International Women's Day 2021

[kernelbogey]

Twenty-four hours of broadcasting of programmes highlighting women composers

Clemmie and Emma Barnett - Classical Fix

Clemmie Burton-Hill returns to Classical Fix for a special one-off International Women’s Day episode - her first time hosting since a serious brain injury in early 2020. Clemmie regularly champions female composers whose music deserves to be better known and in this special edition, she mixes a playlist of all women composers from across the centuries, including new music being written today. Her guest is the broadcaster and new presenter of Woman’s Hour Emma Barnett. In January, Clemmie talked to Emma about her injury and her continuing recovery, including the powerful role music has played.

Emma's playlist:

Maria Szymanowska: Nocturne in A-Flat Major 'La Murmure'
Anna Meredith: Moonmoons
Margaret Bonds/Langston Hughes: Dream Variation (from Three Dream Portraits)
Lera Auerbach: 24 Preludes for violin and piano op.46 (no.8)
Florence Price: Nimble Feet (from Dances in the Canebrakes)

This was fascinating for the music, the discussion between Clemmie and her friend Emma: and for the remarkable experience of hearing Clemmie a year on from her terrible brain trauma.

[kernelbogey]

I hope there will be comments on other broadcasts on International Women's Day, when the whole output is of music by women composers....?

[Historian]

I hope there will be comments on other broadcasts on International Women's Day, when the whole output is of music by women composers....?

Lots of music and names which are new to me. Haven't had much opportunity to focus much yet but enjoyed Dorothy Howell's Piano Concerto. The real challenge will be to follow up on some of the names/works and listen to them again. There does seem to be more music from women composers on Radio Three recently. Looking forward to Ruth Gipps as COTW.

[Serial_Apologist]

Featuring Ruth Gipps as COTW is a good start, for which I have started a thread.

Edit: I now see that Gipps's Symphony No 3 is due for today's Afternoon Concert (2.55pm), and two further works by her, the Chanticleer Overture Op 28, and Second Symphony, on tonight's Radio 3 in Concert, commencing at 7.30pm.

I am very much enjoying listening to her music on COTW right now.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Lots of music and names which are new to me. Haven't had much opportunity to focus much yet but enjoyed Dorothy Howell's Piano Concerto. The real challenge will be to follow up on some of the names/works and listen to them again. There does seem to be more music from women composers on Radio Three recently. Looking forward to Ruth Gipps as COTW.

Yes I was taken with that - tried finding the complete on Qubuz but there don’t seem to be any of her works on there...

[Historian]

Yes I was taken with that - tried finding the complete on Qubuz but there don’t seem to be any of her works on there...

I know it's not exactly the same experience, but there is a youtube video of a performance from 2010:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u_QP8DS9j0

The same performers are also available on Lyrita:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8432741--british-orchestral-premieres

There is another version with Danny Driver and the BBC Scottish SO under Rebecca Miller on Hyperion:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8256583--the-romantic-piano-concerto-70-beach-chaminade-howell

[Ein Heldenleben]

I know it's not exactly the same experience, but there is a youtube video of a performance from 2010:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u_QP8DS9j0

The same performers are also available on Lyrita:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8432741--british-orchestral-premieres

There is another version with Danny Driver and the BBC Scottish SO under Rebecca Miller on Hyperion:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classica...aminade-howell

Thanks -yes I’d logged the YouTube performance for future viewing .I wonder if Howell’s PC might eclipse Amy Beach’s which was on Composer Of The Week earlier this year ...both are on the Driver disk.

[oddoneout]

Just read this which might also be of interest?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/08/forgotten-voices-review-swapra-royal-welsh-college-music-kitty-whately

[Historian]

Just read this which might also be of interest?
https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...-kitty-whately

Yes, thank you. Just listened to the (orchestral) Nocturne of Morfydd Owen (one of the composers featured in the concert you brought to our attention) and want to hear more. Like poor Lili Boulanger, dead in her mid twenties.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have just now listened to Ms Howells' piano concerto, but to be honest, could not find anything remotely 1925 about it - 1895, maybe. To my mind only one composer of that time managed to find anything imaginative to say in that style of idiom by that stage, and that was Nicolai Medtner; I think many British critics of the 1950s were right about the number of British early c20 composers aesthetically stuck in the 19th century, though they sometimes reached out with their sweeping brushes and trapped a few unfairly, resulting in reputational dismissal and neglect - Havergal Brian and Frank Bridge being two examples.

[eighthobstruction]

....great to hear Barbara Strozzi piece this morn...

[antongould]

I have just now listened to Ms Howells' piano concerto, but to be honest, could not find anything remotely 1925 about it - 1895, maybe. To my mind only one composer of that time managed to find anything imaginative to say in that style of idiom by that stage, and that was Nicolai Medtner; I think many British critics of the 1950s were right about the number of British early c20 composers aesthetically stuck in the 19th century, though they sometimes reached out with their sweeping brushes and trapped a few unfairly, resulting in reputational dismissal and neglect - Havergal Brian and Frank Bridge being two examples.

I like the Howells ..... might even make my top 10 PCs

[Serial_Apologist]

I like the Howells ..... might even make my top 10 PCs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNnM2iRwHLE

[antongould]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNnM2iRwHLE

Very old fashioned S_A