Looking for female composers manuscripts

[Gareth Vaughan]

The MS score of Dora Bright's A minor piano concerto, her only extant PC, is in the library of the RAM. I have read it there. RAM also has her Variations on an original theme for piano and orchestra. Samantha Ward performed it at Morley College, so the authorities there may be able to put you in touch with her. Or she can be contacted through her website: www.samanthaward.org  It is a very fine work IMHO.

[Double-A]

Marie, I just now found your response to my concerns.  It turns out you want to do something similar to what I have been doing--though unlike you without a gender focus (but my favorite among the pieces I worked on is Emilie Mayer's e-minor quartet).  Music published on IMSLP is indeed affordable and broadly accessible.

Since you want to address amateur players I suppose you are more looking at chamber music than orchestral.  Anyway, for a single person transcribing a symphony and fashioning it into a score and a set of usable parts is a monster project.

I have stopped working on Mayer's quartets (I have transcribed one more but not published it) because the Furore Verlag is issuing a complete edition now.  But there are piano trios and violin sonatas that exist only in manuscript that would certainly be worth a look.  I suspect that most of her autographs are in Berlin (Stabikat) but have not (yet?) been digitized.

About this copyright issue (i.e. it depends on if the work has been performed):  I am not sure how this would work.  Who would have standing to sue you?  What sort of performance would count?  The only party that might sue is a prospective publisher.

[matesic]

It's another of those grey (40 shades?) legal areas that seem to proliferate in the music business. Technically I suppose someone must be the legal owner of Emilie Mayer's mss but at this interval of time nobody knows who, least of all the owner. To establish that there's been a public performance I suppose you'd have to find a printed poster, but what are the chances of that? The risk of being sued I should say is in the same order as of a lightning strike. Librarians like to stay within the letter of the law but they aren't responsible for policing it and my experience is that with material of this age they're happy to look the other way. I wonder what Stabikat Berlin's attitude would be but if they'll let you have the scans you're home free.

I don't need to tell you that with anything described on IMSLP as "public domain" there's no restriction, and if anyone should want to contest that IMSLP will be their target. Anything posted under a "creative commons" licence I believe you can do what you like with provided you acknowledge the licence holder.

I can vouch for the quality of certain of Mayer's works. I'd rather forgotten the E minor string quartet (I made a multitrack "rendition" of Double-A's notation that can be heard on IMSLP) but it's rather good.

[tpaloj]

Great discussion here and good to learn many of these less known names. (Is the partitura to Ruth Gipps' Piano Concerto ever published, anyone?)


Some time ago I tried looking into whether Marie Jaëll's two Piano Concerti had been edited & published.  Many of her Manuscripts are at BNF, digitized and available, including autographs of both concerti.  To my knowledge, full scores to neither of the works were originally published - only two-piano arrangements of each were.  These works were recorded by the pianist Cora Irsen in recent times but I wasn't able to find more information whether they might have subsequently made edited scores available (it doesn't appear so).

Since these works are public domain, digitized, freely available on BNF, and first performed in the late 1800's, there should be no issues should someone want to typeset & publish their own editions of them, right?  It would be a huge undertaking though.  The 2nd Concerto's two-piano arrangement, available on IMSL, is interesting in that whole sections of the principal piano part are much unlike from what's in the full score manuscript.

I wouldn't start working on these pieces without confirmation from Irsen or the conductor whether they might have plans to publish their performing editions (or if they already had. I just couldn't find any info).  I did try contacting her, never had a response though so I didn't pursue this project further then.  And I don't have time to start editing these pieces now.

Also just to conclude this already lengthy sideline about Jaëll: all other scores of hers in BNF seem to either have serviceable first edition scans or new editions available, except for Les heures, a piece for piano which I worked on some time past.  I wanted to mention this so you wouldn't - if by chance you thought to pick that one up for editing - lose your mind working on that whirlwind of blue crayon corrections and ink blottings; it's enough for one person to suffer making sense of the mess that MS was (not a judgment on the music, but I wouldn't say it's anything too special either).

https://musescore.com/user/29480707/scores/5205239

[ComposHer]

Hey everyone,

Let me try and answer everything.

Gareth : I've looked at Luise Adolpha le Beau but unless I'm mistaken her only known orchestral works have been published and recorded (can't find it on the top of my head, but I remember decided there was nothing to work on from her). Maybe some chamber music, I'll have a look. Agathe Backer-Grondahl on the other hand, I knew about her but I didn't see thosee two manuscripts. Thanks !

I'll look into Dora Bright, thanks !

Double A : I'm actually interested in both orchestral and chamber works. I was actually looking for pieces to play with my amateur orchestra and realized it was really hard to get anything written by women. A symphony is a huge project but I'm not alone, I have other "volunteers". Thanks for your work on Mayer, it's amazing ! I'm only a beginner in this game. I'll try to check out the piano trios

Monju : I actually know the person who edited the two Marie Jaëll concertos. Indeed, I don't think they made the scores available but I'd love for them to be accessible because these concertos are so great. I will ask and keep you posted here. Thanks for the info and for your work on "Les Heures"

[Gareth Vaughan]

Marie,
You are no doubt aware that Emilie Mayer's E minor symphony (No. 2, iirc) has been edited and typeset (full score and parts) by the redoubtable Ros Trubger and can be purchased (parts hire only) from her website: www.trubcher.com

[Gareth Vaughan]

Luise Le Beau's mss are in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Although her piano concerto has been commercially recorded, I don't believe it has been published.
Among her unpublished orchestral works, besides the PC, are a Symphony, a symphonic poem and a Fantaisie for piano & orchestra.

[eschiss1]

I've seen a few publications of works by Olga von Radecki (1858-1933, born and died in Riga but spent a fair amount of her life as a pianist in Massachusetts) - songs and solo piano pieces, but interesting for all that..., but she's said to have performed a piano quintet (of hers) (and/or also a piano trio which the Drinker Institute page mentions), iirc- and I have been curious for some time whether the work still exists somewhere in manuscript.

[JimL]

Speaking of Jaëll, don't forget her beautiful cello concerto, which would be a welcome addition to a repertoire that has all too few works in it already!

[eschiss1]

Mayer's symphony no.2 is also available from Ries & Erler as of this year. Still, at least in some countries, the manuscript and work are public domain because of its premiere way back in 1847 March. (The relevant body of law is sometimes referred to, I believe, as editio princeps.)

[matesic]

Isn't it quite absurd that the copyright status of a manuscript piece should hinge on a transient event witnessed by few people that may or may not have taken place 170 years ago? What's the point of copyright protection when you don't know who the right belongs to? I've never been one for blind adherence to the letter of the law, and I'm sure anyone who ever filled in a tax return will agree (?). In my view bad laws deserve to be flouted in the hope (as Gareth recently asserted in another thread) that this will accelerate their repeal or revision.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Hear, hear!

[MartinH]

Although not a romantic timewise, the music of Louise Lincoln Kerr is quite romantic in spirit. "Southwestern Impressionism" is the term some of us who know her music like to use. She lived primarily in Scottsdale, Arizona, but played for a time with the Cleveland Orchestra. A driving force in creating the Arizona Opera, the Phoenix Symphony, the Phoenix Chamber Music Society, local hospitals and such. She wrote a great deal of music in many forms - some trivial, some frankly bad, but there are some nice pieces in there, especially for chamber groups. I've gone to the archives and made performable editions of two orchestral works, Indian Lullaby and Enchanted Mesa. Audiences have enjoyed them both and they are well within the ability of amateur/community orchestras. Some 20 years ago I was involved in a concert of her chamber works. We used Louise's handwritten parts, but they could use the computer typesetting treatment.

Her music - all of it - in the Arizona State University archives. All of her children and heirs are long gone. Even the archivists at ASU identify who owns the copyright and just told me to assume it's in public domain.

[ComposHer]

Hey,

I'm looking into everything you mentioned, thank you all very much.

At the moment I'm looking for something very specific that would have a chance to be played soon in concert if it fits the criteria : we need a rather short piece (~10 min) written by a female russian composer of the romantic era (or style), for orchestra and solo violin. Any ideas ?

[Alan Howe]

How about 'Monolog' (2002) for violin and string orchestra by Alla Pavlova (b.1952) - a very beautiful work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AChRqLTZTY
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00APBH78W/ref=dm_ws_tlw_trk1