Helen Lemmens-Sherrington
Helen Lemmens-Sherrington (4 October 1834 – 9 May 1906) was an English concert and operatic
After she retired from performing, Lemmens-Sherrington became a teacher, at her old music college in Brussels, and at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Royal Manchester College of Music.
Early life
Helen Sherrington was born in Preston, England, in 1834. When she was a child her family moved first to the Netherlands and then to Belgium.[2] She studied singing at Rotterdam and at the Brussels Conservatory.[2] She began her London career on the concert platform, building a reputation as a concert singer in the second half of the 1850s. After successes in the Netherlands and France she sang in London for the first time in 1856, and was invited to return in successive years.[2] In 1859 The Illustrated London News said of her:
Madame Lemmens' voice is pure, brilliant and mellow: its compass exceeds two octaves and a half, with singular facility of vocalisation. With much natural feeling and artistic expression, Madame Lemmens possesses a refined and graceful style, and is altogether one of the most accomplished singers of the day.[2]
In 1857 she married the Belgian organist and composer Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, who founded the School of Church Music at Mechelen in 1878.[3] They had two sons, who became engineers, and two daughters. One of them, Maggy Lemmens born in London on 7 September 1874 and died in Brussels on 29 March 1962, married a nephew of the architect Joseph Poelaert, René Poelaert, (1874–1946), stockbroker, director of the Central Mutual Fund and Public Funds, 5, Place de la Liberté, born 16 July 1874 in Brussels and died in Schaerbeek 12 December 1946, son of Constant Poelaert, lawyer at the Court of Appeal of Brussels (1827- 1898) and Ernestine Jacobs (1835–1882).
Stage career
Lemmens-Sherrington's stage debut was in 1860, in the first production of a new opera, Robin Hood, by
In January to March 1864, at Her Majesty's, Lemmens-Sherrington sang Marguerite in
In 1871 she and her husband made an extensive tour with the popular French baritone Jules Lefort. In the same year Lemmens-Sherrington was one of the original group of musicians to be awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society.[10] She was also among the first artists to have her singing voice recorded, including a duet with her husband. A description drawn from The Daily Telegraph shows that at a private hearing at The Crystal Palace on Good Friday 1878, "...both duets and solos were successfully tried by Madame Lemmens-Sherrington, M. Lemmens, Signor Foli, M. Manns and other skilled musicians, whose acute sense caused a phenomenon as yet unexplained—namely, that the musical sounds are reproduced in a higher key, half a tone being the difference. While M. Lemmens and his accomplished wife were singing a duet into the branched mouthpiece something caused them both to laugh, and this incident was faithfully reproduced by the machine"[11]
Later years
At the time of her husband's death, in 1881, Lemmens-Sherrington was appointed professor of singing at the Brussels Conservatory, and in 1891 at the Royal Academy of Music. From that time onwards she frequently resided in England.[12] She also taught at the Royal Manchester College of Music, where one of her pupils was the contralto Edna Thornton.[13]
In early 1889, just short of the 33rd anniversary of her first appearance in London, she appeared at the Royal Albert Hall in a performance of
Her last years were spent in retirement at 7 Rue Capouillet, Brussels, where she lived with two sisters. She died there on 9 May 1906, at the age of 71.[15]
References
- ^ "Songs And Singer". The Australian Star. No. 5752 (EARLY SPORTS ed.). New South Wales, Australia. 21 July 1906. p. 8. Retrieved 25 April 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ a b c d "Madame Lemmens Sherrington", The Illustrated London News, 20 August 1859, p. 179
- ^ Arthur Eaglefield Hull, A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (Dent, London 1924), 293.
- ^ "Her Majesty's Theatre", The Times, 15 October 1860, p. 12
- ^ J. Sims Reeves, The Life of Sims Reeves, Written by Himself (Simpkin, Marshall, London 1888), 220–228.
- ^ J.H. Mapleson, The Mapleson Memoirs 1848–1888 (Belford, Clarke & Co, Chicago & New York 1888), 28.
- ^ C. Santley, Student and Singer—The Reminiscences of Charles Santley (Edward Arnold, London 1892), 206–207.
- ^ H. Rosenthal and J. Warrack, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (OUP, London 1974), 219.
- ^ C. Santley, Reminiscences of My Life (Isaac Pitman, London 1909), 34.
- ^ R. Elkin, Royal Philharmonic (Ryder, London 1946), 70.
- ^ See, e.g., 'The Wonderful Phonograph', The Worcestershire Chronicle, Saturday 27 April 1878, page 6, col. 4.
- ^ Eaglefield-Hull 1924, 293.
- ^ M. Scott, The Record of Singing Volume II (Duckworth, London 1979), 157.
- ^ G.B. Shaw, London Music in 1888-89 as heard by Corno di Bassetto (Constable and Company, London 1937), pp. 90-91, 342-343.
- ^ a b Davey, Henry. "Lemmens-Sherrington, Madame Helen (1834–1906)", Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 1912, online edition retrieved 17 April 2014 (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ "Sir Charles Hallé's Grand Concerts", The Manchester Guardian, 2 November 1894, p. 5