Women unsungs

[giles.enders]

I see way back in 2009 Rosalind Ellicott was mentioned.  She was the daughter of a former Bishop of Gloucester.  When I went to the records office several years ago to find out when she died, they had her surname as Eliott so it took me some time to find.

No one has mentioned Kathleen Bruckshaw 1879-1935 who wrote a good piano concerto..

[giles.enders]

Pauline Viadot-Garcia 1821-1910  is well worth investigating.  Try her Cendrillon on Opera Rara, it is delightful and the nearest one might get to a 'Chopin' opera !
Freda Swain 1902-1985 wrote her 'Airmail' concerto in green ink on tissue paper.  This is soon to be released on CD.
Ethel Leginska (Liggins) 1886-1920 led a very eventful life as testified by a very thick and expensive biography.
Avril Coleridge-Taylor reinvented herself after a period of depression. She was Gwendoline Taylor originally.  She wrote a piano concerto and was also an orchestral conductor.  Does anyone know the fate of her brother, Hiawatha ?
Josephine Lang 1815-1880 wrote many songs which were well thought of in her day.
Ingeborg Stark 1840-1916 wrote a piano concerto several years before her husband, Hans Bronsart.  It has to be said that his is much the finer work.
Dora Estella Bright 1863-1951 wrote two piano concertos as well as other music
Madelaine Dring 1923-1957 Some of her chamber works are currently available on CD.
Ethel Scarborough1880-1956 - They don't have names like that anymore !!!  She wrote three piano concertos. They can't all have been flops.
Edith Swepstone 1885-1930 wrote two piano quintets, the second for piano and wind.
Cecily Foster 18xx- of Italian/British parents wrote a piano concertino.
Agathe Grondahl 1847-1907 Who knows of any other Norwegian women composers.
Joanna Muller-Herman 1868-1941 Austrian
I am currently researching Bluebell Klean who wrote and had performed in Bournemouth, a piano concerto.  She also wrote a quantity of chamber music which was performed at Wigmore hall ( a big thank you to their archivist)
To mention a few more: Oliviera Prescott 1842-1919, Adelina de Lara 1872-1961, Pamela Harrison 1915-1990, Phyllis Dale 1914- ? , Elizabeth Firestone, and lastly Tekla Bardazewska-Baranowska and after mantioning the last named, I still hope to be taken seriously.

[M. Henriksen]

Agathe Grondahl 1847-1907 Who knows of any other Norwegian women composers.

Well, here are some within the romantic era:

Frederikke Egeberg (1815-1861) - Songs

Jacobine Bernard-Gjertz (1819-1862)

Emma Dahl (1819-1896) - Songs and piano music

Hannah Løvenskiold (1860-1930) - Piano music

Borghild Holmsen (1865-1938) - Songs, piano music, a Violin Sonata

Signe Lund (1868-1950)

Inger Bang Lund (1876-1968) - Songs, piano music, music for violin


No wellknown names here, and most of them seem to have composed miniatures only.


Morten

[eschiss1]

Well, if they're good miniatures (like some of Medtner's songs and his Forgotten Melodies piano cycles, or some other works not too hard to think of, to mention somewhat better-known composers from other countries) their being miniatures is no barrier to their making for a very good concert indeed, of course though one harder to put together!

Also, was Signe Lund also known (maybe for reasons of marriage) as Signe Lund-Skabo? Her compositions seem to show up under both names on WorldCat?

[eschiss1]

One other thing- in 1991 a CD was released on the Norsk Kulturråd label with some works by 7 women composers from Norway - Inger Bang Lund, Borghild Holmsen, Signe Lund among them. (See http://www.worldcat.org/title/little-suite-for-piano-and-string-orchestra-and-piano-works-by-7-women-composers/oclc/476042560 ).
Eric

[M. Henriksen]

Also, was Signe Lund also known (maybe for reasons of marriage) as Signe Lund-Skabo?

Yes, she was for some time married to a doctor called Jørgen Skabo.

Some history:
Signe Lund wasn't very popular in Norway since she was a member of Vidkun Quislings political party, and especially unpopular after she composed ¨Føreren kaller" (Der Führer calls - or something like that).
After the war in 1945, Signe Lund lost her Norwegian citizenship and was sentenced to hard labour at a remote farm in southern Norway. She was there until she died in 1950.

On the other side, she received the King's Medal of Merit long before the great war for her contributions to strengthen the relationship between Norway and the USA.

Morten

[giles.enders]

How about a recording of 'The three Ethels' Smyth, Scarborough and Leginska.

[Gareth Vaughan]

What would you suggest, Giles? There don't seem to be any scores available of concertante music by Scarborough or Leginska. In fact, not a great deal of music by either of them seems to have survived. I would be delighted to be shown to be wrong, by the way.

[eschiss1]

Sweden in the Romantic period had Elfrida Andree, Laura Valborg Aulin (2 string quartets, other works?), Ingeborg Bronsart von Schellendorf (born Saint Petersburg, so maybe doesn't fit...listed by Sv-Wikipedia as a Swedish-German composer - http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingeborg_Bronsart_von_Schellendorf - because of her ancestry, actually. Wife of v. Bronsart-Schellendorf, one of Liszt's pupils, and herself a Liszt pupil - mentioned in Walker's biography, v.2, Weimar Years); others too I'm sure, who composed large-scale works as well as miniatures.  It's odd not to be able to find more women composers in Norway at the same time who did so, all the same, for all that I don't deprecate miniatures; just statistically I guess.
(I don't know that many of these works, but I've heard some of Andree's, I think, and one of Valborg Aulin's 2 quartets, both of which have been broadcast by Radio 3; which - quartet - was rather good.)
Eric

[albion]

Although Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) is (in relative terms) still the best-known British female composer, surprisingly little attention has been paid to her in concert and on disc. Although it was not quite an ideal recording, the long-deleted Conifer set of The Wreckers at least proved the value and interest of a highly-accomplished maverick composer. There is the excellent Chandos recording of the Serenade and Double Concerto (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethel-Smyth-Concerto-Orchestra-Serenade/dp/B000000AYX/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278228529&sr=1-1) and the Audite account of the wonderful Mass in D (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethel-Smyth-Mass-Andreas-Macco/dp/B0000268B4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278228529&sr=1-3), but there really ought to be greater representation of Smyth's output, particularly the operas The Boatswain's Mate and Entente Cordiale, and the choral works The Prison, Hey Nonny No and Sleepless Dreams.

[eschiss1]

Smyth's chamber works, admittedly easier to record, have received a few recordings each I believe (cpo and ASV?)
Eric

[albion]

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.

[Gareth Vaughan]

We really do need a good recording of The Prison, a very important and substantial work in Smyth's output.

[giles.enders]

Elizabeth Firestone, daughter of the tyre magnate composed a lot of film music and was the first woman to write a complete full score for a Hollywood feature, in 1949. 'Once More My Darling'

[Syrelius]

Sweden in the Romantic period had Elfrida Andree, Laura Valborg Aulin (2 string quartets, other works?), Ingeborg Bronsart von Schellendorf (born Saint Petersburg, so maybe doesn't fit...listed by Sv-Wikipedia as a Swedish-German composer - http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingeborg_Bronsart_von_Schellendorf - because of her ancestry, actually. Wife of v. Bronsart-Schellendorf, one of Liszt's pupils, and herself a Liszt pupil - mentioned in Walker's biography, v.2, Weimar Years); others too I'm sure, who composed large-scale works as well as miniatures.  It's odd not to be able to find more women composers in Norway at the same time who did so, all the same, for all that I don't deprecate miniatures; just statistically I guess.
(I don't know that many of these works, but I've heard some of Andree's, I think, and one of Valborg Aulin's 2 quartets, both of which have been broadcast by Radio 3; which - quartet - was rather good.)
Eric

There is also a CD on Sterling with orchestral music by Helena Muncktell. Not the sort of music that stays in mind, though, I'm afraid. Valborg Aulin's two string quartets are available on a Musica Sveciae CD, together with chamber music by Elfrida Andrée (mentioned earlier in this thread), Amanda Maier, Laura Netzel and Alice Tegnér. Tegnér is actually one of the best known composers within Sweden, though not for her classical music. Some of the best known and loved songs for children in Sweden are composed by her. That sort of musical career was probably regarded as more "suitable" for a woman in those days...