1811–1891 · United Kingdom · Romantic
Ann Mounsey (1811–1891) was an English composer, organist and conductor. For almost fifty years she served as a church organist in London and for several years directed a concert series at Crosby Hall. She wrote songs, hymns, partsongs, large-scale choral works and pieces for piano and organ — among them songs for voice and piano that make a good starting point for getting to know her music.
Ann Mounsey, sometimes called Ann Sheppard Mounsey before her marriage, was born on 17 April 1811 at 21 Old Compton Street in the London district of Soho. She was the eldest child in the family: her father, Thomas Mounsey, was a licensed victualler, and her mother was Mary, née Briggs.
Ann's sister Elizabeth (1819–1905) also built a career in music. In 1824 the family left Soho and settled in Shoreditch.
Ann Mounsey took her first music lessons at Johann Bernhard Logier's well-known academy for piano playing. It was there, in 1820, that a visiting composer, Louis Spohr, singled her out as gifted at writing music.
She studied the organ privately as well, taking lessons with Samuel Wesley, known both as a conductor and as a concert organist, and with Thomas Attwood, who held the organist's post at St Paul's Cathedral.
The mainstay of Ann Mounsey's musical life was her work as a church organist. In 1828, aged seventeen, she got her first post as organist in the London suburb of Clapton.
In 1829 she took up a post at St Michael's Church on Wood Street, and from there moved on to St Vedast's Church in Foster Lane, where she stayed at the console for close to half a century, retiring only in 1883.
Between 1843 and 1848 Ann Mounsey organised and directed the Crosby Hall Sacred Concert, an unusual venture for its day: a public series offering six concerts every season. Audiences there heard music by Felix Mendelssohn, Johann Sebastian Bach, Henry Purcell, Joseph Haydn, Luigi Cherubini, Carl Heinrich Graun and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, alongside pieces of her own. The series met with a warm response.
The Musical Times praised the very idea of these concerts: they opened up access, for residents of that part of London, to music of the highest order that had previously been almost out of reach, and the leading London vocalists were engaged for performances, with rehearsals carefully prepared.
Appearing as an accompanist was a regular part of Ann Mounsey's work. Her best-remembered appearance of this kind came in 1845, when she played at the first performance, at Crosby Hall, of Felix Mendelssohn's choral piece "Hear my prayer," written for soprano solo, chorus and organ.
The London Philharmonic Society made Ann Mounsey an associate in 1834, the Royal Society of Musicians took her into membership in 1839, and in 1840 she helped found the Society of Female Musicians.
Ann Mounsey married on 28 April 1853; her husband was William Bartholomew (1793–1867), who worked as a violinist and as a writer. From then on she signed her work as Ann Mounsey Bartholomew.
Her health failed in her last years, and by the time she died she was living at 58 Brunswick Place in Shoreditch, with her sister Elizabeth looking after her; Ann Mounsey died on 24 June 1891.
A significant part of Ann Mounsey's output is vocal and choral music. Her catalogue includes an oratorio, "The Nativity" (Op. 29, 1855), cantatas and odes, partsongs and liturgical works, as well as around 120 songs for voice and piano.
Her catalogue also contains a good deal of purely instrumental music: numerous pieces for piano solo, works for piano with other solo instruments, and pieces for organ.
A few of her songs for voice and piano are available on the site. "The Warrior Boy" is marked level "Intermediate+", while "The Will o' the Wisp", "O the merry, merry Spring!" and "Song of the Summer Winds" are marked "Advanced". A good place to start with Ann Mounsey's music is "The Warrior Boy" — it is simpler than the rest — before moving on to the more demanding songs, which suit players who can already accompany a voice with confidence.