Agnes Elisabeth Overbeck

Ella Overbeck, pseudonym Baroness Ella Overbeck or Overbach, also Agnes Elisabeth Overbeck, Elizabeth von Overbe(c)k, or Baroness Jo Overbeck (nicknamed Jimmy) (10 October 1870 – 12 November 1919) was an Anglo-Russian composer and pianist. Life and career Born in Russia, Overbeck was brought to England as a young child by her parents, both Russians. Following their deaths, she was adopted by an English woman, and educated at the Royal College of Music. She was piano accompanist to Clara Butt and students of Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García in London. In the 1890s she made friends with Edith Craig (1869-1947) and her brother Edward, son and daughter of leading British actress Ellen Terry, and wrote the stage music for Edward’s adaptation of Alfred de Musset’s On ne badine pas avec l’amour (as No Trifling with Love), which was performed in Uxbridge in 1894. Overbeck’s music was praised by the Musical Times; other early works, such as a violin sonata and various songs, were also positively reviewed by the musical press. A survey of women composers active in 1896 described Overbeck, though a ‘baby’ song-writer by comparison with the older Cecile Chaminade and Guy d’Hardelot, as possess