Adela Maddison

Katharine Mary Adela Maddison, née Tindal (15 December 1862 – 12 June 1929), usually known as Adela Maddison, was a British composer of operas, ballets, instrumental music and songs. She was also a concert producer. She composed a number of French songs in the style of mélodies; for some years she lived in Paris, where she was a pupil, friend and possibly lover of Gabriel Fauré. Subsequently, living in Berlin, she composed a German opera which was staged in Leipzig. On returning to England she created works for Rutland Boughton's Glastonbury Festivals.

She was born at 42 York Terrace, Regent's Park, London on 15 December 1862 (rather than in 1866 as is sometimes stated), the daughter of Vice Admiral (1811–76) and Henrietta Maria O'Donel Whyte (1831/2–1917). Her grandfather was the judge Nicholas Conyngham Tindal. She seems to have been raised in London. On 14 April 1883 she married barrister and former footballer Frederick Brunning Maddison (1849–1907), at Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, London. They had two children, Diana Marion Adela and Noel Cecil Guy, born in 1886 and 1888 respectively. Her first published works date from 1882.Twelve Songs in 1895 marked the emergence of a distinctive style.

From around 1894, Maddison and her husband played a major part in encouraging and facilitating Fauré's entry onto the London musical scene. Her husband was now working for a music publishing company, Metzler, which obtained a contract to publish Fauré's music during 1896–1901. She provided English translations of some of his mélodies, and of his choral work La naissance de Vénus, Op. 29; Fauré used the latter translation in 1898, when he conducted a choir of 400 at the Leeds Festival. Fauré was a friend of the family and in 1896 vacationed at their residence in Saint-Lunaire, Brittany. She became Fauré's pupil, and he thought her a gifted composer. She composed a number of mélodies, setting the works of poets such as Sully Prudhomme, Coppée, Verlaine and Samain; in 1900 Fauré told the latter that her treatment of his poem Hiver was masterly.

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