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It's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
In March 1945, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra made the extraordinary move of putting its second oboist in the spotlight for an entire concert. In the first half of the concert Ruth Gipps stepped out of the orchestra to play a concerto -- not an oboe or English horn concerto, but Glazunov's 1st piano concerto. After the intermission, Gipps took her usual seat in the orchestra, playing the English horn... in the premiere of her own First Symphony. (In doing so, she became one of the very few composers who have played in the orchestra for the premiere of their own composition.) The public reaction to her impressive triple-bill as piano soloist, orchestral oboist, and symphony composer was disastrous and ended her career as a professional oboist. The concert led to conductor George Weldon being accused of favoritism. Ugly rumors swirled around the orchestra that Gipps (whose husband was away at war) and Weldon were having an affair and that there was an impending divorce. At the end of the season Gipps resigned from the orchestra because of growing hostility toward her from other musicians.
There was never evidence of such an affair. The truth was that Ruth Gipps was simply a highly versatile musician. She first became known as a piano prodigy, winning piano competitions against much older children when she was four years old, making her debut as a concerto soloist when she was ten, and winning a concerto competition in London against professional pianists when she was thirteen. Though she studied oboe performance at the Royal College of Music, she continued to perform occasionally as a concert pianist during her student years, and when she won her position at the CBSO she also became the standby pianist any time a piano concerto was programmed, actually stepping in for a soloist who was caught in traffic on one occasion. Her first symphony, which premiered in that disastrous concert, had been named the best student composition at the RCM several years earlier.
Although she was no longer playing in the orchestra, Gipps did not go away. She resumed her career as a piano soloist and continued to compose. A year later, she returned with her second symphony. This time, though Weldon conducted the first performance as before, the symphony spoke for itself and there were no accusations of favoritism.
Gipps was a fairly successful composer for about two decades from that point forward, but eventually fell out of favor because she continued to compose in a tonal idiom. Her impact on British music was mainly as a conductor. In 1954, she was forced to stop playing both the piano and the oboe after badly injuring her hand in a bicycle accident, and began to focus on conducting and composition. Though she was by then an experienced conductor of amateur orchestras, several professional orchestras refused to consider her for conducting positions expressly because of her gender, telling her directly that male musicians would not be be willing to work for a female conductor. As a result, she founded two orchestras herself, both professional training ensembles for recent conservatory graduates. With these orchestras, Gipps gained a reputation for promoting new music, including at least one living composer in every concert she conducted. She also handed numerous leading British musicians their solo debuts, most notably violinist (later conductor) Iona Brown and cellists Julian Lloyd Webber and Alexander Baillie.
Gipp's 2nd symphony, composed in 1945 and premiered in 1946, was entered into a competition for a Victory Symphony that was sponsored by the Daily Express newspaper. Though she composed the symphony in a single continuous movement in an extended sonata form, Gipps conceived it in three sections: one representing her life before the war, one representing the war, and one representing the safe return of her husband from military service. Despite being a "Victory Symphony," it takes an introspective and melancholic cast rather than a bombastic one, though not lacking in colorful and sometimes cinematic writing! Somehow seeming both epic and compact at once, the entire symphony is dense with symbolism. The plaintive second theme, for example, is introduced by Gipps's own instrument, the English horn. An attentive listener might also notice some of the melodies from the exposition returning in reverse at the end, as if to represent life never being quite the same after the war.
In March 1945, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra made the extraordinary move of putting its second oboist in the spotlight for an entire concert. In the first half of the concert Ruth Gipps stepped out of the orchestra to play a concerto -- not an oboe or English horn concerto, but Glazunov's 1st piano concerto. After the intermission, Gipps took her usual seat in the orchestra, playing the English horn... in the premiere of her own First Symphony. (In doing so, she became one of the very few composers who have played in the orchestra for the premiere of their own composition.) The public reaction to her impressive triple-bill as piano soloist, orchestral oboist, and symphony composer was disastrous and ended her career as a professional oboist. The concert led to conductor George Weldon being accused of favoritism. Ugly rumors swirled around the orchestra that Gipps (whose husband was away at war) and Weldon were having an affair and that there was an impending divorce. At the end of the season Gipps resigned from the orchestra because of growing hostility toward her from other musicians.
There was never evidence of such an affair. The truth was that Ruth Gipps was simply a highly versatile musician. She first became known as a piano prodigy, winning piano competitions against much older children when she was four years old, making her debut as a concerto soloist when she was ten, and winning a concerto competition in London against professional pianists when she was thirteen. Though she studied oboe performance at the Royal College of Music, she continued to perform occasionally as a concert pianist during her student years, and when she won her position at the CBSO she also became the standby pianist any time a piano concerto was programmed, actually stepping in for a soloist who was caught in traffic on one occasion. Her first symphony, which premiered in that disastrous concert, had been named the best student composition at the RCM several years earlier.
Although she was no longer playing in the orchestra, Gipps did not go away. She resumed her career as a piano soloist and continued to compose. A year later, she returned with her second symphony. This time, though Weldon conducted the first performance as before, the symphony spoke for itself and there were no accusations of favoritism.
Gipps was a fairly successful composer for about two decades from that point forward, but eventually fell out of favor because she continued to compose in a tonal idiom. Her impact on British music was mainly as a conductor. In 1954, she was forced to stop playing both the piano and the oboe after badly injuring her hand in a bicycle accident, and began to focus on conducting and composition. Though she was by then an experienced conductor of amateur orchestras, several professional orchestras refused to consider her for conducting positions expressly because of her gender, telling her directly that male musicians would not be be willing to work for a female conductor. As a result, she founded two orchestras herself, both professional training ensembles for recent conservatory graduates. With these orchestras, Gipps gained a reputation for promoting new music, including at least one living composer in every concert she conducted. She also handed numerous leading British musicians their solo debuts, most notably violinist (later conductor) Iona Brown and cellists Julian Lloyd Webber and Alexander Baillie.
Gipp's 2nd symphony, composed in 1945 and premiered in 1946, was entered into a competition for a Victory Symphony that was sponsored by the Daily Express newspaper. Though she composed the symphony in a single continuous movement in an extended sonata form, Gipps conceived it in three sections: one representing her life before the war, one representing the war, and one representing the safe return of her husband from military service. Despite being a "Victory Symphony," it takes an introspective and melancholic cast rather than a bombastic one, though not lacking in colorful and sometimes cinematic writing! Somehow seeming both epic and compact at once, the entire symphony is dense with symbolism. The plaintive second theme, for example, is introduced by Gipps's own instrument, the English horn. An attentive listener might also notice some of the melodies from the exposition returning in reverse at the end, as if to represent life never being quite the same after the war.