Mana-Zucca (1885-1981)

[Wheesht]

Apart from a brief link to a 2015 CD of her piano music, this prolific composer (also of popular song), pianist and singer has not been mentioned here.
Her Wikipedia entry is here, but the link to the Mana-Zucca collection in note 4 and at the end of the text is no longer working. The Mana-Zucca Collection can be accessed (including the link to the finding aid at the bottom) here, while the digital collection is here.

There is not much detail given about the non-digitised musical works, no information on the length of the large-scale works for example (or was I not looking properly?)

Her Piano Concerto  from 1907 is available on Youtube with herself as the soloist in an undated recording.
There is also a 10 minute portrait from 1988.

[Wheesht]

The only recording of the Violin Concerto by Mana-Zucca can now also be found on Youtube.

[Alan Howe]

I'm afraid I found the VC far too relentlessly chromatic to be enjoyable for any length of time. The PC of 1907 is much more attractive.

The VC has an opus number of 224 which suggests that it is a much later work...

[Wheesht]

I tend to agree with that assessment.

[FBerwald]

has her work ever been catalogued?

[Wheesht]

Try this link for the Mana-Zucca collection, 102 boxes!

[eschiss1]

The violin concerto was published (in reduction) in 1955, so - no later than that, anyway, but that's not early The aforeandabovementioned YouTube is from a 1960s LP that may be at the Rodgers & Hammerstein Sound Archive of the New York Public Library (see Old NYPL Link, Worldcat Link. They also have the piano concerto LP. Jean Allain conducts the old Pasdeloup orchestra in the violin concerto LP on "Bradime" (a label which, like almost all, is new to me.) (Some sources give 1955 for the recording too, NYPL gives "196?". Memoirs or scholarly material might still exist of course- or other things- to help; apparently it was performed (premiered, too?) in 1955 in NYC too, not just published, though composition date could conceivably be earlier, don't know for sure...)

[eschiss1]

"Mana-Zucca [Augusta Zuckerman]" - (sorry, not the first or last name-of-music-writing, of course.)

[Alan Howe]

Thanks for the research, Eric.

[Wheesht]

She talks about how she came up with the name Mana-Zucca in that 10 minute portrait from 1988   that I mentioned in my original post.

[eschiss1]

Ah, sorry.
From 1988? I assume that means compiled in 1988, not containing material in which she speaks 7 years posthumously, but..

[Wheesht]

Yes, that's what I meant, compiled or released in 1988. I don't know when the recordings of her spoken comments were made.