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Post by jk on Mar 14, 2021 17:43:20 GMT -5
Earlier this year, I asked the mods to lock the two threads I had devoted to women composers of the Baroque and of the centuries since then. The thing is, I felt bad about (and at times even responsible for) the departure of the one poster who had encouraged me in those ventures. In fact, the second topic would probably not have existed were it not for that encouragement. Since then, it has gradually become clear that an ongoing women composers topic is indispensible, if only to showcase the sheer range of music by female composers over the years. So here is part three, dedicated to that poster, in the hope, however vain, that they may return one day. Alice Mary Smith (1839–1884) wrote the first of her two symphonies in 1863 when she was 24. It was this Symphony in C Minor, which was first performed that same year, that I heard part of this morning on UK classical radio in its one recorded version by the London Mozart Players under Howard Shelley. A review of the 1863 concert appeared in the Illustrated London News: "On the same evening, at the Hanover-square Rooms, the Musical society of London had a trial-performance of new orchestral compositions by members of the society. Several symphonies and overtures were performed by a full and excellent orchestra, which did them every justice. Amongst the most remarkable was a symphony in C minor by Miss Alice Mary Smith and a symphony in A minor by Mr. John Francis Barnett, both admirable compositions, which did honour to the talents of their authors. Miss Smith's symphony especially, coming from the pen of a young lady, was striking proof of the sound studies and high attainments of the female votaries of the art in this country. We trust that these symphonies will be brought before the public in the course of the ensuing season." [ Source] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Mary_Smith
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Post by jk on Mar 16, 2021 13:49:15 GMT -5
Here's a composer who slipped through the nets of my other two topics. Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) must surely be the earliest woman composer of note and possibly the earliest composer of stature female or male to be remembered and revered today and not just for her music.
I believe we have this LP. I'd say the YouTube blurb (which I reproduce in full) is essential to an understanding of this music:
A Feather on the Breath of God is an album of sacred vocal music written in the 12th century by the German abbess Hildegard of Bingen, and recorded by British vocal ensemble Gothic Voices with English soprano Emma Kirkby. It was released by Hyperion.
Recorded: St Jude's Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, 14 September 1981.
Listen: there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honour. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along. Thus am I 'A feather on the breath of God'.
That is how one of the most remarkable creative personalities of the Middle Ages describes herself. Hildegard of Bingen was born to noble parents in the small village of Bemersheim, near Alzey, Rheinhessen (now in West Germany), in the year 1098. In her eighth year she was put into the care of Jutta of Spanheim, the abbess of a small community of nuns attached to the Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg, near Bingen, about twenty-five miles south-west of Mainz. So began a life in which she was destined to become the most celebrated woman of her age as a visionary, naturalist, playwright, poetess and composer. In 1141, having succeeded Jutta as abbess, she saw tongues of flame descend from the heavens and settle upon her. Thereafter she devoted herself to a life of intense and passionate creativity. Among her literary works she produced two books on natural history and medicine (Physica and Cause et cure) and a morality play, the Ordo Virtutum, which pre-dates all other works in that genre by some hundred years. Her book of visions, Scivias, occupied her for ten years between 1141 and 1151.
This recording [since removed from YouTube] draws upon Hildegard's large collection of music and poetry, the Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum – 'The Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations' – which she continued to enlarge and enrich throughout her life. It contains some of the finest songs ever written in the Middle Ages, and a number of the most elaborate, the Sequences, are recorded here for the first time. They are so profoundly motivated by Hildegard's devotional life that it is hard to tell whether she is exploring music and poetry through spirituality or vice versa. The songs are conceived on a large – sometimes a massive – scale; it is in superabundance that Hildegard found herself both as poetess and composer. Profligacy of imagination relieved the intensity of her impressions whilst validating her as a visionary in the eyes of her contemporaries. The corresponding musical resources are immense, ranging from the most tranquil melody to an almost obsessive declamation at high pitch. Everywhere we sense a movement of the mind in music. This is the work of deeply engaged artistry: in Hildegard's words, of 'writing, seeing, hearing and knowing all in one manner'.
Hildegard’s fame was not confined to Germany. She was also involved in politics and diplomacy; her friendship and advice were sought by popes, emperors, kings, archbishops, abbots and abbesses with whom she corresponded voluminously. The 'Sybil of the Rhine', as she was known, died at the monastery she had refounded on the Rupertsberg on 17 September in the year 1179. The following century Popes Gregory IX and Innocent IV proposed her canonization, followed later by Clement V and John XXII. This, however, never came to pass.
'With a great desire I have desired to come to you and rest with you in the marriage of Heaven, running to you by a new path as the clouds course in the purest air like sapphire'.
Original tracklist: 0:00 - Columba aspexit, sequence for St Maximinus 05:15 - Ave generosa, hymn 09:52 - O Ignis Spiritus, hymn 14:42 - O Jerusalem aurea civitatis, sequence to St Rupert 22:46 - O Euchari columba, response for St Eucharius 28:30 - O viridissima virga, antiphon 31:45 - O presul vere civitatis, sequence for St Disibod 38:01 - O ecclesia occuli tui, sequence for Saint Ursula & her Companions
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Post by jk on Mar 19, 2021 4:42:10 GMT -5
Betsy Jolas (born 1926) studied with Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen and was a member of Pierre Boulez's Domaine musical concert society, but whereas those names are familiar to music lovers, I for one hadn't heard of her until yesterday! In its world of sound, D'un opéra de voyage for 22 players (1967) is typical of mid-sixties avant-garde music, yet compositionally it draw on the traditions her contemporaries in Domaine musical sought to leave behind. It's a work one can immerse oneself in -- not the first consideration of Boulez and other adherents of * serialism* -- and in that respect most resembles work by Edgard Varèse and her teacher Messiaen, neither of whom paid much attention to current trends. As for its instrumentation, one online source stipulates two flutes, cor anglais, two clarinets, bass clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, six percussionists, harp, violin, viola, violoncello and double bass. A second source makes that three clarinets, which would bring the number of players up to 22. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_Jolas
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Post by jk on Mar 19, 2021 6:12:40 GMT -5
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Post by jk on Mar 24, 2021 7:47:26 GMT -5
Here's a composer who slipped through the nets of my other two topics. Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) must surely be the earliest woman composer of note and possibly the earliest composer of stature female or male to be remembered and revered today and not just for her music. I believe we have this LP. I'd say the YouTube blurb (which I reproduce in full) is essential to an understanding of this music: A Feather on the Breath of God is an album of sacred vocal music written in the 12th century by the German abbess Hildegard of Bingen, and recorded by British vocal ensemble Gothic Voices with English soprano Emma Kirkby. It was released by Hyperion. Recorded: St Jude's Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, 14 September 1981. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen Gosh, that video vanished quickly! Happily there's an upload of side two of the above-mentioned album, courtesy of MTitterington: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen
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Post by jk on Mar 24, 2021 8:02:40 GMT -5
I believe I touched on electronic music in the previous women composers topic, but this post features a true pioneer in the field, the British composer Daphne Oram (1925–2003). This [was] the astonishing Bird of Parallax (date unknown), which gets quite EDM-ish at times: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Oramwww.daphneoram.org
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Post by jk on Mar 27, 2021 6:37:11 GMT -5
Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979) is best known as a teacher, maybe the most famous music teacher of the 20th century, whose pupils ranged from Darius Milhaud and Aaron Copland to Quincy Jones and Astor Piazzolla. Less well-known as a composer than her sister Lili ( here), she felt that teaching was a more practical way of supporting her mother and sister after her father died. According to commenter Veronika Kralj-Iglic, "I heard her say [in a video] that her music was 'inutile'. This does not mean 'worthless', I think she wanted to say that it 'could not be used' [as a way to earn a living]." This is her Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra (1912), played here by David Greilsammer with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Steven Sloane: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Boulanger
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Post by jk on Apr 5, 2021 9:25:24 GMT -5
I've reached a point in my work where I can take a short break, which gives me the opportunity to post this track (patiently waiting in the wings) by the American musician Suzanne Ciani (b. 1946). "Flowers Of Evil" takes up the first side of her 2019 vinyl-only release of the same name. The spoken words are from Charles Baudelaire's poem "Élévation" from Les Fleurs du mal: "Above the valleys and the lakes: beyond The woods, seas, clouds and mountain-ranges: far Above the sun, the aethers silver-swanned With nebulae, and the remotest star, "My spirit! with agility you move Like a strong swimmer with the seas to fight, Through the blue vastness furrowing your groove With an ineffable and male delight. "Far from these foetid marshes, be made pure In the pure air of the superior sky, And drink, like some most exquisite liqueur, The fire that fills the lucid realms on high. "Beyond where cares or boredom hold dominion, Which charge our fogged existence with their spleen, Happy is he who with a stalwart pinion Can seek those fields so shining and serene: "Whose thoughts, like larks, rise on the freshening breeze Who fans the morning with his tameless wings, Skims over life, and understands with ease The speech of flowers and other voiceless things." (In the translation by Roy Campbell) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Fleurs_du_malen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Ciani
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Post by jk on Apr 15, 2021 4:18:23 GMT -5
I'll sneak this one in quickly (time is exceedingly tight right now) before I'm accused of shirking my General Discussion duties on this oh so Beach Boys focused forum. This morning I heard Caroline Shaw's magical Can't voi l'aube (2016), her setting of an anonymous 12th-century French trouvère text, sung and played by its dedicatees, Anne Sofie von Otter and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Shaw
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Post by jk on Apr 25, 2021 7:04:06 GMT -5
Looking around for Russian women composers of note, it was the unusual name that first caught my eye. Then I discovered that the Moscow-born Canadian Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté (1899 [O.S.1898]–1974) was uniquely talented, being a very gifted pianist and violinist who often performed her own concertos and other compositions for these instruments to great acclaim. I searched in vain for footage of Sonia (as she was known to her friends) playing something of her own. Well this is her Piano Concerto No. 1 in A minor, (E. 60, 1925–31), in a 1923 Berlin performance by the composer with the Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester conducted by Ernst Kunwald: And here she is in 1936, once again in Berlin, performing what the uploader calls a "Concerto for Solo Violin" and it is indeed unaccompanied. This may or may not be her Violin Concerto No. 1, E. 59bis (1929, although a second source mentions the year 1925): I suspect I shall be posting more works by this shamefully neglected talent -- indeed, I already see a bassoon concerto poking its head around the corner. There are numerous interviews with the composer to be found on YouTube. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Carmen_Eckhardt-Gramatté
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Post by jk on Apr 26, 2021 5:24:48 GMT -5
Happily, this Russian woman composer is still very much alive. Victoria Borisova-Ollas was born in Vladivostok in 1969 but has lived in Sweden for many years. The climaxes in her orchestral work Angelus (2008) are pretty overpowering, the giant percussion-heavy orchestra aided and abetted by an organ. Absolutely stunning (see the link below for a review of this performance): www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2021/Feb/Borisova-Ollas-Angelus-BIS2288.htm
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Post by jk on Apr 30, 2021 9:26:06 GMT -5
As intimated two posts ago, here is Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté's Bassoon Concerto (completed 1950), here played by Isabelle Claire (bassoon) with Rubin Gurevich conducting the CBC Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. I've added a couple of illuminating articles about Ms E-G. Uploader Jk Stevenson (it's not me!) apologizes for the pops and crackles, arguing that the rarity of the work and the quality of the performance more than justify the upload: store.plangere.com/product-category/canadian-composers-series/sophie-carmen-eckhardt-gramatte/egre.mb.ca/sc/
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Post by jk on May 30, 2021 6:39:20 GMT -5
Just as RVW's Flos Campi would be equally at home in the wordless singing thread as in the viola thread, so Kerensa Briggs's Media Vita (heard this morning on BBC classical radio) would sit just as prettily in the choral thread. This is for LS, with thanks for her initial encouragement in the female composers topic department. www.kerensabriggs.co.uk
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Post by jk on Jun 12, 2021 14:16:07 GMT -5
It's been fun joining in at the main section of the forum for the first time in goodness knows how long. I seem to have overcome my feelings of not really belonging there, whether out of a lack of besottedness for the Boys or simply for "not knowing my stuff". It's been an encouraging couple of days. But now the general music section calls! Pulitzer prizewinner Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (born 1939) wrote her Bassoon Concerto in 1992. Here Renee DeBoer is accompanied by the United States Navy Concert Band. It's true what commenter Aaron Meyers says about the soloist being a little too softly mic'd. But that's a small complaint -- it’s a riveting performance all round. The cadenza (starting at 10:30) is particularly mesmerizing. One more YT comment needs reproducing, that of Stephen Jackson: "Even if the world is currently going to hell in a handcart (April 2020), led by your terrifying President, I take huge heart from the fact that an organisation like the US Navy Band can exist. You are amazing. Musician 1st Class DeBoer is amazing (I speak as an ex-bassoonist). You all represent something very precious. On this side of the pond American audiences are known for their unrestrained enthusiasm. Such a pity nobody told yours!" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Taaffe_Zwilich
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Post by jk on Jun 15, 2021 14:57:46 GMT -5
I noticed the name Lotta Annukka Wennäkoski in my new TV and Radio guide and decided to track her down for this thread. Reviewing the recent CD excerpted below, Gramophone describes "Voile", the opening movement of her Flute Concerto (" Soie", 2009), as follows: "Wennäkoski gets to the 'light, translucent billowing fabric' of 'Voile' with intensely detailed scoring and a large orchestra as if viewed from the wrong end of a telescope in its focus yet often incredibly spare and controlled. Now and then the ensemble collapses into a junction as if a ripping gust has caught it like a loose jib." Flautist Kersten McCall is accompanied by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dima Slobodeniouk: theaderks.wordpress.com/2019/03/13/lotta-wennakoski-on-her-flute-concerto-soie-you-can-hear-the-silkworms-swarming/
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Post by jk on Jul 19, 2021 12:51:20 GMT -5
I'm sure I've said this before in at least one other thread. Every Sunday morning BBC classical radio has a feature called "Sounds of the Earth" where listeners and occasionally professionals submit field recordings from all over the world. These nature recordings are interspersed with three pieces of music that relate to the subject at hand. Last Sunday's came from somewhere in France (Provence?) and was dominated by the songs and calls of nightingales. One piece that accompanied it was the aply titled "Nightingale", from The Birds for soprano (in this case Alexandra Oomens [ before the video was removed]) and piano by Australian composer and pianist Sally Whitwell from her 2015 album I Was Flying: "I lived for a couple of years in a little top floor Art Deco apartment in Sydney's Kings Cross. There were always birds sitting on my window sill because of the huge Jacaranda tree outside. I was at a bit of a crossroads in my life at that time, and would spend at least an hour daily walking in the neighbourhood, along those twisting, sloping streets and slowly eroding sandstone staircases so typical of Sydney's harbourside suburbs. On the wall by such a staircase very close to my home was a tiny red spray painted bird with little music notes emanating from his beak. "Birds seemed to be making appearances everywhere in my life at that time, which I took as some kind of message from the universe. I was reading quite a lot of Christina Rossetti that year, enjoying her writings about birds and all that they symbolised for her; beauty and sadness, hope and joy. There was a quiet optimism in her words, sometimes veiled but always present, which propelled me to write this song cycle The Birds." [ Source] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Whitwell
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Post by jk on Sept 5, 2021 4:57:56 GMT -5
In a * composers' poll* held by BBC Music Magazine, Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952) held the top spot (#17) among those who are still with us. And I'd never even heard of her… Verblendungen is an early work of hers (1982/84). Scored for orchestra and magnetic tape, it is in fact one long decrescendo accompanied by gradually thinning textures: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaija_Saariaho
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Post by jk on Sept 12, 2021 15:04:21 GMT -5
The televised Last Night of this year's BBC Proms introduced me to two women composers who were new to me. For starters, I learnt that in 1977 Malcolm Arnold wrote his Variations on a Theme by Ruth Gipps. Like Sir Malcolm, the multi-talented Ms Gipps (1921–1999) had no interest in trends in modern music; indeed, her compositions are most closely allied to the likes of Vaughan Williams and Moeran. This is her Song for Orchestra (op. 33), with its prominent part for the oboe, an instrument she played professionally for a while. Written in 1948, it [was] performed here by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Rumon Gamba: www.malcolmarnoldsociety.co.uk/malcolm-arnold-and-ruth-gipps/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Gipps
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Post by jk on Sept 13, 2021 9:50:45 GMT -5
The second woman composer from the Last Night of the Proms got more than just a namecheck. Gity Raza (b. 1986) had a work commissioned for that special televised night — that must look good in one's CV. ( Mother with its mighty battery of percussion was a most impressive listen.) From eleven years earlier, this is The Strange Highway for cello octet, all of whose parts are played here by Erin Snedecor, recorded during lockdown a year ago: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gity_Razaz
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Post by jk on Sept 15, 2021 14:42:24 GMT -5
Earlier this week I caught the tail end of Fólk fær andlit by the icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (b. 1982). My wife was enthusiastic so I gave the whole thing in that rendition a listen on YouTube... Hildur (Guðnadóttir is patronymic) is a classically trained cellist and a performer on the * halldorophone* (see image below). Here is the work in question. Iceland has a lot to answer for: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildur_Guðnadóttir
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Post by jk on Sept 22, 2021 7:19:11 GMT -5
This is to compensate for a video that's gone missing (original post: endlessharmony.boards.net/post/29711): Isabella Leonarda (1620–1704) spent nearly 70 of her 84 years at the Sant'Orsola convent in Novara, Italy. She applied the double-dedication principle -- the Virgin Mary and one of a number of living persons of stature -- to almost all her compositions. Of these, her sonatas for one to four instruments were the first in the genre to be written by a woman. At the other end of the spectrum is this opulent Magnificat:
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Post by jk on Sept 23, 2021 14:27:17 GMT -5
And there are more videos that have gone missing over the months. One of these was of a work by the mysterious Mrs Philarmonica. The image in that video may or may not have featured a picture of this unidentified English baroque composer. But see the detailed original post: endlessharmony.boards.net/post/29872To compensate, and as announced at the bottom of that post, here are three movements from Mrs P's Sonata seconda aus den Divertimenti da Camera. They are played by Spirit of Musicke ("Women 4 Baroque"): Maria Loos (recorders), Gabriele Ruhland (viola da gamba) and Veronika Braß (harpsichord), here joined by Christine Busch (baroque violin): II (Allegro): III (Adagio): IV (Presto): This is for all those EH posters who have themselves gone missing over the past two years (and for one in particular). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Philarmonica
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Post by jk on Oct 2, 2021 6:32:50 GMT -5
Poldowski was the professional pseudonym of Régine Wieniawski (1879–1932), daughter of composer/violinist Henryk Wieniawski. Indeed, her name appears in a bewildering number of forms (see the wiki page). She took the name Poldowski after the early death of her first-born son ended her marriage. (Her surviving son, nicknamed "Napper", had his portrait painted by my wife's favourite artist Lucian Freud.) We heard this impassioned opening movement ("Andante languido") from her Violin Sonata in D Minor on the car radio while returning from a brief holiday. It is here performed by * Jennifer Pike* (violin) and Petr Limonov (piano): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poldowski
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Post by jk on Oct 3, 2021 5:54:31 GMT -5
This next "missing video" post (see endlessharmony.boards.net/post/31755) features a work by Charlotte Marck (b. 1983). Here she performs the entire Messe sur l'Ave Maris Stella (2005) in 2010 on the Christian Müller organ in Old Bavo's church in Haarlem (NL). It was premiered in the year of its composition by Paul Goussot on the French classical organ of Villeneuve sur Yonne, during the festival L'orgue en Fête (adapted from the YouTube blurb): www.orgues-chartres.org/charlotte-marck/?lang=en
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Post by jk on Oct 5, 2021 15:31:27 GMT -5
Clara Schumann (1819–1896) may not be the first woman composer in this trio of threads to be dwarfed by a close relative (in this case her husband) but she is surely the most famous. As a professional pianist, she wrote mainly for that instrument, although she has also left us over thirty songs and a few choral works, including "Gondoliera". It is the third of three Gemischte Chöre (partsongs), to texts by Emanuel Geibel, the first two being "Abendfeyer in Venedig" and "Vorwärts". Clara composed these in 1848 for her husband Robert's 38th birthday. If I understand it correctly, they were originally to have been her Op. 19 but were withheld from publication. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Schumann
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