A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/White, Maude
WHITE, Maude Valérie, born of English parents at Dieppe, June 23, 1855. After acquiring the rudiments of harmony and composition from W. S. Rockstro and Oliver May, she entered the Royal Academy of Music in Oct. 1876, and studied composition under Sir G. A. Macfarren. In Feb. 1879 she was elected to the Mendelssohn Scholarship, which she held for two years, studying the while under Macfarren and F. Davenport. In April 1881 ill-health compelled her to give up the scholarship and reside for a time in South America. Previously, however, to her departure, a portion of a Mass of hers was performed at a Royal Academy Students' Orchestral Concert. In the winter of 1883 she completed her musical studies in Vienna, since which she has resided in London.
It is as a song-writer that Miss White is known; her songs are often graceful, melodious, well-written, and well-adapted to the voice. Among the most popular of them are 'Absent yet Present,' 'The devout lover,' 'Ye Cupids,' and 'When passion's trance.' Her best songs are to words by Herrick and Shelley. For instance, for 'To Blossoms,' 'To Daffodils,' 'To Electra,' 'To Music, to becalm his fever,' she has written pure, quaint, and measured music in thorough accord with Herrick's delicate but somewhat archaic turns of thought and language. But a song of greater scope and merit than any of these is to Shelley's words, 'My soul is an enchanted boat,' from 'Prometheus Unbound.' Here she has completely caught the spirit of Shelley's beautiful song, and has proved herself to be an adequate interpreter of a most exquisite lyric; and it is not too much to say that the song is one of the best in our language. And worthy of all praise is her thorough appreciation of the importance of the words of songs, an appreciation attested alike by the excellence of the poetry she sets to music, and by her own careful attention to the metre and accents of the verse.
Of Miss White's German and French songs we may mention Heine's 'Wenn ich in deine Augen seh,' and 'Im wunderschönen Monat Mai,' and Victor Hugo's 'Chantez, chantez, jeune Inspirée,' and 'Heureux qui peut aimer,' also a fine setting of Schiller's 'Ich habe gelebt und geliebet,' for soprano and orchestra.
Of her later attempts we may mention some interesting settings of poems from 'In Memoriam.' But it may be doubted whether these noble poems are sufficiently lyrical for the musician's purpose.