The Women Composers Challenge Week Three
Welcome to week three of our community-driven challenge on women composers! In week two, we heard some wonderful music by Sofia Gubaidulina, Emilie Mayer, Tatiana Stachak, Angela Mair, and Catharina Josepha Pratten. Let's keep it going into week three!
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.
The challenge will last for four weeks, ending on Saturday, May 3rd. A new discussion thread will be posted 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.
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Linnemann - Quiet Waters and Satie's Umbrellas
I thought I'd start the week off with a couple more nice pieces by Maria Linnemann. Enjoy!
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Eric Phillips Beautiful Eric. Nice, very romantic pieces. Satie is almost alive in the second one. What would the
theme mean here. I’d like to hear the composer’s idea. Both pieces so nicely interpreted as always. Thank you for these performances. -
joosje Thank you, Joosje. Here is a video of Linnemann playing the piece. If you watch it in YT and read the description, she explains the title briefly - I guess both she and Satie collect(ed) umbrellas.
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Eric Phillips Both lovely pieces and beautifully played Eric! I've just started working on a piece by Linnemann as well - hopefully I will get it to a stage where I can record it, although probably not before the end of the challenge!
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Lovely Eric
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I am sorry that I never got the chance to do anything for this member challenge. I just got hung up with my own repertoire and all of the pieces I have to play for the upcoming concert for the NYC Classical Guitar Orchestra.
I thought that this might be interesting. I found this list of pieces by women composers in the booklet for the guitar department at the Manhattan School of Music.
* Emilia Giuliani–Guglielmi Preludes, Op. 46
* Fernande Peyrot–Theme and Variations
* Maria Luisa–Anido Preludos Nostálgicos
* Clarice Assad–Complete Works
* Jana Obrovska–Hommage á Bela Bartók, Due Musici,
* Japanese Pictures
* Ida Presti–Complete Works
* Joan Tower–Clocks, Snow Dreams
* Barbara Kolb–Umbrian Colors, Three Lullabies
* Marilyn Ziffrin–Rhapsody
* Sofia Gubaidulina–Serenade, Toccata
* Katherine Hoover-Canyon Echoes
* Thea Musgrave–Postcard from Morocco, Sonata for Three
* Kaija Saariaho–Adjö
* Caroline Shaw–Anni’s Constant, Come Again (Again)
* Vahda Olcott Bickford–Method for Guitar
* Ursula Mamlok–Five Intermezzi
* Vivian Fine–Canciones y Danzas
* Ester Mägi – Cadenza and Theme, Three Miniatures, Cantus, A due, Processus, Whoops, A tre-
Marc Adler Nice, thank you for this overview, Marc. I do miss Annette Kruisbrink in this listing. Her Homenaje to Andres Segovia is quite a spectacular 4 part piece. I intend to record some of her work, will start with Ahimsa, a piece dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi.
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I must add to this post that it’s still such a struggle for me to record my music and then post the recordings, I deeply admire our friends at this forum who really have the skills to do this and I enjoy so much listening to their recordings…….
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joosje For me, it has just been a matter of doing it a lot, and not fussing over my perceived "imperfections". My knowledge of technology and sound engineering is laughably low. For the unedited videos I post (like the ones above by Maria Linnemann) it really is just a matter of recording in one take (warts and all, just with the camera app on my laptop), uploading to YT (unedited, no reverb), and then posting here in the forum. Truly, it took me about 15 minutes to create and post both of those.
Frankly, I'd rather spend my precious free time practicing and playing music than fussing over making videos. So I have just boiled it down to a quick process that works for me. Anyone here could do the same.
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joosje Ahimsa is a fantastic piece, but quite a bit beyond my range at the moment. I didn't know much about her until this, but she is quickly becoming one of my favorites. I have a few things I'm working on, and maybe some of it will be ready for this challenge..
Regarding your recordings, I'm no one important for sure, but your posts have always stood out to me as being very musical with so much taste coming through. That sort of thing comes through regardless of recording quality or what you consider a mistake or anything so I wouldn't stress too much about it. Either way, just wanted to give my 2 cents.
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joosje I also notice the absence of Kruisbrink. To be fair, the booklet from the Manhattan School of Music says that faculty members and students are free to contribute more composers to this list. Meanwhile, I should check out the two Kruisbrink pieces that you mentioned. I also see that there is a sutch guitarist that likes to play music by Kruisbrink on the Siccas Guitars channel on YouTube.
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Ida Presti - Etudes II and III
I love Ida Presti's music, but of her pieces for solo guitar (that I can find) these are the only two that are anywhere near my playing level.
I have played Etude II before, about a year ago, so I am dusting it off here. It is high on my list of favorite pieces. There is a section about three-quarters of the way in (halfway down page 2) that is marked metallique and staccato. I do play it ponticello, but I cannot really get the staccato going.
Etude III is a real left-hand breaker. I also find it hard to get a feel for its musical sense, despite Presti's many markings in the score. While some of the phrasing is obvious enough, there are other sections that are very unclear to me. There are several measures marked as triple forte, which just seems a bit over-the-top to me. In fact, there is a three-measure section (measures 40-42) in which the first measure is marked fff, then the next measure says crescendo (really?), and then the third measure is again fff.
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Eric Phillips Those are tough, but very well done. II is really nice, and I love that recurring melody. I get what you mean by III. I won't touch anything that has those type of constant chords. I've made that mistake before and been laid up by it, lol. Again, really well done.
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Eric Phillips you play these pieces with enough convincing energy.
I find # 2 difficult to understand, as etude. What is the technical goal ? Phrasing maybe, and you are doing that really well, making it sound like music, not like a study. #3 is more clear as a chord study, musically not so easy, but you are able to really keep the 4-finger chords stable and equal in sound.
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Steve Price You are a wise man. I have been practicing III, and it is not easy on the hand. I have been working on trying to play it with the absolute least tension possible.
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joosje Thanks, Joosje. I'm not sure #2 has a particular technical goal, but more musical goals. I have to say that there are many repertoire pieces called studies for which I do not see a clear technical goal (many of Sor's studies come to mind). Either way, I love it musically.
Like you said, the technical goals of #3 are much more obvious, and I am finding it to be quite demanding. I am enjoying the struggle, at least.
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Eric Phillips These both look very challenging, particularly no 2! Well played!
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Ron Thanks, Ron. And these are the easiest etudes in the set of six.
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Eric Phillips Thanks for sharing Eric, I've not heard of these pieces before. They do look challenging though. Nicely done!
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A quick recording of Andantino by Madeleine Cottin (1876-after 1952), a French mandolin and guitar player. It's number 3 from a set called Etudes Recreatives, but I couldn't find any information on any other pieces from the set.
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Steve Price nice playing, Steve. Such sweet, romantic piece. Thank you for sharing.
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Steve Price That's a lovely little piece, Steve! I have never heard of her. Do you have this in a book? I can't find a score online.
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Eric Phillips Thanks, Eric. It's from one of Annette Kruisbrink's collections of music by women. She wrote a method for guitar, and I think the etudes might be from that, so it's on my list of things to track down. It's strange that she isn't better known since she was a part of some serious circles: For publication, Tarrega dedicated the Recuerdos de la Alhambra to her brother Alfred. She was in her twenties when Tarrega came to Paris to perform and met her brother, so I'd be surprised if she wasn't a part of that.
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Steve Price I should have figured out that it was in one those books by Kruisbrink that you have. I had heard of her brother, and once played a piece by him (called Solitude, I think?). I had no idea he had a sibling guitarist who also wrote music.
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Steve Price Lovel piece and beautifully played. Thanks for sharing Steve
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
