suited to those who can already accompany a singer confidently.
A critic of her day advised music-lovers to make a point of getting to know her compositions. For today's students, Amy Horrocks's songs remain convenient repertoire: melodic and straightforward in musical language, they suit players who have already mastered the basics of accompanying a singer and are looking for a complete, expressive and tuneful piece for a concert, an exam, or playing at home.