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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 July 2013
With Ada Sketches, for mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet and percussion, Mesmerism, for solo piano and chamber orchestra, and Calculus of the Nervous System, for large orchestra, in 2011 the young British composer Emily Howard completed a triptych of works in which she drew decisively on the life and thoughts of Ada Lovelace for inspiration. Today, Lovelace is recognized as a pioneer of 19th-Century mathematics, who in her lifetime attempted to bring together art and mathematics in Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. She was convinced of the power of mesmerism and believed that there was a possible mathematical calculation for the human nervous system. This article shows how Emily Howard took up and developed musically these central threads of Lovelace's work in her ‘Lovelace Trilogy’.
1 Ada Lovelace, notes on L.F. Menabrea, Sketch of the Analytical Engine, Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève, No. 82, October 1842. See: http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html (Last accessed 7 March 2013).
2 For the biography of Ada Lovelace see inter alia radio profile on the BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0092j0x (last accessed 7 March 2013) and Woolley, Benjamin, The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason and Byron's Daughter (London: Pan Books, 2000)Google Scholar.
3 Somerville Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Dep. c. 367, 22 June 1837, as cited in Stein, Dorothy, Ada: A Life and Legacy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), p. 164Google Scholar.
4 Lovelace Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford University, 165, fol. 198. n.d., as cited in Stein, Ada, p. 166.
5 Lovelace Papers, fol. 176 and 179, n.d., as cited in Stein, Ada, pp. 165–6.
6 Somerville Papers, 5 Dec 1844, as cited in Stein, Ada, p. 141.
7 For more details on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine see http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage (last accessed 7 March 2013).
8 Moore, Doris Langley, Ada, Countess of Lovelace: Byron's Legitimate Daughter (London: Harper and Row, 1977), p. 202Google Scholar.
9 Cordula Brenzei, Ada Lovelace, preliminary masters thesis, 2004, Fachhochschule Köln, Cologne International School of Design: Gender Design, p. 84.
10 She earned her MMus at the Royal Northern College of Music and her PhD at the University of Manchester.
11 Petri-Preis, Axel, ‘Emily Howard im Portrait’, Terz Magazin, http://terz.cc/magazin.php?z=124&id=126 (last accessed 7 March 2013).
12 Howard, Emily and Axel Petri-Preis, ‘I am writing what I want to write’, Terz Magazin, http://terz.cc/magazin.php?z=124&id=125 (last accessed 7 March 2013).
13 Linsmeier, Klaus-Dieter, ‘Mesmerismus: ein altes Hausrezept der Menschheit’, Spektrum der Wissenschaft 12 (2001), 72–8Google Scholar.
14 Ibid.
15 Winter, Alison, Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 230ffGoogle Scholar.
16 Emily Howard in discussion with the author, 6 January 2012.
17 Emily Howard, ‘Music between emotion and reason’, Terz Magazin, http://www.terz.cc/magazin.php?z=124&id=127 (last accessed 7 March 2013).
18 E-mail from Emily Howard to the author, 26 January 2012.
19 Howard, Emily, Ada Sketches II, self-published, 2011Google Scholar.
20 Emily Howard in discussion with the author, 6 January 2012.
21 Hill, Geoffrey, Clavics (London: Enitharmon Press, 2011)Google Scholar.
22 Emily Howard in discussion with the author, 6 January 2012.
23 Emily Howard, ‘Notes on Calculus of the Nervous System’, unpublished.
