Augusta Browne

Augusta Browne (1820–1882) was an American composer, publisher, and author. She started the first wave of female composers in the country.[1] Wake, Lady Mine, written in 1845, is one of her best known works.[2]

Lady Augusta Browne, 1860s

Biography

Augusta Browne Garrett was born in 1820 in Dublin, Ireland. She was one of nine children.[3] In 1826 her father David moved to Boston, US and opened an music academy. Augusta was known as a child prodigy, playing Dussek at the age of seven, [4] and by age sixteen she was playing her own compositions in public.

Judith Tick notes that Browne was known as one of "the most prolific woman composer in America before 1870."[5] She composed over 200 works[5] for piano and voice, along with numerous hymns and secular pieces.[6] Browne often collaborated with lyricists, creating musical settings to accompany lyrics written by said lyricists.

Music by Augusta Browne

In addition to her musical works, Browne published two books; The Precious Stones of the Heavenly Foundations and Hamilton, the Young Artist (written about her younger brother after his death). She also wrote numerous essays, religious tracts, poetry, and short stories. Rather than writing on issues such as home or family life, she wrote on the subjects most important to her; music, literature, the fine arts and the Christian faith. As such, she joined a small band of women writers such as Margaret Fuller.

One of Browne's most famous articles criticized the popular "minstrel music" of the mid-1800s, calling it "melodic trash." Though the opinion was controversial, her article was reprinted in several music journals.

Browne met and married John Walter Benjamin Garrett, a portrait painter from North Carolina, in 1855. He died in 1958 and the couple had no surviving children.[7] [8]

Browne died on January 11, 1882,[9] and was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, New York.

References
  1. Neuls-Bates 1978, pp. 269–283.
  2. Chase 1992, p. 161.
  3. "A Room of Her Own in Nineteenth-Century America". 5 December 2020.
  4. Jstor
  5. Tick 1983, p. 150.
  6. Chase 1992, p. 160.
  7. "A Room of Her Own in Nineteenth-Century America". 5 December 2020.
  8. "Augusta Browne, 19th-century American female composer".
  9. "Browne, Augusta (1820-1882) | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2022-06-08.

Notes
  • Chase, Gilbert (1992). America's Music, from the Pilgrims to the Present (illustrated, revised ed.). University of Illinois Press. pp. 160-161. ISBN 9780252062759.
  • Neuls-Bates, Carol (December 1978). "Sources and Resources for Women's Studies in American Music: A Report". Notes. Second Series. Music Library Association. 35 (2): 269–283. doi:10.2307/939679. JSTOR 939679.
  • Tick, Judith (1983). American women composers before 1870. Issue 57 of Studies in musicolog (illustrated ed.). UMI Research Press. p. 150.

Further reading
  • Moore, John Weeks (1880) [1854]. "Browne, Augusta". Complete Encyclopaedia of Music. New York: C. H. Ditson & Company.
  • Browne, A. H. C. (1857). Hamilton, the Young Artist: With an Essay on Sculpture & Painting. Lippincott.
  • Moore, John W. (1973). Complete Encyclopaedia of Music: Elementary, Technical, Historical, Biographical, Vocal, and Instrumental. New York: AMS.
  • Pendle, Karin (1991). Women & Music a History. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
  • Tawa, Nicholas E. (1980). Sweet Songs for Gentle Americans: The Parlor Song in America, 1790-1860. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green U Popular.


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