Kate Fanny Loder, later Lady Thompson, (21 August 1825 – 30 August 1904) was an English composer and pianist.[1]
Kate Loder was born on 21 August 1825,[1] on Bathwick Street, Bathwick,[2] within Bath, Somerset where the Loder family were prominent musicians. Her father was the flautist George Loder. According to Grove, her mother was a piano teacher born Fanny Philpot, who was the sister of the pianist Lucy Anderson.[3] However, genealogical research suggests Kate's mother was Frances Elizabeth Mary Kirkham (1802–50),[4] daughter of Thomas Bulman Kirkham (1778–1845) and Marianne Beville Moore (c.1781 – 1810).[2] Frances Kirkham's step-mother was Jane Harriett Philpot (1802–63), second wife to Thomas Bulman Kirkham and sister of the Lucy Philpot who married the violinist George Frederick Anderson, becoming Lucy Anderson.[5][6][7] Kate was also the sister of conductor and composer George Loder,[1] and the cousin of composer Edward Loder.[8]
Kater Loder studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Her performance of Mendelssohn's G minor piano concerto at the Hanover-square Rooms on 27 May 1843, when she was aged 17, may have been her public debut.[9] The following year, in 1844, aged just 18, she became the first female professor of harmony at the Royal Academy.[10][11][12] On 16 December 1851 at St Marylebone Church, Westminster, she married Sir Henry Thompson[13] and soon afterwards, at her husband's insistence, gave up her public performing career. She remained active in music, continuing to compose, and taught pupils including Sarah Louisa Kilpack[14] who nowadays is better known as an artist.
On 10 July 1871,[15] the first British performance of the German Requiem of Johannes Brahms took place privately at Loder's home, 35 Wimpole Street, London. It was performed using a version for piano duet accompaniment which became known as the "London Version" (German: Londoner Fassnung) of the Requiem.[16] Brahms based it on an 1866 arrangement for piano of his first, six-movement version of the Requiem.[17] The pianists were Kate Loder and Cipriani Potter (who was then 79 years old; he died that September).[15]
She died on 30 August 1904 at Headley Rectory,[18] Headley, Surrey.[1]
Selected works include:[8][19][20]