The New International Encyclopædia/Lehman, Liza

LEHMAN, lā'mȧn, Liza (Mrs. Herbert Bedford). An English concert vocalist and composer, born in London. She was the daughter of Rudolph Lehman, a well-known artist; and her mother (who was the daughter of Robert Chambers, co-founder of Chambers's Journal) was a composer, writing under the pseudonym of A. L. Liza Lehman studied voice culture under Randegger (London) and Raunkilde (Rome); and composition under Freudenberg (Weisbaden) and Hamish MacCunn (London). Her début as a vocalist was at the London Monday Popular Concerts on November 23, 1885, and she afterwards met with remarkable success throughout Great Britain and Germany. In 1894 she married Mr. Herbert Bedford (a composer of considerable merit) and retired from concert work. Her most successful work, up to 1892, was the Persian Garden, the words, taken from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, consisting of a connected group of solos and part songs. Next followed a song cycle from Tennyson's In Memoriam, and in 1901 another song cycle called The Daisy Chain. None of her later cycles has had the vogue of the Persian Garden. Her work is marked by originality of form and expression, and a refinement of sentiment which betrays strongly the influence of Schumann.