Alice Verne-Bredt

The sixth of ten children,[1] she was born as Alice Barbara Würm in Southampton to Bavarian professional musicians who emigrated to England in the 1850s.[2] Her father was a music teacher specialised in zither, violin, and piano who worked as an organist,[3] and her mother a violinist who taught her the violin from a very early age.[4] Later in her childhood she moved to London, where she lived all her life,[4] and there was taught piano by Robert and Clara Schumann's daughter, Marie.[5]

Alice wanted to become a singer, but typhoid fever affected her voice.[1] In 1893, her family anglicized their surname from Würm to Verne,[2] and Alice married William Bredt, an amateur musician and conductor. Both greatly contributed to the success of the piano school set up in London by her sister Mathilde Verne (1865–1936) in 1909.[1] During the same period she also established The Twelve O'Clock Concerts, a successful concert series for chamber music at the Aeolian Hall in London, where some of her own chamber music was performed.[3]

Alice took over the school's junior department, where Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, had a wedding march written especially for her.[2] She died in London in 1958.[2]

Few of her works were published. Perhaps the best known is the Phantasie Trio of 1908 for piano, violin and cello, which won a supplementary prize in the annual Cobbett chamber music competition, inaugurated two years before.[6] It was recorded in 2005 by the Summerhayes Piano Trio.[7]

• Adela Verne
• Mary Wurm