Ruth Gipps (1921-1999)

[Edgy 2]

Yes and also a pupil of Gordon Jacob

It's no wonder then that she was a great composer

[Serial_Apologist]

I bet someone at the BBC couldn't wait to get that 2nd sentence in though

That's my thought too.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, she was a student of his, after all.

And yet, there is a point where another of RVW's pupils - was it Birtwistle? - was sat down by the father of English folk Revival and told, "One day you will not believe in me, and will go your own way. And you must not then feel you are being disloyal to me".

[Ein Heldenleben]

And yet, there is a point where another of RVW's pupils - was it Birtwistle? - was sat down by the father of English folk Revival and told, "One day you will not believe in me, and will go your own way. And you must not then feel you are being disloyal to me".

I think it might have been him. In an interview HB a had quite fond recollections of him- compared him to a big badger !

[Richard Barrett]

Taken a bit out of context, though, Richard.

I didn't take it out of context, it is out of context. The text wouldn't be adversely affected in the slightest if it weren't there. The larger context is the narrative that in the postwar UK the only composers supported by the "musical establishment" were those writing 12-tone music etc. etc. etc. which simply isn't true.

[Pulcinella]

I didn't take it out of context, it is out of context. The text wouldn't be adversely affected in the slightest if it weren't there. The larger context is the narrative that in the postwar UK the only composers supported by the "musical establishment" were those writing 12-tone music etc. etc. etc. which simply isn't true.

In that case, surely your objection should be to the subsequent sentence (if you think it untrue) rather than to the sentence simply stating her outspoken views?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Really interesting episode this . I hope the CBSO is a slightly more hospitable workplace these days ..
One question for woodwind experts - how can you be a good Cor Anglais player but not so good oboist ?

[Richard Barrett]

In that case, surely your objection should be to the subsequent sentence (if you think it untrue) rather than to the sentence simply stating her outspoken views?

I object to the subsequent sentence as well! And I do think it's untrue; but my initial objection was to the agenda behind the sentence I cited. It just seems mean-spirited and typical of these times. (If I had a walking stick I'd be waving it in the air now!)

[Pulcinella]

I object to the subsequent sentence as well! And I do think it's untrue; but my initial objection was to the agenda behind the sentence I cited. It just seems mean-spirited and typical of these times. (If I had a walking stick I'd be waving it in the air now!)

Well, that would be one way to conduct the 'music' she despised so much, I suppose.

[Richard Barrett]

Well, that would be one way to conduct the 'music' she despised so much, I suppose.

One does have to be careful not to stab oneself in the foot of course.

[Bryn]

One does have to be careful not to stab oneself in the foot of course.

Indeed, a walking stick should never be allowed to Lully one into a false sense of security.

[edashtav]

.

... sorry, I find this music doesn't interest me at all. Milquetoast Vaughan Williams at best. And written at that time!

.

I tried to listen to her Third Symphony but my attention wandered.

[Serial_Apologist]

.

... sorry, I find this music doesn't interest me at all. Milquetoast Vaughan Williams at best. And written at that time!

.

Certainly as regards the third symphony (1965) that's true - the idiom overblown, absurd in the age of the Beatles and urban folksongsters - and degenerated into cliché; but the stuff she composed in the late 30s when still a teenager and during WW2 was very much of its time - those wartime posters of rolling hills to remind homesick service persons of home "and what we're fighting to defend" and all that; but also the Metroland posters for the Metropolitan Line in the 1920s, when so much of our familiar suburban landscapes was built, and when "serious art" was having its first volte-face against the first flashes of influence from across the Channel in the Vorticists, while some younger composers started reacting to Stravinsky.

Just a handful of composers successfully dragged the village green image of English music into the 20th century by finding connections - Holst and Bridge in the 1920s being the two figures who come most immediately to my mind. However nationalistic or patriotic composers like Gipps, Bliss, Walton and Lambert wanted to be, their music would never have found its distinctiveness without such "foreign" influences, however dilute, and as in Vaughan Williams we can hear Ravel in all those parallel modal triads, and, in Gipps' case, Ibert as well.

[vinteuil]

Certainly as regards the third symphony (1965) that's true - the idiom overblown, absurd in the age of the Beatles and urban folksongsters - and degenerated into cliché; but the stuff she composed in the late 30s when still a teenager and during WW2 was very much of its time - those wartime posters of rolling hills to remind homesick service persons of home "and what we're fighting to defend" and all that; but also the Metroland posters for the Metropolitan Line in the 1920s, when so much of our familiar suburban landscapes was built, and when "serious art" was having its first volte-face against the first flashes of influence from across the Channel in the Vorticists, while some younger composers started reacting to Stravinsky...

... a brave defence, Serial - but

I am clearly sinking into a pit of undiluted nostalgia for a lost England of Tudorbethan frontages and dancing Morris Minors in metroland, and there is no hope for me.

[Serial_Apologist]

... a brave defence, Serial - but

Maybe I should have included an irony emoji in that!

Patriotism is such a mixed bag, isn't it! What does one mean by saying one loves ones own country? The things I do love about this country (which so often comes appended with "of ours", when as Marx and others have so succintly summed it up, it isn't OUR country) - not so much its indigenous people to be honest, but its language, its amazingly varied landscapes, geology, architecture, music, and its contribution to radical thought - are the same things I would love were Italy, Germany or France to be my home. The parallels between French painting and music are as resonant in me in imagination as when I was there sucking up the ambience and spirit of that land. For all the vaunted "Britishness" thrown at him, Elgar's music is as much within the Germanic post-Wagnerian tradition as emblematic of Last Night flagwaving, as Ahinton and others have rightly pointed out numerous times here; I can only think of one British composer who went out of his way to try and create an idiomatically self-sealed Englishness in music, and that was the ironically Italian-descended Gerald Finzi, who "took" stylistically from a very narrow range, namely the Vaughan Williams of "The Lark Ascending" and the less imperialistic-minded Elgar to be found in such works as "The Wand of Youth". Oh, and of course he was a great cultivator of threatened native brands of apple!