Florence Price - the darling of BBC Radio 3

[Double-A]

Methinks too many people are too worried about "woke".

After all this very forum might be considered "woke"- just in a different category.

[joelingaard]

Methinks too many people are too worried about "woke".

After all this very forum might be considered "woke"- just in a different category.

What is "woke"...

[Alan Howe]

Sorry, but let's not get into a discussion of this here. There's plenty of material around that explains the concept, e.g: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke

[joelingaard]

Sorry, but let's not get into a discussion of this here. There's plenty of material around that explains the concept, e.g: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke

I did not understand the term until corrected. Thank you.

[Alan Howe]

No problem. Sometimes it's best to consult an external source rather than introduce a long digression here.

[eschiss1]

though for individual words I generally would have consulted Wikiquote first myself?... first, I say, yeah, both being acceptable.

[Alan Howe]

Well, rather any half-decent external source than a lengthy digression here...

[Mark Thomas]

And having now had the lengthy digression anyway , let's go back to Florence Price, if there's anything left to say....

[scarpia]

They have been playing Price at concerts here in Boston and at Bard. It's the only think I like about wokeness. I'm now getting to hear some worthwhile music by lesser composers. Albany Symphony played Ethel Smyth's Concerto for Violin and French Horn last year just before the pandemic destroyed live music.

[eschiss1]

A composer I've seen described as France's "first significant female composer" (goodbye Farrenc?), Augusta Holmès, had a rare performance of her Irlande in New York City in 2018, too; such things are just good for unusual music performance in general. (I seem to recall a mention - in the New Yorker - of a Farrenc symphony being played in NYC not that long ago, now I think on it, also - though the key was mistakenly given as E major, which none of hers are in.)

[semloh]

The coverage of female composers on British radio as discussed here is mirrored in Australia. Every day we have our required dose of Price, Farrenc, Beach, or similar, accompanied ad nauseam by "terribly neglected", "newly discovered", "against the odds", etc - sadly all true - but also by "brilliant", "musical genius", "fantastic composer", "incredible work", "neglected masterpiece", and so on - the truth of which is not always obvious!

I agree completely with Alan's assessment of Price's music.

[kLAMI]

The names of the few truly impressive female composers fall way out of our sphere.
Maconchy, Grace Williams, Kaprilova to name only three. The composers mentioned previously are very minor and only of interest as
oddities IMHO.

[eschiss1]

Some, not all; Farrenc and a couple of others still were remarkably better. (And in more recent days I'd argue strongly for Bacewicz and some others probably in place of Maconchy or Williams, fine though Maconchy was, but it's true that's outside of our remit.)

[Mark Thomas]

The composers mentioned previously are very minor and only of interest as oddities

I think that a rather harsh judgement. There clearly were some very talented women composers in the 19th century and of course in some, perhaps most, cases they were prevented from realising their full potential by the times they lived in. But not every newly-rediscovered woman composer was a stifled genius, as one might sometimes think from listening to the BBC, any more than every unsung black male composer, or indeed any unsung composer from any background was.

[Mark Thomas]

... and back to Florence Price. I see that Chandos will be issuing a CD with her Piano Quintet at the end of next month. It's a recording premiere. Full details and sound bites here.