Life

Ellicott was born in Cambridge, the daughter of Charles Ellicott

Charles Ellicott

Charles John Ellicott was a distinguished English Christian theologian, academic and churchman. He briefly served as Dean of Exeter, then Bishop of the sees of Gloucester and Bristol.-Early life and family:...

, the Bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

 of Gloucester

Gloucester

Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....

 and Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

. Her father had no interest in music whatsoever; however it has been suggested that it was his position that enabled her to have some of her works performed at the Three Choirs Festival

Three Choirs Festival

The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held each August alternately at the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme...

 which was held in rotation in Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester. It was predominantly her mother, a singer who had been involved with the founding both of London's Handel Society (1844-1848) and of the Gloucester Philharmonic Society who encouraged young Rosalind's talent. From 1874 to 1876 she studied piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 with Frederick Westlake at the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

; here, too, she studied for seven years under Thomas Wingham

Thomas Wingham

Thomas Wingham was an English musician, known as a teacher and for his time at Brompton Oratory....

, a pupil of Sir William Sterndale Bennett

William Sterndale Bennett

Sir William Sterndale Bennett was an English composer. He ranks as the most distinguished English composer of the Romantic school-Biography:...

. Her first published composition, a Sketch, appeared in 1883. Shortly thereafter, Ellicott began composing ambitious works for chorus and orchestra, cast in a traditional, broadly Romantic vein. While many of these gained performance at festivals in Gloucester, Ellicott began to turn her attention to chamber music by the end of the nineteenth century, likely hoping that there would be more opportunities for it to be performed. Still, she began disappearing from the public eye sometime around 1900, moving to the south coast after World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 and dying in Seasalter

Seasalter

Seasalter is a village in the Canterbury District of Kent, England. It is located by the sea on the north coast of Kent, between the towns of Whitstable and Faversham, facing the Isle of Sheppey across the estuary of the River Swale...

 in 1924. She is buried near her parents in the churchyard of Birchington-on-Sea

Birchington-on-Sea

Birchington-on-Sea is a village in northeast Kent, England, with a population of around 9,800. It is part of the Thanet district and forms the civil parish of Birchington. It lies on the coast facing the North Sea, east of the Thames Estuary, between the seaside resorts of Herne Bay and Margate.As...

, in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

.

Music

Comparatively little of Ellicott's work has survived to this day; apart from a few songs and other instrumental works, only the cantatas Elysium and The Birth of Song, along with an incomplete copy of the First Piano Trio and a complete copy of the Second, are known to exist in published form. Ellicott's contemporaries often spoke favorably of her music; she was once told by Charles H. H. Parry

Hubert Parry

Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...

 that she "handl[ed] her brass as if [she] had been at it for twenty years", and others even felt that her work was superior to that of her male colleagues. Much of the surviving music is richly, lushly Brahmsian

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

, built on thick textures and rich instrumentation, even in chamber works such as the second piano trio.

Discography

The second piano trio has been recorded by the Summerhayes Piano Trio for Meridian Records

Meridian Records

Meridian Records is a British independent record label based in London. It is a long established company having been founded in 1977 and has celebrated 34 years of recording in its reveered classical music 'natural sound'....

; the recording was released in 2005.