Amy Woodforde-Finden

Amy Woodforde - Find (* 1860 in Valparaíso, Chile, † March 13, 1919 in London) was an English composer, most known for her musical adaptations of the Four Indian Love Lyrics by Laurence Hope.

Life

Amy Woodforde - Find was born Amy Ward 1860 in Valparaíso, Chile, the daughter of an American officer, who served as British consul there, and a British mother. She was one, so her mother moved from nine children after her husband was murdered with his family to London. At that time, Amy has developed a skill for composition and studied with Carl Schloesser and Amy Horrocks. Her early works, which she published under her maiden name as Amy Ward, have been promising.

At 34, she married Lieutenant - Colonel Woodforde Woodforde - finding, later Brigadier and surgeon general of the British Indian Army. Both lived in India for several years. During this time she wrote and published her most famous pieces: The Lover in Damascus and Kashmiri Song. The latter had indeed published in 1902, self-published, but was reissued due to its popularity and the influence of Hamilton Earle of Boosey & Co.. The level of awareness of both pieces they were both in their publishing company and in the heart of the audience in good memory. Her songs were known for their sentimentality, their romantic river and how they could just take the sensibility of the British middle class for Asian themes. In later years, she composed on the Jhelum River, The Pagoda of Flowers and Stars of the Desert.

In April 1916 she lost her husband. In the same year she experienced the first use of their pieces as background of a silent film: Less Than the Dust, starring Mary Pickford. Kashmiri song should be used until 1943 in the talkies Hers To Hold.

After the death of her husband pulled Amy Woodforde - Find back to London, where she already died three years later. Supposedly they suffered death while composing on the piano. In the cemetery of Hampsthwaite in North Yorkshire they had their grave monument.

The merits Amy Woodforde - finding were in their musical bridge between the cultures of India and the United Kingdom, thus its general population met motives of South Asian music.