The Women Composers Challenge Week One
Welcome to our latest community-driven challenge! In this challenge, you are invited to work on music by women composers. Whether it be a historical composer like Catharina Josepha Pratten, or a contemporary composer like our very own Ashley Lucero, let's take a dive into this music which certainly deserves more attention in the guitar community.
So, the goal is to choose a piece (or several pieces), and to work on it throughout the course of the challenge, posting videos or audio files of your progress along the way.
Or maybe you are a woman composer, and you would like to take this opportunity to share some of your work with the community.
We have never discussed how long these community-driven challenges should last, but it seems to me that our usual four weeks is fitting. That would mean the challenge will end on Saturday, May 3rd. I will post a new discussion for each week of the challenge.
If you are looking for a place to start your search and pique your interest, Candice Mowbray has an excellent website on the subject. Here is a link.
If any beginners would like some suggestions for your playing level, feel free to ask the community by posting a message here. If you prefer to ask me personally, just use the TB messaging system.
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Song for Maria - take 2
I managed to work on it some more. More or less decided on the fingerings, (to be fair, there wasn't much to do as Laura Snowden indicated hers in the score and they are excellent already).
Need to work on tempo and tone of my a finger.
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don Aha, very nice! I don't like my sister enough to do something that nice. (Just kidding, my sister is great.
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don What a lovely piece! Thank you so much for sharing it, Don. Beautiful!
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Etude XIII from Annette Kruisbrink. Ornaments have always been hard for me so getting all these mordents clean while letting strings ring is a work in progress, but happy so far.
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Steve Price That is a really interesting piece, Steve. Beautifully played. I am just beginning to explore Kruisbrinks music. Thanks for sharing this.
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Steve Price Very cool little study! It has a calm intensity to it.
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Steve Price You're doing a great job with this, Steve. I tried reading through it myself, only to discover that it's a lot harder than it looks on the page! (Definitely a workout for the left hand.) Thanks for introducing us to these interesting studies!
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David Krupka Thanks a lot David. They are all very short, but they can be challenging. You can tell she's a guitarist since she tailors each to a particular skill and definitely makes you work for that minute or so.
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A first take of De Tardecita (1928) by the Argentine guitarist and composer, Elba Rodríguez Arenas (ca 1900-1941).
Annette Kruisbrink has a number of books and albums out featuring women's compositions, and I found this in her material on 19/20th-century salon music. I thought it was an interesting piece since it switches between different parts labelled "Guitarra" and "Canto" and adds a waltz interlude.
It conveniently went into the public domain last year, so the score is available.
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Steve Price What a great discovery, Steve! I've never heard of her. Thanks for the score. Can I ask where you found it, and were there any other scores by her? I love discovering lesser-known music like this.
I especially liked the contrasting sections of this piece. It's pretty rare to see music with such small sections at very different tempos, but I think it's quite effective.
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Eric Phillips Thanks, Eric. This was one of the pieces in Kruisbrink's book on salon music. There's one piece by Pratten in it, but I didn't know any of the other composers. Really some nice finds. I found the PDF when I was curious if Annette had made any changes. This is supposedly Rodríguez Arenas's only surviving work.
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/salon-music-for-guitar-by-women-composers-22439415.html
I also got her book of transcriptions, and there are some gems in there. Currently working on one by a composer who was also a singer who premiered two of Handel's Oratorios. Both books are in paper or digital formats and have a mix of short and more extended pieces.
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/women-composers-guitar-transcriptions-22645736.html
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Steve Price Thanks, Steve. Those do look like great books.
I'm glad we at least have that one piece from Elba Rodríguez Arenas. I think it's a real privilege to be able play the music of these almost forgotten people.
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Steve Price This is an interesting piece that you perform beautifully, Steve. I really like the contrasting sections. The recurring A section is very effective as a contrast to the B section and coming out of the B section wit the second half of the A section is a great transition. Thanks for this.
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Steve Price Very nice performance of this interesting piece, Steve! The canto sections, with their use of the octave, remind me of the slow section of 'Asturias' by Albeniz. I don't know if you noticed the inscription at the head of the score, but I find it interesting. It seems to read: "a recollection of my daughter Elba for the distinguished friend and colleague Ricardo Munoz - M. Rodriguez Arenas, February 18/44'. (I might be misreading the year.) I don't understand Spanish well enough to know whether it is the daughter or the colleague that is being recalled. Nor is it clear to me whose colleague (i.e. the father's or the daughter's) Ricardo Munoz was. All three were guitarists of some note.
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Jack Stewart Thanks a lot, Jack. This is perfect for me since it has a lot of interesting elements in a short period of time. I have a notoriously short attention span and I can't record a piece longer than two minutes because I start thinking about what's for dinner or when I should plant grass seed and totally screw it up, lol.
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David Krupka I was looking at that and wondering what was going on and what led to him gifting his daughter's score to someone. You might have seen it, but her father published a complete guitar method, and I was looking through some of it on IMSLP. I love going through this sort of stuff.
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Steve Price I did come across Mario's publication, which at seven volumes, is thorough if nothing else! (It's great to have resources like IMSLP available to us.) About the inscription, it would be nice to know more about the three protagonists. Does the Kruisbrink anthology indicate what Elba's date of birth and death are?
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David Krupka I see now that Elba died in 1941, three years before her father wrote that inscription. A sad conclusion to this little mystery!
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Pratten - Elfins Revels Apr 9
Here is my second recording of this piece, this time without me giving Pratten's directions for the different sections. The short tremolo part, as well as some of my arpeggios, still need work.
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Eric Phillips That's some serious frolicking that the gnomes are doing with such sombre beats. But i can visualize the playful fairies coming in to dance. Beautifully done!
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don Thanks, Don!
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Eric Phillips I agree with Don - the gnomes are sounding much friskier now! And the fairies are dancing up a storm. About the tremolo, it's interesting that Pratten uses the same triplet figure that one finds in Sor and other early 19th guitarists. (Perhaps she preferred this to the more familiar four note pattern that was, I think, already in use in her day?) Have you had any further thought about the narration? I rather liked it - but I can see it would be difficult (if not impossible) to recite it effectively while playing. (Maybe you need to enlist an assistant!)
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David Krupka Thanks, David. I know that Sor did not use the ring finger much, so maybe Pratten had the same approach. I do find it easier than pami.
As for adding the narration, I don't envision myself doing it while playing. I can't even chew gum while I play. My wife and kids would just roll their eyes for about 20 minutes if I asked them to do something this nerdy. Maybe I could add it as text on the screen to a final video I make. I do think it would be fun to work up an animated short film for this, but I have no knowledge or ability in that area.
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Eric Phillips Yes, I can see that recruiting a narrator could be a bit of a problem. (Just imagine rehearsals!) But overlay of the text onto the video might be an effective substitute to actual narration. As for producing something animated, well, that's a great idea, but I suspect it would involve some highly specialized skills. But I can definitely imagine something in the classic Disney style. (Look out, Stokowski - there's a new kid in town!)
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Eric Phillips I've never heard this piece before, and then coincidentally, it popped up on the Reddit classical guitar sub today. Mary Jedynak just played it as part of her senior recital from Eastman. She has some background on the composer and the piece in the video description. Might all be stuff you're aware of, but it's pretty interesting.
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Steve Price Thanks, Steve. I enjoyed that very much and wrote her a comment.
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
