RUDALL, Eleanor

Eleanor Clementine Rudall was a composer and pianist, who after a promising start while a student at the Royal Academy of Music struggled to find more widespread recognition. She continued her career teaching piano, harmony and composition, and was a friend and collaborator of English composer and pianist Emma Lomax. Her Introduction and Allegro for string octet was played at a Royal Academy concert in 1906. Four Orchestral Illustrations (inspired by the paintings of G F Watts), were performed at a Queen's Hall student concert on 25 June 1907. Rudall won the Charles Lucas Medal for composition in 1908 for her Suite of Three Movements for orchestra. In her 1950 entry for Who's Who in Music, Rudall listed more of her compositions, now all unknown, including three String Quartets, a Piano Quintet, a Cello Sonata, To a Passer By for chorus and orchestra, and Ballad of Summer Waters, for female voices. There are published song settings of Robert Bridges' The Robin and Christina Rossetti's Spring Quiet, and the Spring Pastoral for piano four hands.