Headlam-Morley, Else, Lady, 1866-1950

Elisabeth Charlotta Henrietta Ernestina Headlam-Morley (ne Sonntag) was born at Luneburg in 1866. Known as Else, she was the youngest daughter of Dr. August Sonntag. She learnt the violin from a former pupil of Friedrich Wieck and the piano from her eldest sister Hedwig (Heidi), who was also a pupil of Wieck, and at the age of seven she wrote her first composition. After her family's move to Dresden, she played at the musical evenings given by Marie Wieck and Clara Schumann.

When she was thirteen she was accepted as a pupil by Liszt, and studied with him at Weimar for five years, until his death in 1886, and afterwards with Franz Xaver Scharwenka in Berlin. Among Liszt's older pupils whom she knew at Weimar were Alfred Reisenauer, Alexander Siloti, Emil Sauer and Arthur Friedheim. She travelled with Liszt to Budapest and appeared as a pianist there and in Vienna under Julius Epstein. She also studied harmony etc. with Heinrich Schulz-Beuthen. In 1892 she married James Wycliffe Headlam-Morley, who was knighted in 1929 for his work as historical adviser to the Foreign Office.

After her marriage, Else Headlam-Morley devoted her time increasingly to composition. She composed two operas Leonarda and Die Tulpen , and numerous songs and works for piano and orchestra. Leonarda, composed in 1925, was staged in Salzburg and in Innsbruck, under Dr. Nicholai van der Pals, and other performances of her music took place in the twenties and thirties in Berlin with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra under Dr. Ernst Kunwald, in Munich, Leipzig and Stuttgart, at the Queen's Hall in London, and in Bournemouth under Sir Dan Godfrey. Leonarda received concert performances in London in 1950 and in Aachen in 1962. Lady Headlam-Morley died in February 1950.

From the guide to the Else Headlam-Morley Collection, ca. 1880-1950, (Durham University Library, Archives and Special Collections)