Women unsungs

[kaja]

Here's another huge listing of women composers:  http://www.kapralova.org/DATABASE.htm
Jerry

And also check out their online journal, downloadable free from http://www.kapralova.org/JOURNAL.htm
Some articles are on Kapralova, who was a major 20th-century European composer, but there are also some general articles on women in music, American women composers of choral music, and special features on Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Agathe Backer Grøndahl, Ethel Smyth, Amy Beach, and Jennifer Higdon.

[kaja]

cpo plans to release two CDs of Dora Pejacevic's chamber music in 2010.

To my knowledge, the above has not been released. One disc is available  - mainly piano works - from the Croatian Music Information Centre.

Pejacevic is a major composer (both among men and women), best in her orchestral works: her piano concerto, her symphony, and most importantly, her Fantasy Concertante - an astonishing piece, really. There is no commercial release of this (or any other orchestral) work; the only recording I know of has been recorded by and for the Croatian national radio.

[kaja]

The chamber works are certainly worthwhile but mostly quite early, when Smyth was very much still a disciple of her beloved Brahms, and do not really showcase her individuality. Even the Mass in D, although an outstanding achievement, is largely rooted in Dvorak (another composer Smyth admired greatly). As she gained experience of the operatic stage through Der Wald and Fantasio she seemed to find her feet musically, leading to her first truly representative work The Wreckers.

Her Wreckers is a great opera. Too bad it was not staged at the Met instead of Die Wald. Nevertheless, Smyth holds the record of being the only woman to have ever been staged at the Metropolitan.

[albion]

I would certainly pay good money to hear more of Ethel Smyth's stage-works, especially the comedies The Boatswain's Mate (1916) and Entente Cordiale (1926), or the late cantata The Prison (1930).

Incidentally, there are orchestral suites from Fete Galante (1922) and Entente Cordiale in her work-list, also Two Preludes rearranged from The Prison, together with another piece I'd very much like to hear, the Overture Anthony and Cleopatra (1889).

[eschiss1]

no longer unsung by our standards though not as well-known as some mentioned in this thread either would be Lodz-born Grazyna Bacewicz (diacritics removed, apologies) (1909-1969, died the year of my birth). 4 symphonies, 7 string quartets, 7 violin concertos, 2 cello concertos, viola concerto, 2 piano quintets, quite a whole lot else, from a somewhat Bartok?-like style (though her 3rd symphony does seem very much to hint at Borodin's 2nd symphony's main theme), early on to a rather more modernist style... (criticism of her middle/early late works as maybe lacking in character - well, on the basis of the few of those I've heard, I tend to agree, though I hope that was more the performers' fault...) - to late-last works (7th string quartet, 7th violin concerto) that are really pretty fantastical and fantastically good I think (though noways "Romantic" in the usual sense of this forum.)

[alberto]

Just some more names.
You can hear short piano pieces of the Norwegian Agathe Backer Groendahl (1847-1907) on Swedish Society SCD 1043 (Solveig Funseth, pianist).
In the same CD also one piano work between classical and romantic : the Nocturne in B-flat major the by Polish Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831).
Decidedly classical the Italian Maddalena Sirmen Lombardini (1745-1818). She composed six -fine- quartets recorded by the Allegri Quartet in 1994 (Cala records CACD 1019). The talented Lombardini was known as composer, violinist and singer and apparently was only a teacher for the last thirty years in her life. So she qualifies herself for another topic in the forum.

[alberto]

Briefly remembered in re: Louise Heritte-Viardot, but later no longer mentioned (if I am not wrong), are the sisters Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821-1910, mother of Louise Heritte) and Maria Malibran (1808- 1836, born Garcia, married Malibran, later married de Beriot). Singers of the utmost celebrity, both were also composers.
I would indicate them both as, in some way, less "unsung" than many others, as they both have appeared on "best selling" records by Cecilia Bartoli (Pauline with three songs on "Chants d'Amour", Decca 452 667-2 (1994), Maria with one vocal display piece and one alternative aria to "Elixir of Love" on the CD "Maria" Decca 475 9077 (2007).
Pauline is represented also, at least, by en entire CD Analekta (2004) AN 2 9903 (soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian).
I could attend a concert by Bartoli singing the two Maria Malibran items. And a concert by the soprano Mariella Devia singing a group of Pauline songs after Chopin's Mazurkas. 

[alberto]

The Concerstuck op.40 by Chaminade was together with Tailleferre Ballade on a Vox-Turnabout LP I own (Rosario Marciano pianist, L.de Froment Orch. of Radio Luxembourg): both works last about 15' each (the LP contained also two shorter classical works by the earlier Anna Amalia Duchess of Saxe-Coburg: same pianist, different -chamber sized- orchestra).
A CD transfer may be hoped.

[Hovite]

The Concerstuck op.40 by Chaminade was together with Tailleferre Ballade on a Vox-Turnabout LP I own (Rosario Marciano pianist, L.de Froment Orch. of Radio Luxembourg): both works last about 15' each (the LP contained also two shorter classical works by the earlier Anna Amalia Duchess of Saxe-Coburg: same pianist, different -chamber sized- orchestra).
A CD transfer may be hoped.

The Chaminade recording is on CDX 5110 "French Piano Concertos".

[eschiss1]

if not mentioned, the Wikipedia category Women Classical Composers contains biographical articles (incomplete- a number have not been put into that category yet, etc.) from all eras (799 in the category presently) who compose in a generally-speaking classical style.  This too may be somewhat useful here, or may not, I do offer it.
Eric

[jimmattt]

Listening to Louise Farrenc's symphonies, they are glorious to me, outshine many another romantic symphony I have heard. I have collected music by woman composers for over 40 years, thank God nowadays with the current group of contemporary composers the representation is so much better, and a lot more will never have to be discussed on "Unsung Composers" as such a 100 years from now. And I quickly tire of the old "most of their music deserves obscurity", that being a chauvinist attitude that discounts listener-type people like me who find beautiful music in the unlikeliest of byways. I figure that someone who wrote a "weak" symphony wrote something stronger than I ever could and I admire that they at least believed in themselves enough to try to put the sounds in their heads on paper. Ooops, diatribe coming on.....

[eschiss1]

hrm. I'm more impressed by Farrenc's quintets than by her symphonies, though not by a wide margin, and the symphonies are impressive and have proven often worth returning to.  (With the caveat that I often listen to Bacewicz' 3rd symphony even in the Koch recording of it- there are now several- so maybe I am relatively easily pleased...)

[masterclassicalmusic]

Emilie Mayer, Nina Makarova, Zara Levina. i have never heard their music. a big love for who shared me

[eschiss1]

kaja- cpo has already released a CD with two orchestral works by Pejacevic including the fantasia, or so I thought? (I've only heard one of the chamber works you refer to, though actually there's a 2-CD set of her music from Frauenmusikforum Schweiz including the piano quintet and other works too from 2002, also the Jugoton lp from 1982, that it could have been from...)
Eric

[eschiss1]

have heard some of the Levina/Makarova CD that used to be produced by Russian Disc (not the viola/piano work but the symphony and the piano concerto therefrom).  Good stuff.