(1772-1822)
Born in London on August 26, 1772, Maria Frances Parke was the first child of Hannah Maria Burnett and John Parke, a renowned oboist and commissioned royal musician. At age 12, Miss Parke captured the attention of London society and earned great praise from the royal family for her performance of a piano concerto. For over two decades, “Miss Parke” was a favorite of the Nobility and Gentry across the country, a headline vocal performer renowned for her “scientific strains” and her “taste and sensibility.”
While best known as a lead vocalist, Parke also occasionally found opportunities to showcase her instrumental and compositional abilities. For example, even with the visiting Joseph Haydn “presiding at the piano forte” for her 1794 London benefit concert, the program lists that Miss Parke also performed a piano sonata of her own composition.
Around 1800, Parke published half of a duet—the keyboard part of a piece dubbed “Two Grand Sonatas for the Piano Forte (with additional Keys) And an Accompaniment for the Violin ad Libitum.” Over two centuries later, for her 2025 Regency Parke release, Aleksandra Maslovaric built up from Parke’s completely clean slate and created new violin parts which fully integrate into and complete the sonatas as a true duet.
At the age of 42, and after retiring from her performing career, Maria Frances Parke married John Beardmore and eventually gave birth to a son in 1816.
