Small, dignified assertions – often backed by blazing indignation. Discreet steps and consolidations, keeping one’s powder dry and one’s skills honed. A land claimed by determination and inches. During the period covering the Victorian era up until the First World War, the fight for women to get their concert music taken seriously was one of stamina rather than spectacle; of battles fought mostly against fathers and propriety and a condescending musical establishment, and mostly behind closed doors. The struggle for space for women to compose in and to be considered ran alongside – and in some cases intermeshed with – struggles for other suffrages.
Today, with the work of women like Judith Weir and Tansy Davies now respected and filling concert halls – Conway Hall looks back at some of their British forebears during leaner and stonier years for female composers, in a concert celebrating those women’s work and Conway Hall’s own part in encouraging it, perhaps retrospectively mining some commonality of purpose from the assorted voices and perspectives (carried in pieces that range from the parlour music which most composing women were restricted to, up to a string quartet by the redoubtable Ethel Smyth, Suffragette and prolific composer of assorted works from solo pieces to full-blown choral works and operas).
“The Sunday Concerts at Conway Hall have been running since 1887, previously under the name of the South Place Sunday Popular Concerts, making it the longest running series of its kind. This concert will celebrate the special platform that South Place offered to women musicians during the first thousand concerts between 1887 and 1927.
“Victorian London was a difficult place for women to carve a successful career as musicians, particularly composers. However, during this forty-year period a wealth of opportunities emerged. South Place made an important contribution to these improvements by programming a still-small, but significant, number of women composers – many more than appeared at similar concerts in the capital. Their works were programmed alongside famous international composers as well as other lesser-known contemporary British composers, thus offering audiences of the day a unique and diverse breadth of repertoire for their Sunday evening entertainment.
“All of the works in this one-off concert were written by British women and were performed in the early years of the chamber music concerts. Most of the music has been rarely performed since, despite being popular in its day and still offering compelling sounds to a modern audience. For further insights into the history of the concerts, the women and their music, Jessica Beck (a Ph.D student at the Royal Northern College of Music, who’s been researching and blogging about the women in the concert, from the records at Conway Hall) will be giving a free pre-concert talk at 5.30pm.”
The performers for the evening are baritone Simon Wallfisch, violinist Eulalie Charland and Emanuela Buta, viola player Judith Busbridge, cellist Gabriella Swallow, and pianist Maiko Mori.
The works being performed are Alice Verne-Bredt‘s ‘Phantasie Trio’, Maude Valérie White‘s ‘To Mary’, Liza Lehmann‘s ‘Myself When Young’ (from ‘In a Persian Garden’), Amy Grimson‘s ‘Canzona’, Josephine Troup‘s ‘Kleines Wiegenlied’, Edith Swepstone‘s ‘Spectral Hunt’ and Ethel Smyth‘s ‘String Quartet in E minor’.
A few preview versions of pieces in the programme, plucked from various times:
Conway Hall Sunday Concerts presents:
‘The Women Musicians of Conway Hall’s Past’
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Bloomsbury, London, WC1R 4RL, London
Sunday 24th June 2018, 6:30 pm – information here and here
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The evening’s cellist, Gabriella Swallow has her own one-woman concert coming up in early mid-July, when she teams up with Alex Groves‘ ‘SOLO’ concert series.
Performing in Handel’s music room at Handel & Hendrix In London (formerly the Handel House Museum) she’ll be playing contemporary works by Kaija Saariaho and Helmut Lachenmann, improvisations on baroque works, and delivering the world première of a new Alex Groves piece.
https://vimeo.com/265148436
SOLO presents:
SOLO 05: Gabriella Swallow
Handel & Hendrix In London, 25 Brook Street, Mayfair, London, W1K 4HB, England
Thursday 12th July 2018, two concerts (6:30pm & 8:30pm) – information here, here and here
Misfit City 