Kurt Nemes' Classical Music Almanac
(A love affair with music)
Since July, I have been concentrating solely on female composers. You can read about that in my post from July 19. If I can’t find one born on the calendar day, I won’t post. On with today’s composer.
Ruby Keeler isn’t a composer, nor a songwriter, so I guess I’m getting a bit far away from my goal of writing first about classical music pieces and then female composers. But she was born today and I like this song.
42nd Street
Since July, I have been concentrating solely on female composers. You can read about that in my post from July 19. If I can’t find one born on the calendar day, I won’t post. On with today’s composer.
Malvina Reynolds (1900 – 1978) is probably best known for her song, “Little Boxes,” which she wrote as she and her husband were driving by a new housing development in California. The song was recorded by Pete Seegar, and I remember listening to it as a boy on the radio when it came out in 1963. It’s always made me feel a bit sad, being about middle America conformity and the shoddy construction of the buildings, “made out of ticky tacky.” Though everyone hates the suburbs, perhaps they made housing affordable for the first time for massive amounts of people.
“Little Boxes” performed by Peet Seegar
Since July, I have been concentrating solely on female composers. You can read about that in my post from July 19. If I can’t find one born on the calendar day, I won’t post. On with today’s composer.
Duchess Elisabeth Sophie of Mecklenburg (1613 – 1676) was a German composer an poet. She is probably the first female composer whose work was published. She wrote mostly hymns and collaborated with the composer Heinrich Schütz.
Once again, I can’t find any recordings of her works. Do any of you, dear readers, have any leads?
Since July, I have been concentrating solely on female composers. You can read about that in my post from July 19. If I can’t find one born on the calendar day, I won’t post. On with today’s composer.
Marion Eugénie Bauer (1882 – 1955) has the distinction of being the first American composer to study with Nadia Boulanger. She was born to French-Jewish immigrants, who were also musical. The story is that as a baby, she was placed atop the piano in a basket while her older sister Emilie practiced and gave music lessons.
She travelled to Paris and Berlin for a number of extended periods to study music. As she was fluent in both French and English she gave language lessons to her teachers and their children.
Back in the State, she was offered a position teaching at New York University. There she championed other 20th century composers by having her student perform her work or by writing about them. Her music is more impressionistic than atonal. That may be due to pressure from her publisher to tone it down or because one of her compositions was removed from first place in a competition for being too modernistic. Bauer founded the American Music Guild, the American Music Center, and the American Composer’s Alliance, and served on their (and other music organization) boards, often as the only female. She composed over 160 pieces in her life, and counted among her pupils the composers,Ruth Crawford Seeger and Milton Babbitt.
Four Piano Pieces
I have been concentrating lately on female composers, who are under-represented online, which reflects how there is a bias against women in general against female composers and conductors. You can read about that in my post from July 19. If I can’t find one born on the calendar day, I won’t post. On with today’s composer.
Carrie Minetta Jacobs-Bond (1862 – 1946) composed an incredibly popular song, which you’ve probably heard, named “I Love You Truly,” often played at weddings. In her lifetime, she wrote more than 170 more, and by 1910, she had become a millionaire from the royalties.
Sadly, her son committed suicide to one of her songs, “A Perfect Day.” (No, not Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.”)
A Perfect Day
Kurt Nemes' Classical Music Almanac 