Ivy Ross
American journalist (b. 25 June 1865 in New York; d. 3 March 1933 in Alpine, New Jersey) [1], born Ivy Maud Ross.
The daughter of John Ross, a Scottish emigrant father and a Canadian mother, she became a correspondent for the New York Morning Journal, and during Tchaikovsky's visit to the city she asked him to write a short article on Wagner and His Music, which was published in her newspaper on 3 May 1891 [N.S.]. The story of their meetings is told in the diary which the composer kept during his tour:
- 18/30 April 1891 — "I received the journalist Ivy Ross, who came to ask me to write something for her newspaper..."
- 19 April/1 May 1891 (morning) — "Waking late, I sat down to compose a small article for Miss Ivy"
- 19 April/1 May 1891 (late afternoon) — "I still had to finish writing the little article (on Wagner) for Miss Ivy"
- 2/14 May 1891 — "Miss Ivy Ross appeared. My letter on Wagner, which I sent to her, has been published and produced quite a sensation, and Mr Anton Seidl, the celebrated Wagnerian conductor, has responded to it at quite some length, in quite a friendly tone towards me. She came to ask me to reply to Seidl's letter. I started to write a reply..."
The Hungarian conductor Anton Seidl (1850-1898) was a colleague of Walter Damrosch in New York, and had met Tchaikovsky at the latter's home on 21 April/3 May. His rebuttal, entitled 'A Defense of Wagner', appeared in the New York Morning Journal for 10 May 1891 [N.S.]. Unfortunately, Tchaikovsky's response to Seidl appears not to have been published, and may not even have been completed.
In the early years of the twentieth century Ivy Ross became commercial secretary to Manuel Rionda, president of the Czarnikow Rionda Company, sugar brokers. She seems to have remained unmarried, and died after a long illness on 3 March 1933.
Correspondence with Tchaikovsky
One letter from Tchaikovsky to Ivy Ross has survived, dating from 1891 and containing the text of the article Wagner and His Music, and has been partly translated on this website:
- Letter 4369a - 19 April/1 May 1891, from New York
