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It's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
This week's piece is a truly forgotten violin concerto: it was lost for decades before being rediscovered in 2007. Guirne Creith (1907-1996) was both highly eccentric and notoriously careless about her music. Even though a number of her major works were performed by leading musicians and orchestras, some getting multiple performances and glowing reviews, and even though she lived entirely in the recorded music era, virtually all her music has been lost to posterity.
Although Guirne Creith was the name under which she composed virtually all of her music, it was not the only name she used. She had no fewer than five legal names during her life, only two of them because of marriage, and the only music she had published in her lifetime was published under a sixth name. She was born Gladys Mary Cohen in 1907, and despite having totally non-musical parents, was recognized as having a talent for musical composition by the time she was 8 years old. She enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music at 16, under the fanciful pseudonym Guirne M. Creith, which she made her legal name shortly afterward. During her student years she won a number of prizes for composition, and her symphonic poem Rapunzel was performed by several major orchestras. In the 1930s, she was widely acclaimed as a concert pianist and had a number of orchestral works performed by leading British orchestras.
In 1952, she suffered a severe and permanent accidental hand injury, ceased playing piano and composing, underwent a major transformation. She changed her name to Guirne Van Zuylen (and claimed to be a baroness while using that name, according to lodgers who lived at her home in the 1950s), retrained as a singer, and continued her musical career for another decade as a singer and voice teacher. There were still some signs of activity as a composer. In 1956, three of her art songs, all composed between 1929 and 1938, were published under the pseudonym "Guirne Javal." At one point she was persuaded to return to composing to score her final work, a ballet completed in 1958. For some reason she kept her composing hidden from her two sons, both teenagers at that time; while both knew of her piano and vocal music careers, neither was aware until 2007 that their mother was also a composer. Guirne Van Zuylen's musical activity ceased completely and abruptly in 1964 when she moved to France and reinvented herself yet again, this time in her final career as a food writer and wine critic.
During her career as a composer, Guirne Creith handled her completed compositions in a rather idiosyncratic way, which limited the reach of her music. She insisted that scores and parts be returned to her after each performance, and never made any effort to have her music published. Although she was persistent in seeking performances of her music in the UK, she declined all offers of foreign performances except for a single performance of her early symphonic poem Rapunzel in the United States. None of her music was recorded during her lifetime. Unfortunately, she was also rather disorganized and had a tendency to physically misplace her own scores even while she was actively composing. At her death in 1996, everything she composed was missing, with the exception of the three songs published in 1956 and two additional songs published earlier.
Creith's concerto was composed in 1935 and first performed in 1936. Its obscurity seems even more perplexing considering that it was performed by a leading soloist of the era with a major orchestra, namely Albert Sammons with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. (Sammons apparently held Creith in high regard and had previously given all three of the documented performances of Creith's violin sonata.) After its premiere, the concerto was never performed again until its rediscovery, the score and parts disappearing before a second performance could be arranged. The concerto was rediscovered in 2007 in a piano shop that was going out of business, in a box marked "all contents 2 pounds." The purchaser, surprised to discover a handwritten manuscript score for a violin concerto by a completely unknown composer, was intrigued enough to search for information on Guirne Creith and identified her son Robin Hunter-Coddington through a 1940 birth announcement in the Times. Hunter-Coddington verified that the handwriting was his mother's, but could himself hardly believe what he was looking at, being completely unaware that she had been a composer. Aided by his late mother's personal papers, he did further research in the records of the Royal Academy of Music and the BBC, and found ample documentation of her career, prizes she had won, and performances of her music. The first modern performance was a 2009 recording by Lorraine McAslan, a violinist noted for her interest in obscure British composers, with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The first modern public performance followed several months later, with Tamsin Waley-Cohen, a relative of Creith, playing the solo violin part.
This is very much a late Romantic violin concerto. In contrast to Creith's contemporaries of the English pastoral school, her concerto tends toward dense, chromatic harmonies, shimmering textures, and long, flowing lines, somewhat reminiscent of Richard Strauss or late Elgar but very much in its own style. A tempestuous first movement runs without interruption into a haunting, questioning slow movement, and finally into a colorful rondo with hints of Scottish fiddle in its rhythms and modal language.
Movements:
I. Maestoso - quasi recitativo - Allegro non troppo - Tranquillo - Adagio
II. Adagio con intimo sentimento (11:31)
III. Allegro vivace (16:35)
This week's piece is a truly forgotten violin concerto: it was lost for decades before being rediscovered in 2007. Guirne Creith (1907-1996) was both highly eccentric and notoriously careless about her music. Even though a number of her major works were performed by leading musicians and orchestras, some getting multiple performances and glowing reviews, and even though she lived entirely in the recorded music era, virtually all her music has been lost to posterity.
Although Guirne Creith was the name under which she composed virtually all of her music, it was not the only name she used. She had no fewer than five legal names during her life, only two of them because of marriage, and the only music she had published in her lifetime was published under a sixth name. She was born Gladys Mary Cohen in 1907, and despite having totally non-musical parents, was recognized as having a talent for musical composition by the time she was 8 years old. She enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music at 16, under the fanciful pseudonym Guirne M. Creith, which she made her legal name shortly afterward. During her student years she won a number of prizes for composition, and her symphonic poem Rapunzel was performed by several major orchestras. In the 1930s, she was widely acclaimed as a concert pianist and had a number of orchestral works performed by leading British orchestras.
In 1952, she suffered a severe and permanent accidental hand injury, ceased playing piano and composing, underwent a major transformation. She changed her name to Guirne Van Zuylen (and claimed to be a baroness while using that name, according to lodgers who lived at her home in the 1950s), retrained as a singer, and continued her musical career for another decade as a singer and voice teacher. There were still some signs of activity as a composer. In 1956, three of her art songs, all composed between 1929 and 1938, were published under the pseudonym "Guirne Javal." At one point she was persuaded to return to composing to score her final work, a ballet completed in 1958. For some reason she kept her composing hidden from her two sons, both teenagers at that time; while both knew of her piano and vocal music careers, neither was aware until 2007 that their mother was also a composer. Guirne Van Zuylen's musical activity ceased completely and abruptly in 1964 when she moved to France and reinvented herself yet again, this time in her final career as a food writer and wine critic.
During her career as a composer, Guirne Creith handled her completed compositions in a rather idiosyncratic way, which limited the reach of her music. She insisted that scores and parts be returned to her after each performance, and never made any effort to have her music published. Although she was persistent in seeking performances of her music in the UK, she declined all offers of foreign performances except for a single performance of her early symphonic poem Rapunzel in the United States. None of her music was recorded during her lifetime. Unfortunately, she was also rather disorganized and had a tendency to physically misplace her own scores even while she was actively composing. At her death in 1996, everything she composed was missing, with the exception of the three songs published in 1956 and two additional songs published earlier.
Creith's concerto was composed in 1935 and first performed in 1936. Its obscurity seems even more perplexing considering that it was performed by a leading soloist of the era with a major orchestra, namely Albert Sammons with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. (Sammons apparently held Creith in high regard and had previously given all three of the documented performances of Creith's violin sonata.) After its premiere, the concerto was never performed again until its rediscovery, the score and parts disappearing before a second performance could be arranged. The concerto was rediscovered in 2007 in a piano shop that was going out of business, in a box marked "all contents 2 pounds." The purchaser, surprised to discover a handwritten manuscript score for a violin concerto by a completely unknown composer, was intrigued enough to search for information on Guirne Creith and identified her son Robin Hunter-Coddington through a 1940 birth announcement in the Times. Hunter-Coddington verified that the handwriting was his mother's, but could himself hardly believe what he was looking at, being completely unaware that she had been a composer. Aided by his late mother's personal papers, he did further research in the records of the Royal Academy of Music and the BBC, and found ample documentation of her career, prizes she had won, and performances of her music. The first modern performance was a 2009 recording by Lorraine McAslan, a violinist noted for her interest in obscure British composers, with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The first modern public performance followed several months later, with Tamsin Waley-Cohen, a relative of Creith, playing the solo violin part.
This is very much a late Romantic violin concerto. In contrast to Creith's contemporaries of the English pastoral school, her concerto tends toward dense, chromatic harmonies, shimmering textures, and long, flowing lines, somewhat reminiscent of Richard Strauss or late Elgar but very much in its own style. A tempestuous first movement runs without interruption into a haunting, questioning slow movement, and finally into a colorful rondo with hints of Scottish fiddle in its rhythms and modal language.
Movements:
I. Maestoso - quasi recitativo - Allegro non troppo - Tranquillo - Adagio
II. Adagio con intimo sentimento (11:31)
III. Allegro vivace (16:35)