Caroline Reinagle

Caroline Reinagle (born Caroline Orger) (1 May 1817 – 11 March 1892) was an English classical composer, pianist, and writer. Only a few of her works have survived.

Life

Reinagle was born in London on 1 May 1817. Her father was Dr Thomas Orger and her mother was Mary Ann Orger who was a comic actress.[1] In the 1840s she had several of her works published and performed, including a piano trio, premiered by 1842[2] and a piano concerto, published 1842[2] and performed by her in 1843 at Hanover Square Rooms.[3] Her mother was well read and her father, Dr Thomas Orger was a translator of Ovid and Anacreon, and he had written a book about Napoleon. He didn't object to her mother's acting and he become a founder member of the Swedenborg Society and the editor of Intellectual Repository. Both her parents became members of the Swedenborgian church.[4]

In 1846[3] she married Alexander Robert Reinagle (1799-1877), organist at St Peter-in-the-East, Oxford, composer of the hymn tune St Peter, and son of Joseph Reinagle. She died in Tiverton, Devon, in 1892.

Compositions

Her only apparently surviving compositions[3] are some songs, a tarantella in E minor and a sonata in A (the latter two works for piano). The last two have been republished by Vivace Press. Also surviving is a pair of articles in the 1862 Musical Times entitled A Few Words on Piano Playing.[5] Composed but possibly lost also were at least one piano quartet and a cello sonata in addition to the concerto and trio.

References

  1. ^ Patrick Waddington, ‘Reinagle , Caroline (1817–1892)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007 accessed 14 March 2015
  2. ^ a b The Musical World at Google Books, 1842 Volume, with 14 search "hits" for Orger, including several for a publication of her piano concerto op. 2 - including a review in the May 19, 1842 issue on p. 155; and one for a performance of her trio.
  3. ^ a b c "Biography at Hemingways-Studio". Retrieved 11 July 2010.[permanent dead link‍]
  4. ^ Waddington, Patrick (23 September 2004). "Reinagle [née Orger], Caroline (1817–1892), pianist and composer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 1 (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/59338. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. ^ See e.g. OCLC 481610958.