Daily Classical Music Post

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/VmLU1CfHcJw Douglas Shadle said in Orchestrating the Nation that most 21st-century concertgoers may never hear any of the 100+ symphonies composed by U.S. composers in the 19th century. To most classical music fans, the 19th century is all about the Russians, the Germans, perhaps some other Europeans, but U.S. music of that time is considered to be popular (e.g., Foster). The first U.S. composer most people will have heard of is Ives. But what about the women composers of the 19th century? Well, in the 19th-century United States, the most well-known and successful woman composer of large-scale orchestral works was Amy Beach (1867–1944). As a composer, Beach was almost entirely self-taught, although she was an accomplished pianist and singer and had received training in both from a very young age. Beach's Symph

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/mki7_jyYWzc The Scottish composer Judith Weir (born 1954) had some composition lessons with John Tavener as a teenager, and Aaron Copland heard a work of hers performed by a youth orchestra in the 1970s and suggested that she go to Tanglewood. It was not long before she was in demand. Her operas were very well received, and I loved her King Harald's Saga for solo voice in particular. The Sekretariat für gemeinsame Kulturarbeit in Nordrhein-Westfalen commissioned Weir to write a work for orchestra in the early 1990s. The result was Heroic Strokes of the Bow , a wonderful work that Weir says was inspired by the painting of the same name ( Heroische Bogenstriche ) by Paul Klee (one of my favourite artists, as it happens). Weir says of this work, "My piece is not principally meant as a depiction of the picture

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/DF7kakqQjkI Jennifer Higdon began her musical studies (self-taught) at the age of 15; she didn’t begin formal lessons until she was 18, and she only began composition studies at the age of 21. She has received many awards for her works, including the 2010 Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy. Her opera Cold Mountain was co-commissioned by Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia, and Minnesota Opera in collaboration with North Carolina Opera, and won the International Opera Award for Best World Premiere. James Manheim says, "Part of Higdon's appeal is her colorful orchestration. . . . Her treatment of melody is at once rigorous and pleasantly appealing, and in fact predominantly short pieces . . . offer a good way to get a grip on her music." One of these short pieces, her Trumpet Songs (2004), were originally writ

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/5w_BfXxmnIc The Swedish composer and organist Elfrida Andrée (1841–1929) was one of the first women organists to be appointed to a full-time position in Scandinavia. She was the organist at Götheberg Cathedral from 1867 until her death. In addition to two organ symphonies, she composed many other works, including chamber music, orchestral music, and an opera. She also was the first Swedish woman telegraph operator. Andrée is definitely not well known either in her native Sweden or, indeed, anywhere else. She probably would not be considered to be a great composer, but her works are definitely tuneful and sometimes quite intriguing. Her Organ Symphony No. 2 for organ and brass is an good example of this. My classical music post for today is Elfrida Andrée's Organ Symphony No. 2 in E Flat.  

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/O_JDzIpuELE Ruth Crawford (1901–1953) was an atonal composer when she met Charles Seeger, but she always had an interest in American folk music. After she married Seeger, she worked with the Lomaxes at the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. She also arranged and published transcriptions of dozens of American folk songs. She is now seen as one of the most important modernist composers of the 20th century. Crawford Seeger composed Music for Small Orchestra in 1926, following a stint as a percussionist for the Chicago Civic Orchestra. Dave Lewis says, "Crawford submitted the score of Music for Small Orchestra to a scholarship committee sponsored by the Institute of Musical Art, shortly to become the Juilliard School, along with her Sonata for Violin and Piano. Crawford won the scholarship,

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/-chTjgzSkQs Dora Pejačević (10 September 1885–5 March 1923) was a Croatian composer. Although she was born into a noble family, during World War I she saw so much suffering that it served to alienate her from her family and friends. Pamela Blevins says, "Dora was fluent in several languages, including English, and easily shifted among them in her voracious reading. Curiosity was the driving force in her life. She was interested in politics; she knew how to talk to the men and women in the street and understood them. . . . Dora started to compose at the age of twelve. Fortunately her parents recognized her natural gifts and allowed her to study abroad. She was largely self-taught in music, which is remarkable considering the inventiveness, rich brilliance and enduring quality of her compositions. Beginning in

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/jFj60LUcTVk The Welsh composer Morfydd Llwyn Owen was born in 1891 and died, suddenly and tragically at the age of 26, of chloroform poisoning following an emergency appendectomy. This extraordinary woman had won prizes for her compositions as well as for her singing, and was incredibly prolific in her short life — nearly 200 compositions, including songs, chamber music, piano pieces, and orchestral works. Much of her music had its roots in Welsh literature and folk song. "Gweddi y Pechadur," for voice and piano, with a Welsh text, is one of her best-known songs. She wrote this work, "The Sinner's Prayer," over one weekend in June 1913 at her parents' house. Keith Davies Jones said of this piece: "It is a setting of a hymn by Thomas William (1761-1844) which is said to have been a f

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/NxtbFlnxiMk   The English composer and violist Rebecca Clarke (1886–1979) was known primarily as a performer. Her output as a composer is, sadly, small; she once said, "I can't do it unless it's the first thing I think of every morning when I wake and the last thing I think of every night before I go to sleep." According to the Rebecca Clarke Society ( http://www.rebeccaclarke.org/ ), "Rebecca Clarke achieved what she called 'my one brief whiff of fame' in 1919 when her Viola Sonata tied for first place in a competition sponsored by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. Clarke lived much of her life in the US, although she was born and educated in Great Britain. Striking for its passion and power, her music spans a range of 20th-century styles including Impressionism, post-Romantic, and neo-Cla

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/tFehvrBhTvQ Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–1940) was a Czech composer and conductor. She died at the age of 25 from what was thought to be tuberculosis in a hospital in France. She only composed around 50 works, but it is obvious from what she accomplished in her short life that she would have been an incredibly vital voice and a major composer. Kaprálová had a very distinctive style, blending impressionism with Czech modernism. She was the student—and lover—of the great Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů, who was devastated by her death. In 1942, he wrote: "Why had destiny given her so much energy, so many precious gifts, and yet denied her the opportunity to realise her full potential? This question, I think, will remain forever unanswered." And several of Martinů’s works are either dedicated to her or in some

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/KMNiUEJG0Fk The Italian composer Elisabetta Brusa (born 1954) began composing before she was five years old! Her composition teachers included Peter Maxwell Davies, Hans Keller, Hans Werner Henze, and Gunther Schuller. Brusa has written many orchestral works, including symphonies and several tone poems, as well as chamber works and solo instrumental pieces. She describes her style as "close to Neo-Tonality and in particular to Neo-Romanticism, but in the original sense of the word, which is nowadays often confusedly assimilated to other ones," and her harmony as "essentially pandiatonic with panchromatic moments." She won first prize at the Washington International Competition for Composition for String Quartet in 1982, and also has been the recipient of several other awards. She has said, "

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/68sUH36DEzs It’s not all that easy to find recordings of music by Amanda Aldridge (1866–1956), even when you know that she composed under the pseudonym of Montague Ring. Aldridge, the daughter of the African American Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge, was best known as an opera singer. She studied voice with, among others, Jenny Lind at the Royal College of Music. Her singing career ended when she had a particularly bad bout of laryngitis, which permanently damaged her throat. She turned to teaching and composing. Most of her works were what was known as “parlour music,” which means that they were performed in people’s homes. Ray White points out that Aldridge inspired Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson: “Amanda Aldridge was able to inspire up-and-coming actor and singer Paul Robeson with the confidence and technique

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! http://www.pulsoptional.org/jennifer-fitzgerald/…/Pocket.mp3 The American composer Jennifer Fitzgerald (born 1975; died 2007) was only 32 when she died following a long battle with cancer. In her short career, she wrote some fascinating and intriguing music for, as she put it on her website, "unusual instrumental combinations." Part of the reason for this was, as she said, this was "the result of my years as the pianist for pulsoptional, 'North Carolina’s Band of Composers', which boasts the highly unusual instrumentation of oboe, bassoon, violin, two electric guitars, percussion and piano." Jennifer's legacy is preserved on the pulsoptional website ( http://www.pulsoptional.org/jennifer-fitzgerald/ ), and you can hear some excerpts of her work there. I can't remember when I first heard her piece

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/Pf9PmVLo5Xk Germaine Tailleferre ( 1892–1983) was the only female member of Les Six, the group of French composers who joined together in part as a reaction against the musical style of Wagner, Debussy, and Ravel. Jean Cocteau helped to form this avant-garde group: Tailleferre, Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, and Francis Poulenc were its members. Tailleferre wrote several of her most important works in the 1920s, including ballet scores. She wrote a lot of film music in the 1930s. She spent most of World War II in the United States. She returned to France in 1946 and continued to compose until a few weeks before she died. Her Sonata for Harp was written in 1953, and it is a beautiful, ethereal work. It was composed for and is dedicated to the Spanish harpist Nicanor Zabaleta. James Reel

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/y3VxF17TAeQ Alison Bauld was born in Australia in 1944, and she moved to England to study with Elisabeh Lutyens and Hans Keller in the early 1970s. Her background as an actress as well as a musician certainly informed her works—they all have a strong theatrical element, and are very exciting to listen to and to hear/see live. In 1985, Bauld was commissioned to write a radio piece for the BBC, and the result was the extraordinary Richard III for multitracked speaker and string quartet. Bauld actually gave the premiere of this herself with the Arditti String Quartet. In 1993, she decided to adapt this for solo voice (stylized speech, speech-song, and song) and string quartet, and this new version is called Farewell, Already . As Bayern Northcott says, "The text is a composite of Lady Anne's lamentations ove

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/HzfWfYBEbrU   The French composer Augusta Holmès (1847–1903) was actually of Irish descent, although she was born in Paris; in 1871, she became a French citizen and added the accent to her last name. She wrote many songs and oratorios, usually to lyrics that she wrote herself. She also wrote the libretto to her opera La Montagne Noire . Because she was a woman, she could not study at the Paris Conservatoire, but she did take composition lessons privately with Franck. Apparently, Franck had some romantic feelings for Holmès, which he incorporated into his Piano Quintet. Holmès first published under the pseudonym Hermann Zenta. Once she began publishing her works under her own name, she achieved fame and was recognised in her lifetime as a fresh voice in the French musical world. She wrote instrumental as well as voc

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/aNWpUGd6U6c   Priti Paintal (b. 1960) is an East Indian composer. She was the first Asian and first woman to receive a commission from the Royal Opera, an opera based on the life of Stephen Biko (1992).   Paintal mixes Eastern and Western music in her compositions. In 1993, she said: "In general, close familiarity with Western classical music among Indians is still rather unusual. My experience of it came through my mother, who was introduced to it by her father, he being an orphan had been adopted by a German missionary and put in a German Missionary school in the Himalayas. This in itself was quite unusual, and made him feel a bit of an outsider in India. However, he embraced Western culture with such enthusiasm that all his children grew up having to learn piano and Western classical music. . . . When I was

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/jAUvwQ-k6KE The English composer and suffragist Dame Ethel Mary Smyth (1858–1944) had enormous fights with her father regarding her desire to study music. Eventually he relented, and she attended Leipzig Conservatory, studying composition with Carl Reinecke. She left the Conservatory after a year and studied privately with Heinrich von Herzogenberg, through whom she met Clara Schumann. Smyth composed in many different genres. Her opera The Wreckers has been called the "most important English opera composed during the period between Purcell and Britten." In 1903, her opera Der Wald was the first opera composed by a woman to be performed by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Leon Botstein said of Smyth: "On her seventy-fifth birthday in 1934, under Beecham's direction, her work was celebrated in

  This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/XyfqpeHX3z0 The American composer Libby Larsen (born 1950) was inspired by a painting by Georgia O'Keeffe (who also is particularly notable for her contribution to a field dominated by men), A Black Bird with Snow-Covered Hills (1946), and the resulting composition was "Movement IV: A Black Bird with Snow-Covered Hills," from Black Birds, Red Hills. From the composer's notes: "Georgia O'Keeffe found the flow of time and color in music inspiring to her work as a painter. Black Birds, Red Hills is inspired by six paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe. Each painting explores the flow of time and color on her beloved red hills of New Mexico. In each painting O'Keeffe reveals perspective, beauty and meaning through the magnification of objects, specifically the horizon line, the black rock

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/phD13CLYGug The Austrian composer Marianna Martines ( 1744–1812) was encouraged by her family in her musical pursuits. Her father, the Spanish envoy to the Esterhazy court, was friends with the poet Metastasio, who realized Marianna’s talent and was able to help her in pretty extraordinary ways. The Martines family lived in a building with some other people connected with the Esterházy family. One of the other residents was Nicola Porpora, the singing teacher and composer. In the cold and leaky attic, a struggling young composer named Joseph Haydn was just beginning his career. Metastasio arranged for Marianna to take lessons with Haydn and Porpora, all before she was 10 years old. Unusually for the time, Marianna also had a proper general education, and could speak several languages. Marianna showed a talent for c

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/U79xEl3WUp8   Vivian Fine (1913–2000) was one of America’s most important composers in the 20th century. She was best known for her chamber music, but she wrote in every genre. She wrote extensively for voice. She composed two chamber operas, The Women in the Garden (1978) and Memoirs of Uliana Rooney (1994). Fine received several awards in her career, including an individual NEA grant for The Women in the Garden and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Fine studied harmony and counterpoint with Roger Sessions. It was during this time that she composed her first orchestral work, Concertante for Piano and Orchestra (1944). Heidi Von Gunden wrote, "The Concertante for Piano and Orchestra comes at the end of Fine’s study with Sessions. . . . When Sessions saw sketches of the Concertante both teacher and student sensed that

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/iT7vNLDGOL0 Many of you reading my blog may have heard of the 12th-century German Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179). She often is the only woman composer mentioned in Western music history and theory texts, at least when discussing early composers and trailblazers. But you won’t have heard of an extraordinary woman composer writing long before Hildegard von Bingen; in fact, until I started reading the amazing tweets by Jon Silpayamanant (follow him: @Silpayamanant ), I hadn’t heard of the 8th-century Armenian hymnographer and poet Xosroviduxt. Xosroviduxt is one of the earliest known women musicians. There are a few scholars who believe she flourished in the 4th century, but more people seem to be sure that she lived in the early 8th century. She has a short entry in Grove Online: “She is reported

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/xF9SltYJAT8   The French composer Lili Boulanger (born 1893, died 1918) was the younger sister of Nadia Boulanger. Lili’s talent was obvious from the age of two, and her parents (both of whom were musicians) took her to all the best people for instruction, including Louis Vierne, Paul Vidal, Georges Caussade, and Gabriel Fauré. When Lili was 19, she won the Prix de Rome for her Faust et Hélène; she was the first woman composer to win. Lili had been chronically ill almost from birth, and she died from what is now known as Crohn’s disease at the age of 24. Adrian Corleonis says, "Artists who die young leave behind such an aura of promise that one examines their musical remains with divinatory care, for glimpses of what might have been. Lili Boulanger . . . tantalizes in this way. . . . [W]hat strikes one about L

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/9DIC7KXa3jk The Dutch composer Henriëtte Bosmans (1895–1952) was  the daughter of Henri Bosmans, principal cellist of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the pianist Sara Benedicts, piano teacher at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Bosmans became a celebrated pianist by the 1920s, performing throughout Europe. AZ Lawrie says, “ Bosmans’ father was Roman Catholic and her mother was Jewish; this, coupled with the fact that she was as openly bisexual as someone in the early 20th century could be, meant that she faced a number of challenges throughout her career, particularly in the late 1930s and during the Second World War with the rise of Nazism. The article in Norton/Grove puts it quaintly: ‘Owing to personal circumstances and World War II, Bosmans stopped composing between 1936 and 1945.’ . . . Her partner in the 1920s, c