Phyllis Tate facts for kids

Phyllis Tate (born April 6, 1911 – died May 29, 1987) was an English composer. She was known for using interesting and sometimes unusual groups of musical instruments in her pieces. Many of her works were written for people who played music as a hobby, and for children.

Her Life Story

Phyllis Margaret Duncan Tate was born in Gerrards Cross, a town in Buckinghamshire. Her father was an architect. Phyllis taught herself to play the ukulele!

In 1928, a musician named Harry Farjeon discovered her talent. He encouraged her to get proper music training. So, Phyllis studied at the Royal Academy of Music for four years. There, she learned about composing music, playing the timpani (a type of drum), and conducting. During this time, she wrote several pieces, including a small opera called The Policeman’s Serenade. Phyllis was very critical of her own work. She destroyed all the music she wrote before the mid-1940s.

The first piece she truly accepted as her own was a concerto for saxophone and strings. She wrote this in 1944, and the BBC asked her to create it. Between 1944 and 1947, Tate composed four important pieces:

• The saxophone concerto.
• A sonata for clarinet and cello (1947).
• Songs of Sundry Natures (1945).
• Nocturne for Four Voices (1945).

Phyllis loved to use unusual combinations of instruments. For example, Songs of Sundry Natures was written for a baritone singer with a flute, clarinet, bassoon, horn, and harp. Nocturne for Four Voices used four singers with a string quartet, double bass, bass clarinet, and celesta. After this busy time, Phyllis became ill and didn't compose much for about five years.

Her Music and Works

Even though Phyllis Tate didn't want to write very large musical pieces, she created an amazing amount of music. She tried many different types of music, including:

• Music for orchestras.
• Chamber music (for small groups of instruments).
• Operas and operettas (small operas).
• Sacred music (for religious settings).
• Piano music.
• Vocal music (for singers), which was her main focus.

Some of her most famous pieces, besides those mentioned, include:

• Her music for Tennyson’s poem The Lady of Shalott. She wrote this for the 10th anniversary of the BBC Third Programme.
• The opera The Lodger, which was based on the story of Jack the Ripper.
• Prelude, Interlude, and Postlude for a chamber orchestra.
• All The World’s A Stage.
• Saint Martha and the Dragon.
• The What d’ye Call It.
• A Secular Requiem: The Phoenix and the Turtle.
• London Fields, a four-part musical suite, also asked for by the BBC.

Her Involvement in Music Groups

Phyllis Tate wasn't a big fan of committees, but she still joined several music organizations. She often became part of their leadership boards. She was involved with:

• The Hampstead Music Club.
• The Barnet and District Choral Society (she was their president and wrote Saint Martha and the Dragon for them).
• The Performing Rights Society’s Member Fund (she was the first woman on their management committee).
• The Composers’ Guild (where she served on the executive committee).

Her Thoughts on Music

Phyllis Tate believed that "music should entertain and give pleasure." In 1979, she wrote that she hoped some of her music would turn out to be better than it seemed. She felt that writing music could be "hell" or "torture," but that not writing it was even worse!

One day, after hearing Phyllis play, Dame Ethel Smyth said, "At last I have heard a real woman composer!" However, Tate didn't take this too seriously because Smyth's hearing was getting worse at that time.

Her Family Life

In 1935, Phyllis Tate married Alan Clifford Frank, who was a music editor. They had two children: a son named Colin, born in 1940, and a daughter named Celia, born in 1952. Alan Frank worked for Oxford University Press. This company started publishing Phyllis Tate’s music in 1935.