Rosy Wertheim: Trio for Flute, Clarinet and Bassoon (1942)

Rosalie Marie Wertheim was born in Amsterdam to parents John and Adriana Rosa Gustaaf Wertheim Enthoven. Her father was a banker and Rosalie attended a French boarding school in Neuilly, where she took piano lessons. She studied piano with Ulfert Schults and harmony and counterpoint with Bernard Zweers and Sem Dresden. In 1921 she took the state exam in piano and graduated from the Nederlandse Toonkunstenaars Vereniging.

From 1921 to 1929, she taught at the Amsterdam Music Lyceum, composed songs and choral works and conducted children's and women's choirs. In 1929 Wertheim moved to Paris, where she lived for six years, composing music and writing for a newspaper on the Parisian music scene, while studying composition and instrumentation from the composer Louis Aubert. In 1935 she moved to Vienna, where she studied counterpoint with Karl Weigl. In 1936 she traveled to New York City to give lectures and arrange performances of her works.

In 1937, just prior to the start of World War II, she returned to Amsterdam. During the German Occupation, Wertheim gave secret concerts in a cellar where she played music by banned Jewish composers. After September 1942, she went into hiding to escape the Jewish deportations. After the war, Rosy Wertheim taught at the Music School in Laren, but contracted a serious illness and died May 27, 1949, in Laren, the Netherlands.

Below Rosy Wertheim's Trio for Flute, Clarinet and Bassoon is played by Trio Amerise (Flute: Ragnhildur Jósefsdóttir, Clarinet: Morten Sønderskov Jensen, Bassoon: Lucia Amerise). The  four movements are I. Allegro risoluto. II. Adagio. III. Scherzo, IV. Allegro con spirito.

Women Composers Index
 

Amanda Röntgen-Maier: Violin Sonata in B Minor (Women Composers 22)

Amanda Maier (1853 - 1894) was born in Sweden in the musical family of a confectioner. At the age of sixteen, Maier went to study at the Stockholm Conservatory. Her main subject was violin, but she also studied organ, piano, cello, composition and harmony. She graduated in 1872.

During her studies she was also taught conducting and upon graduation she was the first qualified female conductor. She immediately began giving concerts in Sweden and abroad. However, she continued to study composition in Leipzig with Carl Reinecke and Ernst Richter and violin with Engelbert Röntgen, the concertmaster of the Gewandhausorchester. It was also at this time that the first compositions came from her pen, consisting of a violin sonata, a piano concerto and a violin concerto. The latter received its premiere in 1875 with the composer as soloist.

In 1876, she became engaged to Julius Röntgen, the son of one of her teachers (about this important composer and conductor, see my article Classical Music in the Netherlands, part 2). In 1880 Amanda and Julius married in Landskrona and moved to Amsterdam. Although Amanda's performances stopped after the marriage, she continued to stay in musical circles. She became acquainted with Edvard Grieg, Anton Rubinstein, Joseph Joachim and Johannes Brahms.

The marriage produced two children, Julius Jr. (to whom she herself gave violin lessons) and Engelbert Jr. She suffered at least three miscarriages between those two children. After the birth of the last one, her health continued to falter. She suffered from tuberculosis and spent time in sanatoriums in Nice and Davos. She died in 1894.

Amanda Röntgen-Maier's Violin Sonata is here played by Lorenzo Meraviglia in an arrangement by Damiano Danti for violin, strings & piano.

Women Composers Index
 

Florence Price: Piano Quintet in A Minor (Women Composers 21)

Florence Beatrice Price (1887-1953) was the first African American woman to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra. As she said herself, she was double handicapped: music written by women was preconceived by many to be lacking in depth and logic, and she suffered from a second affliction, her race as an African American. Price was actually of mixed racial heritage, African, European and Native American. She made history when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Frederick Stock premiered her award-winning Symphony in E minor in 1933. Critics raved about the premiere and hoped that this would bring about a new era.

Price was celebrated during her time, but she continued to face gender and race barriers and was not accorded a place in the canon of American music history. A large number of her approximately 300 compositions remained unpublished. In 2009 a cache of her manuscripts was discovered by property developers in the attic of an abandoned house in Illinois. That cache included the present Piano Quintet in A minor, a work which may have been written around 1936, the date of her well-known E-minor quintet. Written in a late-romantic idiom, the piece celebrates African American heritage by echoing the musical language of spirituals and hymns (second movement), and reworking elements of the popular stomping dance that hailed from the slave plantations of the Deep South (third movement). The A minor Quintet was first published in 2017.

Price’s Quintet in A Minor is performed by members of The Symphony of Northwest Arkansas (SoNA): Tomoko Kashiwagi, acting principal pianist; Zsolt Eder, associate concertmaster; Miho Oda Sakon, principal second violin; Jesse Collett, principal violist; and Kari Caldwell, principal cello. There are four movements.

Women Composers Index

The Japanese Seasons: May

May is a wonderful month with many interesting festivals, customs and holidays. On top of that, May is one of the most pleasant seasons in Japan, when greenery is rapidly increasing under strong sunlight. The traditional name for May is Satsuki, a word possibly derived from a term meaning "early rice sprouts." Around the 6th of May is traditionally the first day of summer. The fine, fresh, clear days which give a hint of the approaching summer are called "Satsuki-bare." 

[Koinobori by Hiroshige]

May starts with Golden Week, which contains four national holidays in a seven-day period. The official holidays are:

April 29, Showa Day (Showa no hi): the birthday of former Emperor Showa, who died in the year 1989.
May 3, Constitution Day (Kenpo kinenbi): commemorates the enactment of the new postwar constitution on May 3, 1947.
May 4, Greenery Day (Midori no hi): dedicated to the environment and nature.
May 5, Children's Day (Kodomo no hi): in fact the day of the traditional Boy's Festival (Tango no Sekku). Families pray for the health and future success of their sons (now also daughters) by hanging up carp streamers and displaying samurai dolls, both symbolizing strength, power and success in life. The Girl's Festival is celebrated on March 3. May 5 is also the day around which courageous rituals such as yabusame (hitting the mark with an arrow from a running horse) and other military arts are performed at shrine festivals.

For example, on May 5 the Kurabe Uma Jinji (Horse-Riding ceremony) is held in the wide grounds of the Kamigamo Shrine. This festival is believed to have originated in 1093, when a horse-riding ceremony was performed for the gods to obtain a good harvest and peace. It was subsequently held every year using horses sent from around the country as offerings to the shrine. Twenty colorfully dressed riders, after first paying homage to the main shrine building, take turns racing their horses two by two.

The counterpart for the hina dolls of the Girl's Festival is the heroic male doll of the Boys' Festival called Gogatsu Ningyo (May Doll). They are also called "yoroi kabuto" (a warrior's armor and helmet) and usually portray heroes from Japanese history and folk tales. Yoroi and kabuto were important items to demonstrate one's heroism in the old days. These dolls, with their intricately made armor, are extremely expensive, and one sees them very little in private homes nowadays.

[Koinobori]

Koinobori, carp streamers, fluttering in the blue sky of May are a great sight. The banners, made of colorful fabric, symbolize carps climbing against a waterfall and show the wish for boys to have the same spirit. The custom originated during the middle of the Edo period and the story of the carp who became a dragon after swimming upstream goes back to a Chinese legend. As it is difficult to put up carp streamers in an urban environment, you see them mostly in the countryside.

Kashiwamochi ("oak leaf rice cakes") are the counterpart to sakuramochi because they are meant for the boys' festival on May 5. They consist of a white mochi (cake of glutinous rice) filled with red bean paste and wrapped in oak leaf. This leaf is not edible - in the past oak leaves were used as plates to hold food. 

[Kashiwa-mochi]

Traditionally, Hachijuhachiya falls on either May 2 or May 3. In the traditional calendar this is the 88th day since the beginning of spring on February 4 (Risshun), and this day was considered suitable for planting seeds and seedlings in the field, including the seedlings of rice. The planting time is considered as the most important part of the agricultural year and is looked upon as a religious festival. The deity of the rice field is present during planting, and songs sung during the planting are addressed to him. This is also the time that farmers can work in their fields without worrying about frost damage to the crops.

Hachijuhachiya is also the time for tea picking (chatsumi). The fresh green tea leaves are full of nutrients and do not have an astringent taste. They come to the market as the new green tea of the year. Japanese green tea can be divided into various types depending on the time of year the leaves are picked and processed. Green tea picked during the best season has a fragrant aroma and refreshing taste.

On May 5 there is also the custom of plucking mugwort and iris leaves and use them in the bath water to ward off evil. This is called shobu-yu, an iris bath. Besides that, a herbal bath is of course good for one's health. 

[Katsuo by Hiroshige]

Early May is considered as the beginning of summer, the time that katsuo, striped tuna fish (also called bonito), migrate north. The first bonito of the season is called hatsu-gatsuo. Bonito had been consumed at court since the third century, but was especially popular during the Edo period (1603-1867). Especially the lean hatsu-gatsuo was considered an expensive delicacy at that time. Indeed, the Edo city people valued the first bonito of the season because they thought everything was "cool" that was first. Basho wrote:

you made it!
getting past Kamakura alive
first bonito of the summer

Much katsuo was caught in the sea near Kamakura, and the fish was not only offered to the great Shinto temple in the city, but also taken to Edo as a gift for the shogun. Hatsu-gatsuo was so highly prized in those days that a saying went, "I would be willing to pawn my wife to be able to taste hatsu-gatsuo." Sashimi or tataki (seared on the outside with the inside remaining rare) of bonito is still popular in early summer.

On May 3 and 4 the Hataka Dontaku festival is held in Fukuoka. The festival is said to have started as a New Year's Day celebration in the Muromachi period (1333-1568) in which local citizens dressed up as the Seven Deities of Good Fortune or as Chigo (child shrine and temple attendants) and performed in the style of the matsubayashi processional then popular in Kyoto. Doll-decorated platforms and elaborate floats (dashi) were added during the Edo-period (1600-1868) when the current name was adopted (apparently from the Dutch word "Zondag", "Sunday," which was taken to mean "holiday").

[The Saio-Dai or Vestal Princess in the Aoi Matsuri parade]

One of the most elegant festivals of Japan is the Aoi Matsuri or "Hollyhock Festival" held on May 15 in Kyoto. The aoi plant (hollyhock or heart vine) is sacred to the Kamo shrines (Shimogamo and Kamigamo in Kyoto) and at the Kamo festival people used to decorate their headdresses and carriages with it. During the Heian Period, these leaves were believed to protect against natural disasters such as earthquakes and thunder, and were often hung under the roofs of homes for protection. The Kamo festival was the greatest festival of Kyoto in the Heian period and still exists as a beautiful panorama of courtly times. The main procession on May 15 is led by the Imperial Messenger, followed by a retinue of 600 people all dressed in the traditional costumes of Heian nobles, plus two oxcarts, four cows and thirty-six horses. The oxcarts are adorned with artificial wisteria flowers. The procession starts at the Kyoto Imperial Palace and slowly works its way towards the Shimogamo shrine and finally (in the early afternoon) the Kamigamo shrine. At both shrines, the Saio-Dai (the Vestal Princess) pays her respects, and the Imperial Messenger intones the imperial rescript praising the deities and requesting their continued favor (read more about the Aoi festival and its role in the Tale of Genji in my article at this blog "Reading the Tale of Genji (9): Heart-to-Heart (Aoi)."

On the third Sunday in May the Mifune Matsuri (Three Boats Festival) of Kuramazaki Shrine is held in Kyoto. The serene atmosphere of the Heian period is recreated on the Oi River where the emperor and his courtiers often went  to view the fine scenery of Arashiyama. Gaily decorated boats float down the river, while music is played on the two larger craft, of which the bowsprits are fashioned in the form of a dragon and a phoenix. The flotilla of boats makes a beautiful panoramic picture coupled with the natural beauty around them.

The third full weekend in May is the time that the Sanja Matsuri is held in Tokyo. During this popular and noisy local festival, on Saturday more than 100 portable machi-mikoshi (shrines belonging the the different wards) in which Shinto deities (kami) reside, are carried through the streets to bring good fortune to the local businesses and residents. And on Sunday, the main festival day, the three main honja-mikoshi make their ceremonial exit from the Asakusa Shrine where they are housed. The festival honors the three founders of Sensoji Temple, who are enshrined in the Asakusa Shrine next door to the temple. For the duration of the festival, Asakusa is in "matsuri mode" and packed with stalls selling food and other items. In the dance known as binzasara-mai the dancers beat time with binzasara, percussion instruments made from wooden slats tied with cord.

Seasonal flowers are tsutsuji (azaleas) from mid-April to mid-May, and fuji (wisteria) from late-April to early-May. 

[Azalea Festival in the Nezu Shrine, Tokyo]

Japan is a paradise for azaleas and the hardy plant has long graced urban gardens, their flowers often lasting several weeks. Their popularity already starts with Prince Kusakabe in 7th c. Nara (who wrote about azaleas in his death poem), and is continued in The Tale of Genji in which Genji gives his young beloved Murasaki a garden where azaleas grow alongside other flowers. In the Edo period, there even was a sort of azalea boom among samurai gardeners, who looking something new, developed interesting new variants of the flower. Despite its popularity, the azalea has been neglected in the decorative arts. By the way, azaleas can be distinguished from rhododendrons  - of which they are a subgenera - by having only five anthers per flower. There are many azalea festivals in japan - for example, the Nezu Shrine in Tokyo holds a Tsutsuji Matsuri from early April until early May. And Shiofune Kannon Temple in Ome celebrates a wonderful Tsutsuji Festival on (and around) May 3.

[Wisteria trellis in the Kasuga Shrine in Nara]

The Fuji or wisteria was considered as an aristocratic flower in ancient Japan, because of its sweet scent and graceful blossoms, but also because the use of the color purple in their dress was a prerogative of court and aristocracy. Its links with traditional culture are numerous:
- In The Tale of Genji, not only is the name "Fujitsubo" (Wisteria Pavilion) given to Genji's stepmother (with whom he falls in love and even has a child), his young beloved was called "Murasaki", "Purple", after the flower - and the author (Murasaki Shikibu) even took this name herself.
- The name of the powerful Fujiwara family means "Wisteria Field."
- A flowering branch of wisteria was an elegant gift, often accompanying a love poem.
- Wisteria were not only grown on trellises, but lustrous cascades of wisteria flowers hanging on old pine trees in the forest were even more admired.
- The image of Fuji Musume (Wisteria Girl) was a bestselling Otsu folk painting and was also adapted to a Kabuki dance which is still often performed.
- Wisteria were also a popular symbol in family crests and heraldry.
- Wisteria were a popular design element in art, for example in the national treasure "Tea-leaf Jar with a design of wisteria" by Nonomura Ninsei in the MOA Museum, or the "Wisteria screens" by Maruyama Okyo in the Nezu Museum.
- Wisteria also appear frequently in poetry, from the Manyoshu to haiku. Basho wrote:

kutabirete | yado karu koro ya | fuji no hana

when - exhausted -
I arrive at my inn:
wisteria flowers!

Rebecca Clarke: Morpheus for Viola and Piano (Women Composers 20)

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) was born in England to an American father and German mother. After her musical studies with Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music (the first woman to do so), she pursued a career as performer on both violin and viola. She was a prominent concert violist both at home and abroad, and highly active in chamber and symphonic ensembles. In fact, she became one of the first female musicians in a fully professional ensemble, Henry Wood's Halle orchestra.

In 1916 Clarke made her first trip to the United States. Here she met Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, the famous promoter and financier of "new music." Encouraged by Coolidge, Clarke wrote the piece "Morpheus for viola and piano" in 1919. That same year she entered the Coolidge Competition with her Sonata for Viola and Piano, winning second prize (the composer Ernest Bloch won first prize). The sonata proved to be a great success. 

This was followed in the productive 1920s by a piano trio (1920), which again won second prize in the Coolidge Competition, as well as other interesting pieces of chamber music. In the 1930s, however, Clarke barely wrote any music, as she was involved in an affair with a married man, who was using up all her energy (as she divulged later).

When WWII broke out while Clarke was again visiting the United States, she remained in America, in fact for the rest of her life. She also started composing again, such as the Dumka for violin, viola, and piano, and Passacaglia on an Old English Tune for viola and piano.

However, in 1944 she married James Friskin, who was teaching at the Juilliard School in New York. Unfortunately, Clarke's marriage marked an end to her creativity. She devoted herself to her husband's career and wrote little music herself. Rebecca Clarke wrote music in a late romantic, rather chromatic style. Her Sonata for Viola and Piano has been discussed in my blog post The Best Works for Viola.

Here I'd like to introduce one her earliest works, the short "Morpheus for Viola and Piano," named after the Greek god of sleep and dreams. "Morpheus" uniquely develops a single melody through coloristic devices such as pentatonic glissandos on the piano and artificial harmonics on the violin. Below is a fantastic rendering by Jeremy Berry, viola & Michael Refvem, piano.

Women Composers Index

Dora Pejačević: Piano quartet in D minor, Op. 25

Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) grew up in Našice in east Croatia, in a town of which a significant part was the feudal property of the Pejačević family until 1945. Of course, this was before WWI still part of the large Habsburg Empire. Her father was the Croatian Count Teodor Pejačević, her mother a Hungarian baroness and a trained pianist and singer. Dora Pejačević received her first music lessons in Budapest and Zagreb, and studied further in Dresden and Munich. She was a composition pupil of the obscure English composer Percy Sherwood, but was essentially self-taught. She was widely read in literature and philosophy and her circle of acquaintances included the Viennese journalist and writer Karl Kraus as well as Rainer Maria Rilke.

Dora Pejacevic’s earlier compositions mostly consisted of piano pieces, sonatas, and songs, but significantly she became the first woman in Croatia to write orchestral works. Because of her late romantic, harmonically and instrumentally refined tonal language, she is considered a representative of the fin de siècle; occasionally her style has been compared to that of Rachmaninoff. Today, she is considered one of Croatia's most important 20th century composers and many of her works, during her lifetime, enjoyed considerable success and were performed throughout Germany, Austria, Hungary and the rest of the Habsburg Empire. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, she helped in Našice throughout the war as a nurse caring for the wounded. At the same time she composed intensively. Some of her best works were written during this time. There are 58 compositions: songs, piano solos and chamber music including: piano quartet, piano quintet, violin sonata, cello sonata and two piano sonatas. But there are also impressive orchestral works, such as an excellent symphony and a piano concerto. Her Symphony in F-sharp minor is considered by scholars the first modern symphony in Croatian music.

She married in 1921 and sadly died two years later, at age 37, due to what some sources specify as complications during childbirth.

The Piano Quartet in d minor was completed in 1908 and has been written in the late Romantic style. It starts with a chromatic Allegro ma non tanto; this is followed by a warm and lyrical Andante con moto; then a playful Allegretto grazioso; and finally a Allegro comodo, a spirited dance with effective use of pizzicato.

The performers are: Csilla Pogány, Violine; Philip Nolte, Viola; Lucia Tenan, Cello;
and Fausto Quintabà, piano.

Women Composers Index

Nadia Boulanger: Trois Pièces pour violoncelle et piano (Women Composers 18)

Nadia Boulanger (1887 - 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. She was the elder sister of Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) who was first and for all a composer.

From a musical family, she achieved early honors as a student at the Conservatoire de Paris but, believing that she had no particular talent as a composer, she became a teacher. In that capacity, she influenced generations of young composers, especially from the United States and other English-speaking countries. Some famous students are George Antheil, Grażyna Bacewicz, Daniel Barenboim, Lennox Berkeley, İdil Biret, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, John Eliot Gardiner, Philip Glass, Roy Harris, Dinu Lipatti, Igor Markevitch, Astor Piazzolla, and Virgil Thomson - to name a few. “As far as musical pedagogy is concerned - and by extension musical creation - Nadia Boulanger is the most influential person who ever lived.” Stravinsky called her "an intellectual Amazon," and Copland wrote later that their meeting was the most important one in his musical life.

Boulanger taught in the US and England, but her principal base for most of her life was her family's flat in Paris, where she taught for most of the seven decades from the start of her career until her death at the age of 92. Boulanger was also the first woman to conduct major orchestras in America and Europe, including the BBC Symphony, Boston Symphony, Hallé, and Philadelphia orchestras. She conducted several world premieres, including works by Copland and Stravinsky.

Boulanger’s work as a solo composer includes over 30 songs, chamber music and a Fantaisie variée for piano and orchestra. Her musical language was highly chromatic, though always tonally based. Boulanger stopped composing in the early 1920s to follow her pedagogical calling, but her compositional legacy does include the below delightful 3 Pieces for Cello and Piano (originally written for the organ in 1911, but arranged for cello and piano in 1914).

The 3 Pieces are here played by Bryan Cheng, cello, and Silvie Cheng, piano.

Women Composers Index

Germaine Tailleferre: Violin sonata No 1 in C-sharp Minor (Women Composers 17)

Germaine Tailleferre (1892 - 1983) is known as the only woman in the Groupe des Six (Group of Six), the youthful group of French composers that worshiped the twin gods Satie and Cocteau.

Tailleferre received her first music lessons from her mother. Against her father's wishes, she began her studies at the Conservatoire in Paris at the age of 12. Her fellow students included Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud and Georges Auric. From 1919, she was friendly with these three composers as well as with Francis Poulenc and Louis Durey in the Groupe des Six, which pursued a new anti-romantic simplicity.

After World War I, she lived in the Parisian artists' district of Montparnasse, where she received important artists, including Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire. In 1925, she traveled to the United States to perform as a solist with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Willem Mengelberg for the premiere of her piano concerto. She also played the piano with Charlie Chaplin, who wanted to take her to Hollywood to compose film music. Instead, she returned to Paris. In 1931 she gave birth to her only child, a daughter called Françoise, with lawyer Jean Lageat. The couple married one year later but would divorce in 1955 after years of separation. She spent the war years 1942-1946 in the US again.

Tailleferre wrote many of her most important works during the 1920s, including her First Piano Concerto, the Harp Concertino, three ballet scores (Le marchand d'oiseaux, La nouvelle Cythère, and Sous les ramparts d'Athènes), as well as several pioneering film scores. The 1930s were even more fruitful, with the Concerto for Two Pianos, Chorus, Saxophones, and Orchestra, the Violin Concerto, the opera cycle Du style galant au style méchant, and what has been called her masterwork, La cantate de Narcisse, in collaboration with Paul Valéry.

After World War II she wrote a lot of music commissioned by the radio and the French government, as well as an impressive number of film and television scores. Germaine Tailleferre continued to compose right up until a few weeks before her death, but many of her last scores were not published anymore. In addition to her work as a composer, she was a teacher, including at the Schola Cantorum de Paris (1970 to 1972).

Tailleferre is sometimes treated rather lightly, like a sort of latter-day Chaminade, but although her works have their share of chic and charm, that is a grave error. The first violin sonata was debuted in 1922 by Thibaud and Cortot. It is in four movements and somewhat classical in style despite its polytonality. Tailleferre's technical skill is immediately evident in the well balanced dialogue between the two instruments that characterizes the opening movement (modere sans lenteur). The second movement is a witty scherzo. The third movement (assez lent) is the most emotionally charged of the four and leads directly to the finale (tres vite) which abounds in rhythmic effects.

The First Violin Sonata is played below by Mariia Perekrestenko (violin) and
Vivian Naegeli (piano).

Women Composers Index

Amy Beach: Piano Quintet in F-sharp Minor Op. 67

Amy Beach (1867 - 1944) was the first American woman composer to make a name for herself in music.

Amy Marcy Cheney was born to a distinguished New England family. She was a child prodigy who started composing when she was four and who gave her first recitals when she was seven. When she was fourteen, Amy received her only official composition training, by studying harmony and counterpoint for a year. Apart from that, she received no other lessons and was self-taught, mainly by studying classical pieces as Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.

In 1883 she made her professional debut in Boston. After her marriage in 1885 to Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach - a Boston surgeon 24 years her senior - she agreed to limit her performances to one public recital a year and devoted herself to composing. 

After her husband died in 1910, she toured Europe as a pianist and played her own compositions at the concerts. She was determined to make a reputation both as a pianist and as a composer. Amy Beach's major compositions include the Mass in E major (1892), the Gaelic Symphony (1893), a violin sonata, a piano concerto, the Variations on Balkan Themes, a piano quintet, various choral works and chamber music compositions, piano music, and an opera, but she was best known for her songs. She composed mainly in a romantic idiom, which is often compared to that of Brahms. Relative to the success she enjoyed in life, Amy Beach's music has been little performed since her death.

Beach wrote her three-movement Quintet for Piano and Strings in F-sharp minor, Op. 67, in 1905. The quintet was frequently performed during Beach's lifetime, both in concert and over the radio. These performances were often given by established string quartets with Beach on the piano. Among all of Beach's chamber works, the quintet is closest to Brahms, from the jagged chromatic melody and contrasting lyrical passages, irregularly phrase lengths and key changes, to its lush texture. The primary theme used in all three movements, in fact, is borrowed from the last movement of the Brahms' piano quintet, albeit adapted and reworked in a variety of ways. The entire work is like an extended lamentation, also in its use of the Phrygian tetrachord cadence frequently associated with mourning. This work added to Beach's reputation as a composer of serious high art music, although it was still deemed slightly beneath the works of similar male composers by some (male) reviewers. Nonsense - just listen for yourself!

Women Composers Index

Cécile Chaminade: Piano Trio No 2 in A Minor Op. 24

Cécile Chaminade (1857 - 1944) was born in Paris and became a famous French composer and pianist.

She was first taught by her mother and when she was eight she played some of her compositions to Georges Bizet, who was impressed by her talent. She studied composition with Benjamin Godard, but not officially, because her father disapproved of her music education (she never had a proper conservatory training). But she was encouraged by Camille Saint-Saëns, Emmanuel Chabrier and Bizet to pursue her career.

She gave her first concert when she was 18 years old, and from then on her compositions gradually became popular. After a tentative debut with the premiere of her first piano trio, opus 11 (1880), in 1888 works for orchestra were premiered: the ballet Callirhoë, opus 37 in Marseille, a Concertstück for piano and orchestra, opus 40, and a dramatic symphony with choir Les Amazons, opus 26 in Antwerp.

In 1892 she made her debut in England, where her work would become very popular. Chaminade married an elderly music publisher from Marseilles in 1901, but after his death a few years later did not remarry. In 1908 she visited the United States, where a warm welcome awaited her from her many admirers. She made her debut there with her Concertstück with the Philadelphia Orchestra on November 7, 1908.

Before and after World War I, Chaminade recorded many piano rolls for the player piano. In London in 1903 she made gramophone recordings of six of her compositions for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company, which are among the most sought after recordings for piano by collectors. The famous French composer Ambroise Thomas said of Chaminade, "This is not a woman who composes but a composer who is a woman." In 1913 she was awarded membership in the Legion of Honor as the first female composer.

Chaminade's oeuvre is extensive. She wrote mostly character pieces for piano, and salon songs. Some notable pieces include a Suite for orchestra (1881), an opéra-comique La Sévillane, op. 10 (1882), 2 piano trios, a concertino for piano and orchestra, ballet music and other orchestral works. The Concertino for flute and orchestra, opus 107 which she wrote on commission from the Paris Conservatory for the 1902 flute competition was her last composition for orchestra. Her compositions for piano include some 200 pieces in the romantic style, including a Sonata in c minor for piano, opus 21 and an the Étude symphonique, opus 28. Chaminade's compositions largely fell into oblivion during the second half of the 20th century. Some of her songs were recorded by Anne Sofie von Otter. Her most popular and frequently played composition is the Concertino for flute and orchestra in D major, op. 107.

Chaminade has been called a typical "lady composer" because she often wrote in the French salon style, known more for its tasteful tunes than any great depth of feeling. But I disagree with that statement where it concerns her best works, such as the present piano trio. Listen for yourself!

Chaminade's Piano Trio No 2 in A Minor is played by the ATOS Trio (Annette von hehn, violin; Stefan Heinemeyer, cello; Thomas Hoppe, piano). The trio is in 3 movements and was first published in 1887.

Women Composers Index

Allegro moderato

Lento



Allegro energico

Teresa Carreño: String Quartet in B Minor

Teresa Carreño (1853 – 1917) was born in Caracas, Venezuela, to a musical family. She was her whole life active as pianist, singer, composer, and conductor – she was one of the foremost touring virtuosos of her time and had a very successful career. 

She began as a child prodigy (she played for Abraham Lincoln at the White House in 1863). Over the course of her 54-year concert career, she became an internationally renowned virtuoso pianist and was often referred to as the "Valkyrie of the Piano". Carreño was an early adopter of the works of one of her students, American composer and pianist Edward MacDowell (1860–1908) and premiered several of his compositions across the globe. She also frequently performed the works of Norwegian composer and pianist Edvard Grieg (1843–1907). Several composers dedicated their compositions to Carreño, including Amy Beach (Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor) and Edward MacDowell (Piano Concerto No. 2). In addition to building an international career as a pianist, this versatile artist was also an opera singer and impresario.

Carreño mainly resided and performed in the United States, although for a number of years she also lived in Germany. While there, in 1890, she became acquainted with Scottish-born German pianist and composer Eugen d'Albert. Their musical friendship turned romantic and by late 1891 they set up house together. They were married in 1892 and soon had two daughters. During their marriage, the couple often appeared on the same concert bill and Carreño began performing works by d'Albert, including his Piano Concerto no. 2, Op. 12. However, D'Albert was a "control freak" in matters related to child rearing, household management, and even Carreño's repertoire choices. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1895.

Carreño composed approximately 75 works for solo piano, voice and piano, choir and orchestra, and instrumental ensemble. The majority of her works were composed before 1875. Many of her compositions were virtuoso vehicles for her piano appearances, but later in her career, when she lived in Berlin in the 1890s, she also composed two serious and important works for strings: Serenade for String Orchestra (ca. 1895) and the String Quartet in B-minor (1896). The latter was performed by the Klinger Quartet in the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1896.

The quartet is rich and emotional, characteristic of the late romantic style. It is played below by Jennifer Leckie and  Rasa Mahmoudian, violins, Seth Pae, viola, and Tom Clowes, cello.

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