Ruth Gipps (1921-99)

[vandermolen]

Great to hear 'Song for Orchestra' on BBC Radio 3 yesterday morning as I was driving up to Noth London. The announcer commented on the puzzling neglect of her music.

[Maestro267]

Great to hear 'Song for Orchestra' on BBC Radio 3 yesterday morning as I was driving up to Noth London. The announcer commented on the puzzling neglect of her music.

So many comments about neglect of composers' music...but very little actual solutions. I mean, the Chandos disc last year was an enormous help to boost Gipps' profie, but it hasn't led to a glut of Gipps concerts replacing your usual oversaturation of Beethoven and/or Mahler symphonies.

[vandermolen]

So many comments about neglect of composers' music...but very little actual solutions. I mean, the Chandos disc last year was an enormous help to boost Gipps' profie, but it hasn't led to a glut of Gipps concerts replacing your usual oversaturation of Beethoven and/or Mahler symphonies.

That's quite right but, as you say, her profile has been raised by the recording and it was that performance which was played on the radio yesterday.

[Dimitri]

Here's one concert performance, at least:

https://youtu.be/_FSm_DUbb_0

[Christo]

Here's one concert performance, at least:

https://www.youtube.com/v/_FSm_DUbb_0&feature=youtu.be

Great to hear it in this third performance - nothing less than the US premiere, by the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra under Adam Stern, on March 31, 2018. Find the piece emotionally very moving. 

[Dimitri]

(And note that this performance predated the Chandos CD release...!)

[Maestro267]

A quick heads-up that this afternoon (Wednesday 4th), there will be a live performance of Ruth Gipps' Symphony No. 3, on BBC Radio 3. The concert is scheduled for 2:00pm-3:30pm, and also includes Tippett's Praeludium and Arnold's 1st Clarinet Concerto. BBC Philharmonic conducted by Rumon Gamba.

Full concert/broadcast details: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bxgl

I presume it'll be on iPlayer afterwards if you're unable to catch the live broadcast.

[vandermolen]

A quick heads-up that this afternoon (Wednesday 4th), there will be a live performance of Ruth Gipps' Symphony No. 3, on BBC Radio 3. The concert is scheduled for 2:00pm-3:30pm, and also includes Tippett's Praeludium and Arnold's 1st Clarinet Concerto. BBC Philharmonic conducted by Rumon Gamba.

Full concert/broadcast details: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bxgl

I presume it'll be on iPlayer afterwards if you're unable to catch the live broadcast.

Thanks for this. I hope there's a CD release one day.

[Roasted Swan]

A quick heads-up that this afternoon (Wednesday 4th), there will be a live performance of Ruth Gipps' Symphony No. 3, on BBC Radio 3. The concert is scheduled for 2:00pm-3:30pm, and also includes Tippett's Praeludium and Arnold's 1st Clarinet Concerto. BBC Philharmonic conducted by Rumon Gamba.

Full concert/broadcast details: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bxgl

I presume it'll be on iPlayer afterwards if you're unable to catch the live broadcast.

thankyou!  I'll be listening in the middle of sorting out business accounts.......

[Christo]

thankyou!  I'll be listening in the middle of sorting out business accounts.......

Hope you'll concentrate on the music! 

[Maestro267]

This is wonderful music! Some big climaxes in the first movement, and some wonderful high-pitched bells (probably crotales) in the third movement.

Oh, and the orchestra replied "Watch this space..." when asked on Twitter about a possible recording. So watch this space I guess.

[Roasted Swan]

This is wonderful music! Some big climaxes in the first movement, and some wonderful high-pitched bells (probably crotales) in the third movement.

+1 - instantly impressive and confident music.  Gipps orchestrates with real flair and invention.  Anybody reading this who enjoys British 20th Century music must make a point of catching up with this piece while it is still available on BBC iplayer.  Impressive performance too - played with panache and commitment.  Three cheers all round!

Copied from the Land of Lost Content Blog - which in turn copies this article by Gipps on her 3rd Symphony from an article in "Musical Events" from 1966:

Early last year a sardonic friend of mine, to whom I had sent a sort of progress report, 'phoned me with the question "Do I gather from your reference to a development section that yours is a symphonic symphony?"
Well, yes, that was the intention.
The medium used is a large but perfectly normal symphony orchestra consisting of human beings who make music because they want to. The vital importance of the musicians' wish to play a piece of music cannot be overstressed; they cannot give full expression to a work with which they are not in sympathy. It is a fundamental of orchestral craftsmanship that all individual parts should be musically interesting and also grateful for the particular instruments to play.
Beyond that, a general idea of dimensions of the work, one's intentions with regard to a piece of absolute music are unlikely to be specific. If it is real music the composer is a setter-down of ideas and their inevitable development; not a "creator".
My 3rd Symphony is in four movements, and runs about 35 minutes. It has tonality rather than key. In the first movement, for instance, there is a constant pull between a mode on C sharp and a more angular scale based on D. This argument provides much of the texture of a normal sonata form movement whose actual subjects are melodic.
The second movement is a Theme and Variations, and the third a scherzo in 7/8 with an ostinato on harp and glockenspiel. This leads without a break into the finale; and here for once I can remember the thought processes (if they can be so called) which resulted in a particular structure. At the time I was so over-worked professionally that the symphony had to be written in trains, in bed, and in odd moments when some student was blessedly late or absent.  The introduction to the finale is a rather vague affair in 3/4 with odd bars of 5/4; this changes to a cheerful 4/4 Allegro. As I worked ahead on this during a gap between pupils, a new theme appeared on the violins accompanied by clucking woodwind. At this point the missing student arrived; I concealed my manuscript and unwillingly returned to duty...
The next day, in a train, I regarded the violin theme and realised that it wanted an answer a fourth lower. Could I have written a fugue subject by accident? – I had had no thought of writing a fugue. Scrutiny revealed that the subject fitted in stretto at the 5th, or, if the second voice were inverted, at the 7th.  This would have been quite clever of me, if I had done it on purpose!
The following night in bed I had another thought. Yes, the fugue subject in 4/4 fitted without the alteration of a single note against the introduction [of the finale] tune in 3/4 and 5/4. In fact the whole form of the movement was implicit in these two ideas, which were inevitably related although I had no comprehension of it when writing them down.
The finale, then, is a big fugue. The structure should be pretty clear even at a first hearing; but of course what really matters is that orchestra and the audience should respond to the music emotionally.'
Ruth Gipps: Musical Events March 1966.

[kyjo]

This is wonderful music! Some big climaxes in the first movement, and some wonderful high-pitched bells (probably crotales) in the third movement.

Oh, and the orchestra replied "Watch this space..." when asked on Twitter about a possible recording. So watch this space I guess.

Excellent! I do hope it gets recorded (along with the rest of Gipps' unrecorded works). Her Horn Concerto, contained on the below Lyrita disc, was a great recent discovery of mine - a bright, breezy, and lyrical work:

[asin] B000N8UVSK[/asin]

[Maestro267]

Excellent! I do hope it gets recorded

I suspect it has been. These days they can just take the concert audio and use that. It's not like they have to book studio time and whatnot anymore.

[Oates]

Well, it's not all quiet on the CD front. There is this gem:

https://www.somm-recordings.com/recording/piano-concertos-by-dora-bright-and-ruth-gipps/

[vandermolen]

Well, it's not all quiet on the CD front. There is this gem:

https://www.somm-recordings.com/recording/piano-concertos-by-dora-bright-and-ruth-gipps/

+1

[Roasted Swan]

Well, it's not all quiet on the CD front. There is this gem:

https://www.somm-recordings.com/recording/piano-concertos-by-dora-bright-and-ruth-gipps/

The Gipps is the stand-out work on this disc - the Bright is interesting and well crafted but not amazing.  Also, although the Gipps is NOT a premiere recording this version is infinitely better than the earlier performance on Cameo Classics which suffers from a sub-fusc orchestra and so so recording - although the actual solo piano playing is good.

[vandermolen]

The Gipps is the stand-out work on this disc - the Bright is interesting and well crafted but not amazing.  Also, although the Gipps is NOT a premiere recording this version is infinitely better than the earlier performance on Cameo Classics which suffers from a sub-fusc orchestra and so so recording - although the actual solo piano playing is good.

+1 I have that earlier Cameo Classics disc too.

[Papy Oli]

https://www.youtube.com/v/n6-S_CNRAtQ

[Christo]

Sounds like exemplary Gipps, perfect. #amgoingtoorderit