Madeleine Dring facts for kids

Madeleine Dring (born September 7, 1923, died March 26, 1977) was a talented English composer and actress. She created many different kinds of music, from songs to pieces for plays and TV shows.

Life Story

Madeleine Dring spent her first four years in Harringay. Her family then moved to Streatham. She showed great musical talent from a young age. When she turned ten, she started taking lessons at the junior department of the Royal College of Music. She earned scholarships for both violin and piano.

As part of her training, Madeleine performed in children's theatre. She began studying composition in 1937. Her teachers included Stanley Drummond Wolff, Leslie Fly, and Percy Buck. Later, at the senior level of the Royal College, she studied composition with Herbert Howells. She also had some lessons with the famous composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Besides music, she studied mime, drama, and singing. Madeleine loved both theatre and music, and often combined them. Many of her first professional works were for the stage, radio, and television.

In 1947, she married Roger Lord. He was the main oboe player for the London Symphony Orchestra for over 30 years. Madeleine wrote several pieces for Roger, including the well-known Dances for solo oboe. Soon after they married, her first pieces were published in 1948. Madeleine and Roger had a son named Jeremy in 1950.

Madeleine Dring passed away in 1977 from a brain aneurysm. Her tombstone was recently found at Lambeth Cemetery in Streatham. Both her husband, Roger, and their son, Jeremy, died in 2014. Roger was 90 years old, and Jeremy died from a condition called ALS.

Two books have been written about Madeleine Dring. Madeleine Dring: Her Music, Her Life by Ro Hancock-Child was published in 2000. It included cartoons from Dring's own notebooks. Another book, Madeleine Dring: Lady Composer by Wanda Brister and Jay Rosenblatt, came out in 2020. These books, along with recordings and articles, have helped keep her music and name well-known today.

Recently, the dining hall at Streatham & Clapham High School was named after Madeleine Dring. This was a special honor for her. She did not attend this school, but went to La Retraite Catholic Convent School nearby.

Her Music Style

When Madeleine Dring was young, her favorite composer was Rachmaninov. She owned many of his piano and vocal pieces. Even though she studied with Herbert Howells and sometimes with Ralph Vaughan Williams, her music sounds very different from theirs. She did not use the traditional English folk song style.

Madeleine enjoyed and copied the style of composers like Poulenc. She especially loved jazzy sounds, like those from Gershwin and Cole Porter. She also liked the cheerful music of Arthur Benjamin. After hearing calypso music in London, she wrote her own pieces with a similar feel, like Caribbean Dance and West Indian Dance for piano.

Madeleine always tried new things in her music. She never repeated her musical ideas from one piece to another. She always found fresh ways to use harmony and rhythm. Her music was often surprising and could make you smile. She wrote most of her songs for herself to sing. She had a beautiful soprano voice and perfect pitch. There are recordings of her singing and playing her own songs.

Madeleine Dring's cabaret songs and theatre music often had her own clever lyrics. These songs have recently been recorded and published.

Madeleine chose not to write very long musical works. Most of her pieces were shorter. She wrote music for solo piano, piano duets, and songs with piano. She also wrote some chamber music for instruments like flute, oboe, harmonica, recorder, and clarinet. Some of these pieces were for teaching. Her works for television and radio were always 45 minutes long or shorter.

She completed a one-act opera called Cupboard Love. It was first performed in the United States in 2018 and in Europe in 2019. She also created a dance drama for BBC Television in 1951 called The Fair Queen of Wu. She wrote music for a ballet called "The Real Princess" and for several plays in London. She often worked with choreographer Felicity Gray and writer D.F. Aitken.

List of Works

Madeleine Dring rarely dated her compositions. Many dates come from research by Alistair Fisher and from her husband, Roger Lord, who published many of her works after she died. More recently, dates have been found using first performance dates and information from her personal papers and old newspaper reviews. In 2018, many of her songs, cabaret numbers, duets, and ensembles were published.

Instrumental and Vocal Music

• Italian Dance (1960) for Oboe and Piano
• Fantasy Sonata in one Movement (1938, published 1948), for solo piano
• Three Fantastic Variations on Lilliburlero for Two Pianos (1948), for two pianos
• Jig (1948), for piano
• Prelude and Toccata (1948), for piano
• Tarantelle (1948), for piano duet
• Festival Scherzo (1951), for piano and string orchestra
• Sonata for two pianos (1951)
• March: for the New Year (1954), for piano
• Caribbean Dance (Tempo Tobago) (1959), for piano duet or solo
• Dance Suite (1961), for piano
• Polka (1962), for oboe and piano
• Colour Suite (1963), for piano
• Danza Gaya (1965), for two pianos or oboe and piano
• Three Dances (1968), for piano
• Trio for Flute, Oboe, and Piano (1968)
• Valse française (1980), for solo or duo piano
• Three Pieces: WIB Waltz, Sarabande, Tango (1983), for flute and piano
• Waltz (1983), for oboe and piano
• Suite (1984), for harmonica and piano (later arranged for oboe)
• Trio for oboe, bassoon, and harpsichord (1986)
• Idyll for oboe (or viola) and piano (Her husband, Roger Lord, arranged this for oboe so it could be played and published.)
• Three Shakespeare Songs (1949)
• Thank you, Lord (1953), a vocal piece
• The Pigtail (1963) vocal duet
• Dedications: Five poems by R. Herrick (1967), a vocal suite
• Love and time: Four Songs (1970s)
• Four Night Songs: texts of Michael Armstrong (1976)
• Five Betjeman Songs (1976)
• Seven Songs for Medium Voice (published 1993)
• Six Songs for High Voice (published 1999), including "My true-love hath my heart" and "Love is a Sickness."
• Many previously unpublished vocal works, including art songs, cabaret songs, and theatre songs, were published in several volumes starting in 2018. These include her own lyrics and those by other writers.

Music for Theatre, Drama, and Television

Incidental Music

• The Emperor and the Nightingale (1941)
• Tobias and the Angel (1946)
• Somebody’s Murdered Uncle (1947) for BBC radio
• Little Laura Cartoons (1960–61), she wrote and played music for six episodes.
• The Jackpot Question (1961), for Associated TV
• The Whisperers (1961), for ITV
• The Provok’d Wife (1963)
• The Lady and the Clerk (1964), for Associated TV
• I Can Walk Where I Like, Can’t I? (1964), for Associated TV
• When the Wind Blows (1965), for Associated TV
• Helen and Edward and Henry (1966), for Associated TV
• Variation on a Theme (1966), for Associated TV

Musical Revues

• Airs on a Shoestring (1953), including songs like "Model Models" and "Sing High, Sing Low."
• Pay the Piper (1954)
• From Here and There (1955), including "Resolutions" and "Life Sentence."
• Fresh Airs (1955), including "Mother knows" and "Miss Spenser."
• Child’s Play (1958), including "High in the Pines" and "Love Song."
• Four to the Bar (1961), which included "Diedre" (also known as "Mother knows").

Ballet

• Waiting for ITMA (1947), for BBC TV
• The Real Princess (1971), scored for 2 pianos

Opera

• Cupboard Love (first performed in 1983 after her death). It was published in 2017.

Other Compositions

• The Wild Swans (1950), a children's play
• The Fair Queen of Wu (1951), a dance-drama for BBC TV
• The Marsh Kings’s Daughter (1951), a children’s play
• The Scarlet Crabapple