Unsung Heroines: the lost World of Female Composers

[LMcD]

This is the title of a programme at 8.00 p.m. on BBC 4 on Friday 22nd June, hosted by Danielle de Niese. The composers in question are Clara Schumann, Hildegard of Bingen, Francesca Caccini, Florence Price and Elizabeth Maconchy.

[teamsaint]

Thanks for flagging this up L.

Should help fill in the gaps between the football nicely.....

Don't know anything about Florence Price, who looks like a fascinating musician, and with luck , something of Maconchy’s large unrecorded output might emerge. ( Anybody have knowledge of any recording of her setting of “ And Death Shall Have no Dominion” ?)

[bluestateprommer]

Thanks for flagging this up L.

Should help fill in the gaps between the football nicely.....

Don't know anything about Florence Price, who looks like a fascinating musician...

Folks here might be interested in this Alex Ross article from The New Yorker on Florence Price:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/05/the-rediscovery-of-florence-price

The Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä have FP's Symphony No. 3 on the docket for next season, for those willing to brave Minnesota (you betcha) winters:

http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/buy/tickets/browse-calendar/eventdetail/1152/-/vaenskae-conducts-american-nomad

[ahinton]

Folks here might be interested in this Alex Ross article from The New Yorker on Florence Price:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/05/the-rediscovery-of-florence-price

The Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä have FP's Symphony No. 3 on the docket for next season, for those willing to brave Minnesota (you betcha) winters:

http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/bu...american-nomad

Excellent! And then Maria Szymanowska, Louise Farrenc but even more importantly Lili Boulanger and Grażyna Bacewicz...

[Pianorak]

Not forgetting Dora Pejačević (1885–1923), Croatian composer.

[LMcD]

Not forgetting Dora Pejačević (1885–1923), Croatian composer.

... whose cello sonata was played on the 'Lunchtime Concert' last week.

[ahinton]

Not forgetting Dora Pejačević (1885–1923), Croatian composer.

Indeed - and there are, of course, many others...

[Serial_Apologist]

Unsung Heroines: Danielle de Niese on...

The Lost World of Female Composers

8 pm tonight (Friday June22) BBC4

[LMcD]

Previously discussed on my 'Unsung Heroines' thread (not that it matters, as long as the message gets out ...)

[Serial_Apologist]

Previously discussed on my 'Unsung Heroines' thread (not that it matters, as long as the message gets out ...)

My apologies - I've forgotten the thread and the programme.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I found the programme interesting and frequently informative, but think it could have been better if

1) There had been a six-week series, an hour devoted to each composer. Twelve minutes on each composer reeked of tokenism. (And that six week series should have been "Series One".) Personally, I would have replaced Price with Crawford Seeger, and added Ustvolskaya, to make up the six.

2) A better presenter - Anna Beer (just to name one of the participants) would have made a more authoritative job of the programme - avoiding such eyebrow-raising blunders as the reference to "Britten's Symphony No 1", and avoided such superficial "analysis" of sexist programming of the classical repertoires as the number counting of Shostakovich and Maconchy String Quartet performances. ("Superficial" because anyone hostile to greater programming can so easily sneer that the similar proportions of performances of Rubbra's [for example] Quartets to DSCH's must be because Rubbra was a woman, too. Maconchy's S4tets are superb works and need performing and championing in their own right.)

But it's the same old story once again: on TV, science, history, literature, and visual art are all presented by authorities in their field - for "Classical" Music, the equivalent authorities are kept well in the background.

[Lat-Literal]

Tremendous programme.

The (fairly) newly discovered work by Florence Price is very exciting and there are serious questions about why Maconchy isn't performed very often these days (as raised in the programme). I have to confess that it was a complete revelation to me just how significant she had become at least in Britain, and against the odds, during her lifetime.

I am not sure whether a long list of additional names is especially helpful but to the ones suggested, I'd include among others Beach, Coulthard, Smyth, Gipps, Tailleferre, Clarke, Oliveros, Mucha, Glanville-Hicks, Derbyshire, Pade, Renie, Ustvolskaya, Archer, Holmes, Kats-Chemin, Oram, Chaminade, Radigue, Lutyens, Trimble, Seeger and Zwilich.

[LMcD]

We have differing views from Lat-Literal and ferneyhoughgeliebte on separate threads....
The longer the programme went on, the more aware I became that the interest of viewers - well, of at least one viewer - was being maintained at least as much by the constant emphasis on the presenter's undoubted physical charms as by the musical/historical/social content. This may have reflected a lack of confidence on somebody's part? I certainly found the programme informative, but it felt more like an introduction to a complete series. I would have liked to learn more about Beach and Clark. Still - we should be grateful for small mercies, I suppose.
It had never occurred to me that Maconchy had acquired the status of a national treasure.
Britten's '1st symphony' was presumably the Spring Symphony?

[Dave2002]

But it's the same old story once again: on TV, science, history, literature, and visual art are all presented by authorities in their field - for "Classical" Music, the equivalent authorities are kept well in the background.

I have to disagree here. Years ago I met a few TV presenters at summer fund raising school fairs. Some one on the PTA committee may have had a hot line to the tv “celebrities” at the time. They were really nice to talk to. One was Michael Fish - the weatherman. Another was a fairly young presenter on science and engineering programmes at the time. We asked him if he knew and understood the science and engineering topics he presented, and his answer was something like “Oh dear, no” “I have a script and some prepared answers/questions” “I simply perform what I’ve been given”. “If anyone asked me a question on the topics I would hardly know where to start.”

A very likeable person, just doing a job, and mostly doing it well - but not an expert on the topics he was presenting, and honest enough to admit that. So your assertion that music presenting on radio or TV is somehow different is, I would say, incorrect, or certainly has been in the past.

[kernelbogey]

I have to admit to not having heard of Francesca Caccini or Florence Price. Although I'd heard of Elizabeth Maconchy I don't know her music at all. For those reasons I was glad to have watched.

I thought the presenation by Danielle de Niese was ok, but as ever, too much focus on the presenter. I was unsure whether the piece on Clara Schumann was fair to her.

But I recommend watching on catchup.