Wednesday 1 March 2017

Chess, cricket and music: a search for two Foxes

Elaine Fine's Musical Assumptions blog raises an interesting query about a mysterious British composer:

Kalitha Dorothy Fox (1894-1934) [...] is one of the sixty-three women with entries in Corbett’s Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music, and was a member of the Society of Women Musicians (SWM), which was affiliated with the Royal College of Music. We know about her death (a suicide reported in the minutes of the SWM), but nothing of her life. Fox’s Sonata for Viola and Piano (which is in the IMSLP), one of ten pieces in her catalog, was published in 1925 with a dedication to G.H.B. Fox. There are mentions in various periodical publications of a G.H.B. Fox who played chess and cricket, but it is unclear whether he was a musician or how he may have been related to the composer. We do know that this Sonata was once broadcast on the radio from Bournemouth, and that it was part of a concert on July 12, 1931 concert celebrating the twentieth anniversary concert of the SWM.

Many of my fellow-bloggers share an interest in at least one of the subjects in the heading. I throw out Ms Fine's query in the hope that someone this side of the pond may recognise one of the two Foxes.

A melancholy note: one must add Dorothy Fox's name to the roster of composers who died in 1934, led by Holst, Delius and Elgar.


1 comment:

Frank Little said...

We can rule out a first-class cricket career for GHB Fox. He does not appear in Wisden's list of births and deaths of cricketers.