unlikely that 7-year-old Una was the Una in question as the 1935 listing gives that particular Una as being an LRAM, having performed as solo pianist at Queen's Hall and being a violinist, conductor and orchestral leader. At the age of 16 she would have been quite a prodigy !
But does the mention of her by Letts specifically state that little Una was a daughter in the household in which the letter was written. The age-range of 10-15 appears to rule this out.
What I failed to mention before was that Irene Truman was married to a certain Mr. Brooke and she appears to have performed two-piano recitals with her sister Una under her married name Irene Brooke. If the Una mentioned in the Chesterfield letter wasn't referred to as a daughter of the household it's possible she might have been the daughter of the Brookes...maybe named after her aunt.
In 1935 the two sisters were living at the same address in Langdale Grove Ave., Nottingham presumably with Mr.Brooke . Maybe the census records might yield some information.
If Irene was a close contemporary of Letts and, IF little Una was her child it indicates that Irene must have been in her mid to late thirties when she gave birth to her...perhaps, although far from unknown, a little late in the day to have a first child but, were there others that preceded Una ?
This, of course, doesn't bring us much closer to an identification of M G Truman, but in my other reply in this thread - written before I had seen this particular contribution you had made - I speculated that the the unusual way of presenting the composer's name with initials might have been a way of concealing certain bits of information. A thought did cross my mind that M G Truman might have been the name under which Irene published her own compositions.
Maybe the jigsaw will come together and begin to form a recognisible image that you can work on in the near future.
Jeffrey - thank you so much for such a detailed reply. Interestingly, in a Sept 1926 letter Letts does mention a 7 year old called Una (and yes, it's an Irish name - the Irish version of Winifred, actually!) and the letter is written from Chesterfield so it's very likely that there is a link between Una Truman and M G Truman. The father in this house was a very hard-working doctor and there were six children, one at Stonyhurst, one at a convent school and 4 at home ranging from 10 to 1.5 years.
The Amazon.com listing - thankfully I screenshotted it at the time - gives Escott and Co as publishers on 1 January 1916.
Thanks again, Jeffrey - one jigsaw piece at a time!
Bairbre
I looked up these pieces on Amazon but could find no listing. Did the listings of the no-longer-available publications that you saw give the name (s) of the songs' publishers?
I also consulted a Who's Who in Music dated 1935. I found no mention of M G Truman but there was a listing for two sisters , Irene and Una both born in Nottingham and both still resident there at the time. Both were apparently professional performers (piano, violin and cello) and regular broadcasters and Irene was also a published composer.
There might be no connection at all between these ladies and M G Truman but the close proximity of Derbyshire and Nottingham suggests the possibility that there is one. And isn't Una an Irish name ?
As both these ladies appear to have had successful musical careers in the 1930s it could be that investigation might prove a family link with the elusive MG who , as far as I can see, has left no record that can be found among a number of archive and library records - both at home and abroad - that can be accessed on the internet and which I've searched although , perhaps when the British Library has recovered from its cyber attack - something can be found there.
I am researching the life and works of the writer W M Letts (1882-1972). She dedicated a 1912 book to E G Edwards and M G Truman who she knew from 'days in Ireland, days in Derbyshire, days in school' - I don't know which category Truman falls into but I discovered that M G Truman set three poems by Letts to music - Sails', 'Old Dan O'Shee' and 'The Beggar Girl' - 1916 sheet music is "now unavailable on Amazon". Could anyone give me more information on Truman? Many thanks
Message Thread | This response ↓
« Back to index | View thread »
Thank you for taking part in the MusicWeb International Forum.
Len Mullenger - Founder of MusicWeb