Chamber music from female composers: How many can you name?
Women are still underrepresented in concert halls. Though most composers were male up to recent times, there definitely are plenty of female composers – they just aren’t included that often in concert programmes. Often their music is worth the while though.
Over the years, there have been many initiatives to close the gender gap in composition or at least counter male dominance. At first, those initiatives came from feminist organisations, but recently it’s been more musicians that put works from female composers in their programmes.
In this Concertzender Live: two concerts that are exclusively dedicated to female composers. The first concert, from 1987, is from ‘Stichting Amazone’, an organisation founded to put art from women more in the public eye. The second concert is from 2011 and demonstrates how times have changed since 1987, as the concert is organised by ‘De Bezetting Speelt’, a regular ensemble that isn’t dedicated specifically to women artists, but plays all kinds of repertoire – including women composers.
Both programmes feature some well-known composers like Louise Farrenc, Henriette Bosmans and Tera de Marez Oyens (who was alive in 1987 and gives a solo performance in her own work!). The list features a lot of unknown names though: How many do you recognize?
Playlist
1. Peggy Glanville-Hicks – 13 ways of looking at a blackbird
2. Henriette Bosmans – Les marins halés
3. Henriette Bosmans – La chanson fatale
4. Henriette Bosmans – La complainte du petit cheval blanc
5. Henriette Bosmans – On frappe
6. Henriette Bosmans – Aurore
7. Henriette Bosmans – Le chifonnier
8. Jeanine Rueff – Allegro from Sonata for saxophone solo
9. Fania Chapiro – Sonatina for flute and piano
10. Ida Gotkovsky – Déclamé – desinvolte – dolcissimo – final
11. Claire Polin – O, Aderyn pur
12. Claire Polin – Merula migratoria
13. Tera de Marez Oyens – Ballerina on a cliff
14. Louise Farrenc – Andante from Trio in E minor, opus 45
15. Henriette Bosmans – String quartet
16. Rebecca Clarke – Poem
17. Louise Farrenc – Nonet
Performing
1-14: Ellen Looyestijn (soprano), Hetty de Vries (piano), Inge te Velde (saxophone), Helen Metzelaar (flute), Tera de Marez Oyens (piano)
15-17: De Bezetting Speelt
