Hope Temple, born as Alice Maude Davis (27 December 1859 – 10 May 1938) was an Irish songwriter and composer. She was also known as Mrs André Messager.

Life

Alice Davis was born in Dublin, Ireland, and was known professionally as Hope Temple. She moved with her family to England aged 12 and began composing ballads at the age of 14. Initially she studied music with the idea of becoming a pianist, but an injury in a riding accident caused her to give up her ambitions. Her teachers in London included John Francis Barnett (piano) and Edouard Silas (harmony and counterpoint). In the early 1890s she continued her studies in Paris with André Wormser and André Messager. In 1892, her operetta The Wooden Spoon was produced in London (also in New York, 1893), but she was known primarily for her songs, some of which became very popular. Her song My Lady's Bower is sung by Molly Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses.

Hope Temple

In 1892, a reproduction of a photograph of her taken by Alex Bassano of Old Bond Street, London, was published in the Strand Magazine, as part of a series called "Types of English Beauty".

Hope Temple

In 1894, she assisted Messager in writing the opera Mirette, and then became his second wife in 1895.

Hope Temple

Hope Temple died in Folkestone, England.

Selected works

Stage

The Wooden Spoon (1892) Mirette, opéra comique (1894), with Andre Messager, Fred E. Weatherly, Harry Greenbank and Adrian Ross

Songs

In Sweet September (Fred E. Weatherly), 1880

Tis all that I can say (Thomas Hood), 1880

She Walks in Beauty (Lord Byron), 1881

An Old Garden (Helen Marion Burnside), c.1886

My Lady's Bower (Fred E. Weatherly), 1887

A Golden Argosy (Fred E. Weatherly), 1889

Love and Friendship (John Muir), 1889

Mary Grey (Clifton Bingham), 1890

Rory Darlin (Fred E. Weatherly), 1892

Adieu l'amour / Love's Adieu (Catulle Blée), 1893

Auf Wiederseh'n (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), 1893

Colin Deep (William Akerman), 1895

The Garden of Dreams (Clifton Bingham), 1900

Au bord des flots (Louis Fortolis), 1905Piano music'''A Summer Dream (1895)A Night in Seville'' (c.1921)

References

1859 births

1938 deaths

19th-century classical composers

19th-century women composers

20th-century classical composers

20th-century women composers

Irish classical composers

Irish women classical composers

Irish women songwriters