Women Composers' Thread/International Women's Day 2015 on R3

[verismissimo]

This looks interesting:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/praise-woman-Amy-Woodforde-Finden/dp/B00026W65Y/ref=sr_1_20?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1295777835&sr=1-20

15 women composers in a Rolfe Johnson/Graham Johnson recital, including many mentioned above. Just invested.

[verismissimo]

Among the current/young: Elena Firsova and her daughter Alissa Firsova.

[Sydney Grew]

We have sampled a number of works by lady composers, but never heard one that had the power to thrill us. The Quintette of Dame Ethel Smyth certainly has energy, but its ideas are we find commonplace and banal - or should that be "banale"?

There have have there not been so many wonderful lady novelists, over the course both of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, and particularly in England; why then so very few composers?

Have Members ever come across Larisa Vrhunc we wonder?

Her curiously named "Hologram" for orchestra (2001) - a kind of symphonic poem we suppose - fails to make a tremendous impression.

And another to whose endeavours we have recently listened was Frau Neuwirth with her Viola Concerto, written only a year ago.

It was clever but strangely destitute of elevated feeling. She is we judge much more interested in silly titles than in serious music! (Look them up for yourselves Members; we have no wish to reproduce them here.)

One English lady with a name whose music we have nonetheless for some reason never managed to hear, but wanted to, is the twelve-noter Elisabeth Lutyens CBE.

Mr. Lebrecht that respected critic has a passage on her which we have always found intriguing:

"She met and moved in with Edward Clark, a Schönberg pupil and B.B.C. music organizer, forming a modernist ménage that turned notoriously foul-mouthed when Clark lost his job and her music failed to get performed. She ended up a raging rag doll on the fringes of musical society . . ."

The Corporation can indeed be cruel to ambitious composers, as we have seen in much more recent cases have we not. It does not do to depend upon them! And probably that story explains why we have never heard anything of her output, which Mr. Lebrecht describes as "enormous, running to 160 numbered works." It is a tragedy of a particularly English kind that they are never - or hardly ever - put on.

Among her pupils were Richard Bennett, Robert Saxton, Miss Alison Bauld (who has written a cantata about Tasmania) and Brian Elias . . . we have never heard anything of theirs either, nor have we ever heard of the the latter three!

[LeMartinPecheur]

This looks interesting:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/praise-woman-Amy-Woodforde-Finden/dp/B00026W65Y/ref=sr_1_20?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1295777835&sr=1-20

15 women composers in a Rolfe Johnson/Graham Johnson recital, including many mentioned above. Just invested.

verismissimo: I think you'll find it interesting but a very mixed bag. The one that I'd pick as the gem is 'The Aspidistra' by Rebecca Clarke, whom I should have included in my earlier pick of the top gals. It's fair to say that the disc gets better as it goes on: I don't think many people are busting a gut to find the lost manuscripts of 'Miss LH of Liverpool', track 1

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

In modern times, women composers are ten-a-penny. Old prejudices (and previous lack of opportunity) have gradually fizzled away.
But in earlier times, women stood very little chance of recognition.
I note that in the current ABRSM Grade 5 flute syllabus, there is an attractive piece by Anna Amalia, Princess of Prussia: Allegro ma non troppo: 3rd movt from Sonata in F. Had Anna Amalia been someone other than a princess, her music may not have survived. We can only speculate upon how much has been lost over the centuries.

[Roehre]

Some statistics (all quotes from A.I.COHEN, International encyclopeadia of Women composers, 2nd edition, NewYork/London 1987):
Total number of women composers listed (in 1987 that is, nearly a quarter of a century ago): 6196
of which
Europe 2997
North America 2164
Central & South America 181
Asia 103
Asia minor 75
Australasia & Pacific 150
Africa 71
Ancient Near East (i.e. 2500BC-10th C AD) 82

We DO have something to explore I think :)

Distribution by century:

20th 4200
19th 1103
18th 184
17th 69
16th 52
15th 11
14th 12
13th 22
12th 20
rest 93
unknown 430

[doversoul1]

The OP asks
‘dare I ask, do you detect any differences between male and female composers?’ [in their works] I assume.

Any thoughts/comments?

[Roehre]

The OP asks
‘dare I ask, do you detect any differences between male and female composers?’ [in their works] I assume.

Any thoughts/comments?

To be honest: I don't detect differences in works by male or female composers.
E.g., it is difficult (if possible at all) to decide which of the Mendelssohn pieces which originally were published as Felix's, were actually composed by Fanny. Only if you actually know, you might find some stylistic differences. But these IMO haven't got anything to do with gender.

[MrGongGong]

The OP asks
‘dare I ask, do you detect any differences between male and female composers?’ [in their works] I assume.

Any thoughts/comments?

For some composers (I was thinking about some of Meredith Monks music or Pauline Oliveros) this is apparent in some works that are created from a particularly feminist perspective in terms of subject matter. But to generalise about this would be a bit daft, music has a very wide spectrum and can embrace all of these things. I am sometimes struck by composers who's music seems to be a huge contrast to their character as individuals. Two good examples of this would be Deirdre Gribbin who sometimes writes really angular and aggressive music yet is not at all like that or the music of electroacoustic composer Jo Thomas .

[salymap]

i have heard and enjoyed music by lili Boulanger and one or two others. I knew Ruth Gipps slightly. As wellasconducting her three orchestras she wrote somemusic as well. Afraid I can't name it after all this time,does anyone know it.?
I am interested in Dame Ethel Smythe as she lived for years in my local High Street [Sidcup, her house made room for shops some time ago.] I really feel I know her through her many volumes of autobiography and her backing by Beecham. Ifyou haven't read them...'Impressions that remained', 'What happened next', etc are worth seeking out in my opinion. Brahms was a friend, many more people mentioned. The thought of her riding her upright bicycle round Sidcup Place,still there, is fascinating. A 'character.

[Don Petter]

No-one mentioned Hilda Tablet yet? She gets my vote.

[mercia]

Ruth Gipps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Gipps

[mercia]

Hilda Tablet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_Tablet

[Vile Consort]

I don't think anyone has yet mentioned Germaine Tailleferre, 1892 - 1983. She was the only female member of Les Six. The only work of her's I know is a lovely, wistful Nocturne for organ.

[mikerotheatrenestr0y]

Taileferre's Sonata and Concertino for harp are quite delightful. May I mention Madeleine Dring's excellent settings of Betjeman?